Interview with Jeromie Stephens

For this month’s issue, we’ve got something really special in store for you in the way of our featured photographer. Jeromie Stephens is a third generation photographer who has a passion for listening to bluegrass music and photographing bluegrass festivals.

Jeromie shot his first festival in 1987 and quickly discovered that the best place to photograph musicians was actually off-stage, where they’re much more “human” than during a performance.

In our video interview with Jeromie, you’ll get to know this talented photographer better, you’ll probably learn a thing or two about bluegrass music, and you’ll learn how to take photos of people that look and feel natural and candid, even if your subject knows you’re there. There’s a lot more to this interview too, but don’t take my word for it. Click on the video player below and enjoy it for yourself.

A Selection of Jeromie’s Bluegrass Festival Photos

85th Annual Old Fiddlers Convention, Galax, VA 2021

2021 Pickin’ in Parsons – photo by Jeromie Stephens

2021 Pickin’ in Parsons – photo by Jeromie Stephens

Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, 1994. Looking at the photographer like a gunslinger would his rival.

A Few of Jeromie’s Street Photos

Interview Links

Jeromie Stephens

My home, where I grew up, will always be Topeka. That’s where I learned photography from my father, Bill Stephens and Grandfather Howard. Both were full time pros and they were kings in my eyes. I became obsessed with photography in Junior High. I studied the work of great Kansan photographers like Jim Richardson, Rich Clarkson, David Douglas Duncan and W. Eugene Smith. My fun time-time was spent either in the darkroom or going thru the public libraries' microfiche files of the Topeka Capitol Journal - memorizing the images produced by David Alan Harvey, Brian Lanker, Chris Johns and the rest of the staff. If there had been Topps Trading cards with the faces and names of great photographers, I would have had them all. Late into the 1980's I became deeply moved by the work of Jim Marshall - he was a well-known but nefarious photographer in San Francisco, who's behind-the-scenes coverage of rock n' roll musicians showed all of us a view of these superstars lives. For the entirety of the pandemic I’ve been immersed in the works of Lee Friedlander. The strength, quality, quirkiness and quantity of his photography has nearly shaded out all of my other influences. Today I live with my family in Northern Virginia.