Take, for instance, the tale of how he nabbed a shot of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth at the band’s 1995 gig at the now-defunct Tempe venue Electric Ballroom.
“I had to take the lens off the camera and shove it down my pants to get it in,” Eshelman says. “And I didn't have a flash, so I used high-speed Kodak T-MAX and there wasn't much lighting in there, so that's why it's kind of blurry.”
Blurry or not, the image captures a particular moment and location from Valley music history. That’s the vibe of all 19 images in Eshelman’s retrospective: photos anchored in a certain time and place.
Two images from Mark Eshelman’s retrospective “Coast to Coast: Through the Photography Lens” at Taste of Tops in Tempe.
Benjamin Leatherman
The retrospective is also a visual road trip, decades in the making, with images hewn from Eshelman’s travels: the windswept Atlantic shores of Sea Isle City, New Jersey, the gritty scene inside messy and iconic NYC rock club CBGB and the towering elegance of the historic clipper ship Cutty Sark in London.
“The CBGB is probably the harshest image in the show,” Eshelman says. “People have told me they can smell that picture.”
One of the standout images in the show are majestic shots of Tempe’s Ash Avenue Bridge, which once spanned the Salt River before its demolition back in 1991. These days, a remnant of the bridge remains in Tempe Beach Park.
Eshelman, who began taking photos as a Tempe High student in the early ’80s, says his images of the Ash Avenue Bridge were a driving force behind his exhibit, which features a selection of photos from the thousands he’s taken over the past 40 years.
“It’s stuff from throughout my collection,” he says. “I wanted to showcase the Ash Avenue Bridge first and foremost. So I kind of started at the beginning and started going through some stuff that would be worthy.”
Each of the photos in the retrospective are striking, like a closeup of an early '80s skateboard deck.
“Some of 'em, you look at it, you can't really tell when it was taken. It could have been taken 100 years ago or it could have been taken yesterday.”
Eshelman, a Valley native and longtime employee of Tempe Camera, says he wanted to share images that mattered to him and also told a tale.
“It’s all important stuff to me,” he says. “I thought others would appreciate it, too.”
A closing reception for “Coast to Coast: Through the Photography Lens” will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. on Thursday at Taste of Tops, 403 W. University Drive in Tempe. Admission is free.
