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Darren Balch has taken photographs of 600 concerts, many of them in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but he never thought of it as a job or even a hobby. He just wanted to listen to good music.

“That was the real motivation, was going to concerts, having fun with friends,” he said.

The list of artists he has photographed reads like a who’s who of music history: the Beach Boys, Garth Brooks, the Grateful Dead, Slayer, B.B. King, Pearl Jam, Motley Crue, Hank Williams Jr., Tina Turner, Elton John, Van Halen and Yanni.

Some of his pictures were published in the Scene, a small magazine, The Inlander and the student newspapers at Eastern Washington University and Washington State University. He would get credentials to attend the concerts from record companies, and he always sent photos and a story back to the companies even if the story didn’t get published, Balch said.

“It’s amazing what you could get away with in the early ‘90s with a letterhead and a fax machine,” he said.

It was Van Halen’s first album that got him hooked on music. He took a photography class at Pullman High School and his teacher told the class to visit a nearby Ansel Adams exhibit. From then on he was smitten with photography, too.

“It was really a perfect fit,” he said. “Rock and roll and photography went well together.”

Balch said an acquaintance once suggested he do portrait photography but Balch demurred, saying he’s not good at photographing people despite his decades of experience photographing musicians.

“I wasn’t photographing the person, I was photographing the music going through them,” he said.

He served in the Air Force for eight years beginning in 1981 and managed to take pictures of a few concerts while he was serving. When his enlistment was up, he moved back to Pullman and picked up his camera.

“I was allowed to photograph at will at all the clubs,” he said.

He always had a day job, but photographing concerts was his passion.

“The only thing that mattered was the next show,” he said. “It’s full immersion. It’s all or nothing.”

One of his favorite venues was The Bing Crosby Theater, which was then known as the Metropolitan Theater of Performing Arts.

“My favorite hangout was down in the coat room, people coming and going,” he said. “We were really close to the refrigerator of beer. That was intentional.”

He always did his best work, no matter who was on stage.

“It didn’t matter if it was the Rolling Stones at the Kingdome or a cover band at the bar,” he said.

But by the mid-1990s the music industry started to change. Photographers were told where to stand and given a brief window in which to take pictures.

“It wasn’t really my cup of tea, so I slowed down,” he said.

Then he started work as the house photographer at the Gorge Amphitheatre for three years, but it wasn’t a high paying job.

“It was 35 bucks a show,” Balch said. “I drank that much in beer getting out there, but I didn’t care. It was wide open. It was fantastic.”

But all good things must come to an end, and Balch realized his all or nothing concert lifestyle couldn’t be sustained forever.

“I just started to realize I had to do something else,” he said. “I don’t want to be that guy who has one too many Coors Lights at the festival and ends up rolling in the pea gravel with security.”

He moved out of the area, but recently moved back to Spokane from southern California. He writes software for an electrical contractor but is still focused on his photography.

Balch has kept meticulous records of each show and each of the 444 bands he has photographed. All of his photographs, even now, are developed by hand.

“To me the negative is like a piece of sheet music,” he said. “I’ll print wet photographs as long as I can.”

Balch said he likes the challenge of developing his own prints.

“It’s hard,” he said. “It’s like playing a cheap guitar. You’ve got to force it to do what you want to do.”

While Balch still photographs the occasional concert, he’s focused on creating a series of coffee table books of his photos. He has one available currently at www.virtuallyonstage.net. He’s sold one so far, but he’s not worried about making money off his passion.

“I’ve given away more prints than I’ve sold,” he said. “I don’t care about volume or moving units. Some people go fishing when they retire. I’m just going to print photographs and make books.”