On June 11, 2020, I was granted a rare opportunity to get inside the iconic Wilma Theater in Missoula, Montana. For nearly 6 hours, I moved about the empty theater with three large format film cameras and observed.
Before I arrived, I had expected the shoot to be more-or-less standard architectural work. When I got there, my approach immediately changed.
First, and by my own choice, I had not packed tons of lighting equipment, so all I had was existing fixture lighting to work with. This is not ideal for such a grand space. But I didn’t want these photos to be something for Architectural Digest, I wanted them to be something which simply captured the glory of the theater’s Sullivanesque architecture, and the beautiful restorations that were completed in 2016.
Second, I intentionally shot with “normal” lenses. For the 8×10, that meant a 300mm focal length and for 4×5 it meant 150mm focal length. Typically, when shooting these grand, enclosed spaces, photographers gravitate to wide-angle lenses which would expand the sense of space in the room. But I felt that there was something almost documentary about what I was doing, so I shot it accordingly. The glaring exception to this is another highly irregular aspect of this shoot: I took several 4×5’s with an Ondu Mark II pinhole camera.
There are probably many pinhole photographers who will laugh at this. But this particular camera has no lens, just a tiny hole drilled through a brass plate. The distance from the pinhole to the film is 65mm, which means the image looks like it was shot with a 65mm focal length lens on a 4×5 negative (a very wide-angle). But since the aperture of the pinhole on this particular camera is f/218, exposures are very long even under normal lighting circumstances. One of the images below shot from the balcony required an exposure of almost 2 and a half hours accounting for the reciprocity failure of the film. The results are still quite dark, but also rather dreamy.
The first hour I was there I just walked around and looked. What I saw was not only a beautiful room, but a room that I have only ever seen filled with people and music. What I tried to do with these photos was capture the sense of abnormality that the empty theater presented; the room itself appeared to have been frozen in isolation. Like the music had just stopped and everyone left.
Much has been written in recent months about the hardship the pandemic is having on the music industry, particularly on the performers who make a living touring and performing, but equally so for the venues and promoters who book and stage the shows. The Wilma Theater and it’s owners, Robin and Nick Checota deserve my gratitude for being so accommodating and letting me have access to the theater at such a difficult moment. I also need to thank Dan Torti of Logjam as the operations manager at the Wilma Theater for handling the details of my shoot. I can only hope that these photos document a brief moment of hardship for the theater and the community which have come to rely on it as a center of music, culture, and connection.
I would like nothing more than for these photos tell a story of the arts in a moment of crisis, but I would be remiss if I left it at that. On July 22, 2020 Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced legislation to establish a $10 billion Small Business Administration program for grants to support independent theater and live-music venues like the Wilma Theater. This legislation is known as the Save Our Stages Act, and it’s intent is to save these venues from losses over the next 6 months as the country emerges in uncertainty about the future of live performance and close gatherings. Sadly, without this kind of support, many venues will be forced to close before the COVID-19 pandemic ends. This means, many communities, like Missoula, will have to face the challenges of loss of these venues, both as sources of employment in the community, and as a loss of community and connection for the many residents who frequent the shows.
For small towns like Missoula, the prospect of emerging from the pandemic without live music is all too real, and one which could have a profoundly negative effect on our culture and community.
All this is to acknowledge the great benefit that the Wilma Theater bestows on this community, and my sincerest hopes that these photos will play some part in helping people take a moment to consider the value and the importance of keeping these venues going through these challenging times. I hope some will call their Senators and express their support for the Save Our Stages Act, and find other ways to keep these venues from going under.
And finally, I must say, on a personal note, that I find the title of this piece to be frightening and inadequate. “When the Music Stopped” is not something I want to celebrate; if anything I look forward to writing and photographing joyful crowds gathered and enjoying live performance. For me “Let the music play” is much more my style. But I didn’t ask for any of this to happen and I have no control over how long the pandemic lasts; all I can do is humbly, and hopefully use my camera to document and tell a story that helps the world in some small way to get through and later remember these very uncertain times.
Stay safe, stay focused.
NOTE: This post was originally published on Patreon. It has been republished here for archival reasons.