Peggy McIntaggart Seagren:
So, how long have you been doing this?
Neil Zlozower:
Since about 1969, so I would say 49 years in November 2018.
Peggy McIntaggart Seagren:
So, have you shot most of the bands out there that have become very, very successful?
Neil Zlozower:
Well, I don't really go after bands like Taylor Swift and you know most of the new bands, I don't know. My heyday was 1970 to probably about 2015.
Neil Zlozower:
So, yeah, I've shot some of the biggest bands in the world and some of the smallest in the world. So, yes, but in the year 2018, like I said, shooting photos doesn't really do it for me anymore. So, I don't actively go out and try to shoot things anymore or whatever. I have 19 four drawer file cabinets filled with transparencies here at my studio and for the last 12 or so years, I've been doing digital, so I have quite a few DVDs packed with photo shoots from the last 12 years. So, that's what I do now, now I prefer to license my library of photos out to TV shows, movies, magazines, and films, whatever.
Peggy McIntaggart Seagren:
Have you developed a lot of friendships with a lot the people you've worked with over the years in the industry?
Neil Zlozower:
Yeah, of course, you know people like, Steve Vai or Billy Sheehan, Joe Satriani, you know lots of people, big people, and small people. You know, that's part of knowing someone for 30-40 years, is developing a relationship and they develop trust in you and trust in what you do, I am a little different than most photographers because if you said to me, Neil you can give up listening to music or you can give up shooting photos, that would be an easy one, I would give up shooting photos because I listen to music from the second I wake up in the morning in the bathroom brushing my teeth and taking a shower in the morning at 7:00 AM. I have music on and my speakers in my bathroom. I am listening to music right now, and when I go home, I listen to music too. I'm just a music person, I love music, it means a lot to me, I can relate to a lot of songs that artists have done and that's what I love, Rock'N'Roll music.
Peggy McIntaggart Seagren:
How big is your team when you are working? Do you work with regular people or different people all the time when you are working? Who are some of the people that you work with that are important to you?
Neil Zlozower:
Well, I don't know if you mean my team as in my assistant and my makeup artist? I am pretty much a one-man dynamo/show. I can do everything myself. I don't do makeup. I don't do hair. That's where people like you, Peggy, come in, to do makeup for me on photo shoots. Or if I am doing a very intricate involved photoshoot, I hire one person, Joel Lopez, who's the greatest assistant on this planet, but in general, I don't shoot that much anymore and most of the stuff I do in this day and age is not that intricate. So, I can usually handle everything myself, whether I have to set up a backdrop or whether I have to move lighting, whether I have to put a digital memory card in my camera. None of it is that hard. You know some of these photographers let ego get in the way. They have to have 20 assistants doing everything for them, but I prefer to do everything myself because, first of all, I think I can do it better. Second of all, I can do it faster than most people and third, I know what I want, so instead of trying to relay something to an assistant or whoever. I just do it myself.
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