Discover Ben Geier’s Images with Mark Robinson – Trope Publishing Co

I’m an beginner. I get by on enthusiasm. From the earliest of ages, I bear in mind singing and dancing, enjoying air guitar, and pretending to be a pop star. The radio was all the time on, and the Top 40 was my soundtrack. In fifth grade I obtained my first tape recorder. I began forming semi-fictional music teams; writing lyrics, titles, and, in some instances, designing album covers. When I had saved up sufficient cash, I purchased a guitar on the mall for $99.   

I grew up immersed within the punk/indie music scene in Washington, D.C. I needed to put in writing and play music. Punk is all about DIY. No coaching. Just doing.   

Ben had a really related expertise rising up within the Chicago space. We had been each impressed by musicians just like the youngsters at Dischord in Washington, D.C., who had been releasing their very own information across the ages of 18 or 19 within the early Nineteen Eighties. Before I discovered that native music existed—earlier than I knew there have been folks my age in bands, making information—I assumed all music got here from company giants like Warner Brothers, Elektra/Asylum, Sire, and a number of others, distributed via shops like Best, Korvette’s, G.C. Murphy’s 5 & 10, and Drug Fair. I used to be so excited to find this that I fashioned my very own band, Unrest, and document label, Teenbeat.    

This is Ben’s very personal album. It has no music, but it surely makes noise. It makes music. This is a masterwork that has been eight years within the making. We ought to take into account it a biggest hits assortment—possibly even a boxed set with six albums, every specializing in a theme: Storefronts, Restaurants, Roadside, Motels, Signs, Theatres. And, after all, it features a booklet. Or, on this case, a guide. Even higher.  

 His indicators are pretty much as good as Black Flag’s Damaged. His motels are higher than The Motels (no offense meant to both motels or the band The Motels). Some motels are simply higher than others.  

Ben is Dieter Rams, maybe the most well-known and essential industrial designer of our time—if not of all time. Rams created lovely masterpieces within the type of document gamers, clocks, and electrical shavers. Like Rams, Ben’s pictures are meticulously crafted, with each aspect becoming collectively completely.  

Ben is Peter Saville, the progressive graphic designer who modified the world of album covers. In reality, all the pictures on this guide may very well be album covers. They’re so good you wouldn’t even must put the identify of your band on the entrance.   

Ben is Shellac, the ability trio fronted by Chicago document producer extraordinaire, Steve Albini. Powerful. Loud. Striking. Sometimes melodic. Often mind-blowing.  

Ben is Cindy Sherman, the effective artwork photographer who immerses herself in her scenes. He not solely takes pictures; he places loads of himself into them. You can’t see him the best way you possibly can see Sherman in her self portraits, however you possibly can really feel his presence in each picture.  

Ben is Ian MacKaye, the archivist and co-founder of Dischord Records. While MacKaye saves, catalogues, and classifies each letter he’s ever obtained, Ben is cataloguing the world that was, the world that’s, and midway between the 2. Old issues in some way turn out to be extra magical with age and he catches each drop of that magic together with his digital camera.  

His images isn’t simply fascinating due to what’s contained in the body. It’s how he units up the shot: the place he locations the digital camera, the lighting, the F-stop setting, and a mess of different intangibles I could by no means totally perceive. That similar elusive, unknowable artistry {that a} musician, painter, or choreographer makes use of to create is what we see mirrored within the pages of this guide. 

Of all of the photographers I comply with on the favored media platforms of the day, Ben is my favourite. There’s by no means a dud and by no means a boring second—simply pure magnificence. Skills developed over years of making and simply doing, not sitting behind a classroom.  

P.S. News flash. Spoiler alert: Ben shoots digitally. I do know. Insane. He in some way captures probably the most analog-looking pictures we’ve ever seen with trendy, computerized, non-film know-how and gear. 

Musician, designer, and founding father of the Teenbeat label