Gregory Watermann | Photographer and Video Director
Gregory Watermann got his first camera at seven and used it on family vacations and, later, his high school yearbook. He learned the trade in New York assisting working photographers — among them Gilles Bensimon, Annie Leibovitz, and Steven Meisel — which he credits as his real education. He began taking his own assignments in the 1980s, shooting portraits and fashion. In late 1991, Spin sent him to Phoenix to photograph a band on tour called Nirvana. The pictures ran on the cover of the January 1992 issue, the band's first major national magazine cover, two months ahead of their first Rolling Stone cover.
Education
Watermann attended Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California, from 1982 to 1984, leaving before completing the program.
Professional Background
Through the 1990s, Watermann worked out of Dallas on portrait and fashion assignments for Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Rolling Stone, and Spin, alongside editorial work for Texas Monthly, including its November 1993 cover story on Susan Powter.
About twenty years into his career he moved to Los Angeles and shifted to music exclusively. He joined Linkin Park in 2003 for the band's fan club tour and the Summer Sanitarium run, and was their photographer through 2010. He has been System of a Down's photographer since the early 2000s, an assignment that has covered tours, solo projects, weddings, and the births of the members' children; his photograph of the band waving to the crowd after their 2006 show is, by his account, the last picture taken of the four of them together before the hiatus. Since 2011 he has been Pitbull's personal photographer and videographer, shooting recording sessions, tours, album packaging, merchandise, and social content across more than twenty countries. He shot tour and album cover work for Toby Keith. Other credits include Beth Hart, Scars on Broadway, Afrojack, The Struts, Lamb of God, and Mudvayne.
Watermann shot live work on film well into the 2000s — a Nikon F3 with Fujichrome 400 for color and T-Max 3200 for black and white, no autofocus, no zoom lenses, and never a flash, which he treats as an intrusion on the moment. Roughly half his current work is video; his cinematography credits include Pitbull's "Feel This Moment" with Christina Aguilera (2013). He has been a ZEISS Camera Lens Ambassador since 2014 and has taught as a guest lecturer since 2000 at the USC School of Journalism, Art Center College of Design, Otis College of Art and Design, Brooks Institute, and the Grammy Foundation camp.
Books
I Photograph Rock Stars, 2009 (62-page limited edition released to accompany his A&I Gallery exhibition; portraits spanning his career from Julia Roberts to Ozzy Osbourne)
From the Inside: Linkin Park's Meteora, Bradson Press, 2004 (192 pages, documenting the 2003–04 Meteora touring cycle; photographs by Watermann, text by Steve Baltin, foreword by David Fricke, introduction by Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, captions by the band)
Exhibitions
I Got Pictures on My Wall, a retrospective of more than twenty years photographing System of a Down, ran October 19–26, 2024, at Eye For Sound Gallery in Los Angeles, where Watermann was the gallery's first featured photographer. The title comes from the band's 2002 song "Pictures." I Photograph Rock Stars was shown at A&I Gallery in Los Angeles from May 7 to June 10, 2009.
The 1992 Nirvana Session
In June 2020, Watermann offered the complete Nirvana session at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills. The lot held 34 original color slides, 72 black-and-white negatives with matching contact sheets, prints signed "Watermann '91," five copies of the January 1992 Spin, the Hasselblad 500 ELX used for the shoot, and full transfer of copyright. Pre-sale estimate was $10,000 to $20,000.
Greg Watermann lives in Los Angeles and shoots acfross the globe.