We were lucky to catch up with Allison Scavo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

When I was first gifted my camera, I had no idea how to use it. I started playing around with the settings as I took photos around the house. I started taking our own family portraits that year. But it mostly sat in the closet. When I started going to shows, I would mess with every individual setting in between each photo – just finding out what each button did. Going to local jams helped me the most because it was free entry, I started to make friends, and everyone was grateful for the photos. I would learn on the spot, basically, and if criticism was given it was kind and constructive. After a few months, once I understood the ins and outs, I traded my camera in for a nice one and lenses. From there I didn’t need to mess with the settings as much due to the difference in quality but it was imperative to have a foundational understanding of what they do. I don’t necessarily think I would have done anything to speed up my learning process considering that I was going to these open jams about four nights a week.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

If you have not read anything about me, I like to say that this all really started because I was a survivor of domestic violence and the person that gave me that label gifted me a camera as an I’m sorry gift. When I got out of that situation, I was in and out of domestic violence shelters and really thought that my life was over. In fact I made that known on social media. Someone reached out to me, I had actually never met him before that night but he saw the signs and stepped in. He said that I needed to get out of the house and knew that I liked live music so he let me choose where we went that night. The only thing that my schedule allowed was the 10:00 p.m. open jam at John’s Big Deck which doesn’t even happen anymore.
We went out again the next night, this time without planning, and the drummer from the open jam happened to be the drummer for the band I ran into on the second night. Before too long I was sipping mimosas with said drummer who mentioned that he needed new photos of his band because they were outdated. I got excited and mentioned that there’s a camera collecting dust in my closet.
Within 3 months of that conversation I was working with Slash, Bob Weir, and a month after that Snoop dogg. It all happened so fast. There’s really no explanation other than hard work, dedication, and a little bit of luck. I am extremely proud of where I’ve came from and how far I’ve come. There has been a lot of community support and that has helped a lot. Without the support of the community and my friends I absolutely would not be where I am right now.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Honestly I just want to give back. Musicians are in it for the music, the connection and sense of community. I just want to capture and share that.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Yeah I have a good one. Burning Spear was in town and I grew up on reggae so it really meant a lot to me. I remember watching my mom do dishes with Burning Spear playing in our six CD stereo, one of those big bulky ones from the ’90s. Anyways, I am super stoked to see him. I get dressed, get there early, get all set up, and I take about 200 photos before I checked what I had taken photos of. I kept getting an error message so I was on Google all night trying to get a head of the issue. The photos were taking, just not saving. I could only shoot the first three songs so I went home instead of watching the rest of the show. I was so anxious and upset I could have screamed. When I got home and realized that my SD card had glitched. I had nine photos saved from the entire night. So now I have extra SD cards with me everywhere I go and I double check the quality of the photos that I have taken every five photos or so.

But that story has nothing on the time I got to Cypress Hill and realized I left my camera at home. Much like the SD card, my brain totally glitched out. I had to turn around, drive home, get the bag, go back, and pray I didn’t miss anything. Luckily I hadn’t.

There are many other stories I could tell, both of the aforementioned ones have to deal with me forgetting or my equipment glitching out but there’s a lot more to being a concert photojournalist like navigating the PR world. I was at a music festival 30 mins from my house put on by a band who was headlining. I had been there all weekend taking photos but drove home the second to last night to stay the night and attend a funeral early the next morning.
When I arrived on the last day I was met by the publicist who accused me of not having been there at all. He went through my camera to make sure that I was telling the truth. To verify my whereabouts I showed him the funeral program. Only then was I allowed entry back into the festival. Unfortunately, the publicist did not tell me that I needed a separate wristband to take photos of the headliner that night. I only found out when security escorted me out of the press pit. I was actually incredibly with a kidney infection so I broke down bawling. I just went across the fence, expanded my lens all the way as far as it could go, and took the best pictures I could get. I later got a formal apology from the publicist so it just goes to show if you keep up your best work, keep your head down, and tell the truth it does pay off.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.scavosphotos.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/scavosphotos
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/scavosphotos
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@scavosphotos

Image Credits

Photo of Allison taken by Black Moon Media, LLC