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Photo projects help busy booker Alicia Rose stay snappy

Person of the Week

By BARBARA MITCHELL

The Portland Tribune, Nov 9, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

KATIE HARTLEY / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Alicia Rose’s various enterprises include booking a nightclub, photographing musicians and dancers, playing an accordion, and interviewing guests for a radio show – sleeping and eating might be thrown in, too, when there’s time.

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Most people know Alicia J. Rose as the booking genius behind the Doug Fir Lounge. A few more music-obsessed folks might recognize her as the accordion-wielding force that is Miss Murgatroid.

If you’re a fan of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Live Wire” program, you may be aware that she’s recently come on board as a musical curator and cross-examiner.

But few are probably aware that she’s also the photographer behind three stunning seasons’ worth of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s “Who’s Your Dancer” series, which appears on posters, in programs and on OBT’s Web site.

“The things that keep happening are so ridiculously awesome that I’m kind of like, ‘How could I say no?’ ” says Rose, 37. “Who gets to do this?”

Rose is exactly the person who should be doing “this.”

A lifelong music fan who started taking photographs as a kid, she combines an obsessive’s knowledge with an art director’s aesthetic in everything she touches – whether that’s putting together a night of music at the Doug Fir, interviewing Stars of Track and Field for “Live Wire” or shooting OBT’s six new dancers.

Photography and music long have been Rose’s twin passions. A college radio DJ in San Francisco, she was hired to book a local venue before she was old enough to attend shows there.

She took advantage of the opportunity on several levels, building the club’s audience while convincing her boss to construct a darkroom downstairs.

Photography took a back seat when Rose moved to Portland in 1995, but she says her time as the label manager for NAIL Distribution helped her long-term evolution through the experience of art-directing the company’s new-release books.

“There’s so much I did in between doing (photography) and getting back to it that it doesn’t surprise me that I became a much better photographer by not being a photographer,” she says. “I did all these things that honed my aesthetics, my art direction skills.”

She jests that picking out photos for the Doug Fir ads and Web site have given her a clear idea of what not to do when taking photos.

“I think what makes me a better photographer is knowing what terrible photography is,” she says, laughing. “I’m always thinking about layout and final use when I’m shooting.”