How to get started in product photography with John Von Pamer

So why don't we just start with how you first got into photography? When we first met back in 1987, I knew you more as a drummer than a photographer, but maybe that's just my bad memory.

I was sort of the, in my high school, I was the sort of like key person with keys maybe to the dark room.

But I spent some time in the dark room when I was in high school.

And I think I was the person that printed out all the photos for the school newspaper.

And I was kind of interested in printing presses and knowing the back end of production and stuff like that.

And I...

Don't remember always having a camera around with me.

I think a lot of that was like, oh, film is expensive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I mean, I have pictures from back then.

Some at shows, some at skate parks or just friends, that kind of thing.

And then...

When I graduated high school, I wasn't interested in going to college.

And I got a job at Tower Records because that seemed like the ideal situation to me.

And then quickly realized, oh, I should go to college.

And so I went away to school in New York for one semester.

And when that was kind of a silly experience, but I came back to D.C. and my parents, I guess I went to a college counselor kind of person, like a little lost, not sure what I was doing.

And I was interested in photography.

So I took some classes at the Corcoran back then, maybe like two or three different classes over the course of a few semesters, just like auditing them and took some like classes about international relations at American University.

And then my parents were like, hey, you need to go to school, pick a school and go to it.

And I ended up at UMass Amherst.

And this was sort of the time when I was in this band called Tsunami, and we were touring quite a bit.

So I would go for a semester and take a semester off.

So my school experience was a little wackadoodle.

One of the reasons I picked UMass Amherst is you could design your own major.

And so I was interested in art and philosophy and music and graphic design and all of these kind of things.