Rock photographer Jay Blakesberg gets first career retrospective

Jay Blakesberg has spent the past 30 years documenting the Bay Area music scene with his vivid, widescreen photographs.

Now he gets his first proper gallery show.

Blakesberg’s career retrospective, “Dark + Light,” opens at the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s Harvey Milk Photo Center on Thursday, Nov. 9.

It showcases more than 120 images tracing his evolution from a teenage Deadhead in New Jersey, hanging out in the parking lot at Meadowlands Stadium with his father’s Pentax camera strapped around his neck, to the guy who shot the memorable photo of the Grateful Dead at their 50th anniversary “Fare Thee Well” concert in Chicago.

“I was just onstage crying,” he says at his San Francisco studio, running down the list of images that will hang at the exhibition co-curated with photo center director Dave Christensen.

Blakesberg clears his throat.

“I still get choked up talking about it.”

He got his first local assignment from Rolling Stone — nearly 30 days ago to the day the exhibit opens — photographing U2’s free show at Justin Herman Plaza on Nov. 11, 1987, where Bono famously spray-painted “Rock and Roll, Stop the Traffic” on the Vaillancourt Fountain.

From there, Blakesberg became the chief photographer for BAM, the free Northern California biweekly music magazine, shooting his distinctive high-contrast, high-impact portraits of artists like Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Santana, Sammy Hagar, Tom Waits, Michael Franti & Spearhead and more.

“When we first started working in Photoshop, I sat down with my retoucher and we spent six months coming up with a formula that would create a look that was very, very unique,” he says. “Now it’s simple software where you can slide a few levers to get that look.”

Blakesberg’s work has evolved over time but his style remains distinctive, leading to a career that has seen his work published on multiple covers and in publications as diverse as Vanity Fair, Guitar Player and Time.

As the house photographer for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park, he delivers more than 500 intimate images chronicling the free three-day music festival every year.

A dozen shots from “Dark + Light” will hang in the Recreation and Park Department’s administrative offices in McLaren Lodge, showcasing his photos taken exclusively in the park, including images of Thurston Moore straddling his guitar at the Tibetan Freedom Concert on the Polo Fields in 1996, and Emmylou Harris sweetly jamming with Hardly Strictly founder Warren Hellman in 2010.

“It’s just about making that connection with the artists,” Blakesberg says, “to get them to trust you, to be able to get their body language.”

In addition to the exhibition, Blakesberg’s work also can be seen in the new coffee-table book, “Eyes of the World: Grateful Dead Photography 1965-1995,” which he co-edited with former Relix Editor in Chief Josh Baron.

The hefty book features 220 photos of the Grateful Dead by 61 photographers, including Jim Marshall, Herb Greene and Annie Leibovitz.

“It’s the definitive collection of Grateful Dead photographs,” Blakesberg says. “We have a picture of Phil Lesh and Owsley Stanley together from 1975 that nobody’s ever seen before. Even the pictures you have seen, they jump right off the page.”

“Dark + Light: Jay Blakesberg’s Rock & Roll Photography, 1978 -2017”: Reception at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9. Exhibition runs through Jan. 6. Harvey Milk Photo Center, 50 Scott St., S.F. Additional photos at McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan St., S.F. http://harveymilkphotocenter.org