Local photographer, West Seattle spot team up for photo show

In "Show Me Your TIFFS," photographer Jenny Jimenez riffs on a stereotypical concert catcall, and shows that her rockin' work is anything but.

After falling in love with the Northwest's vibrant music scene, Jimenez has spent 10 years chronicling its most exciting artists. You'll recognize some of the dozens of images at the Skylark Café from her local editorial work, and from commissioned album covers like the Cave Singers' "Invitation Songs." Capturing the three band members embracing in an Arlington field, it's simple, beautiful and iconic.

Jimenez's grainy, black-and-white live shots hang against silver metal sheeting and red walls in the Skylark's side dining area. They range from an elegantly pensive Carlos D. (from Interpol) taken at the Showbox to local band Whalebones raging at a basement New Year's Eve party. From early Ladyfest performances to Sleater-Kinney's final show in Portland in 2006, Jimenez has been where the action is. One particularly affecting shot of the Gossip's Beth Ditto, from 2002, shows her tugging at a homemade Slits T-shirt — it's light-years away from the celebrity's paparazzi shots with Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.

You've got less than two weeks left to see "TIFFS" at West Seattle's Skylark Café. Along with art and a mean tuna melt, the cafe offers live music, DJs and open mics six nights a week. Budding shutterbugs: Bring a camera.

Q&A: Jenny Jimenez

Q. First, what types of film, camera and processes do you use?

A. Most of the b&w images were taken with a Canon A2 35mm camera and either Ilford Delta or Fuji Neopan film. Most of the color portraits were shot with a Mamiya 645 medium format camera and Kodak Portra film.

Q. You wrote in the statement that it's all about catching "the fleeting moments of a performance," things you can't see when listening to the music at home — can you expand on that a little?

A. Well, one thing I find so compelling about photography is that it makes the viewer reflect on a specific 1/60th of a second of time. Unless the viewer was there or they're looking at a series of images, they can only assume what came before and after based on that image. Some live performances moves with such speed that time seems twice as fast as it would outside the venue. To be able to highlight a particular detail of a movement — a breath between lyrics, hair swaying over the neck of a guitar, a twist of the head, can be quite powerful.

Q. Do you ever think about the significance of an image when you're taking it — like 'I'm catching them before they're big' — or are you surprised, as time goes on, how a picture's significance can change?

A. I'm usually too caught up in the moment or the music to think about the future significance of an image. It's the current significance what's happening around me that I need to be conscious of. That said, there are times when a show or evening has a certain energy that blows your expectations. The first time Interpol played Seattle is a good example ... or Ladyfest Oly.

Q. There are so many great NW performances on display. What have been some of your most memorable shows, as a photog and music-lover in general?

A. I think most of them are represented in Show Me Your Tiffs, but there's one that isn't up on the wall. Back in 2003 when I was playing bass for the Catch, we opened the first of three sold out shows for Death Cab and Nada Surf at the Showbox. Autumn de Wilde had just become interested in Death Cab and she flew to Seattle with her boyfriend for the show. I was familiar with the work she'd done on Wishbone (Eleni Mandell), Figure 8 (Elliot Smith) and Sea Change (Beck) and considered her a huge influence. When someone backstage introduced her to me as "Autumn, a photographer from L.A.," I almost fell over. I may have scared her a bit with my familiarity of her work because at the time she had yet to put up a Web site and was really only known in the L.A. scene. I spent the rest of the night trying to backpedal from my stalker impression. I must not have done too much damage because she's allowed me to assist her a handful of times when she's in the NW.

Rachel Shimp: rachel.e.shimp@gmail.com