Sometimes, Lee Streitz doesn’t know where his photographs will end up. Usually, he shares his selects with the bands he shoots and they pass along the merch, album covers and promotional materials his photographs grace—but not always.
“Every once in a while they won’t tell me, and I’ll just randomly go to listen to them on Spotify and see my work on the landing page,” Streitz said in a Zoom interview. “And I love that.”
Streitz, a full-time landscape designer by day, began his journey toward music photography “as a band spouse.” While attending shows for his wife Jamie Brite’s experimental indie rock band Orbit 17, he started documenting them on stage. He bought a camera in late 2023 and since then his life—and inner circle—have transformed in ways he never expected when he moved to the Bay Area in 2012.
“Now we have become part of a community, which has been really nice. That’s been a great way to make friends and connections,” he said.
That community will be memorialized in Streitz’s 2024 Yearbook, an annal of his work that showcases the 130 local bands he’s photographed. To celebrate, Streitz is hosting a Yearbook Night at Kilowatt, a favorite venue and bar in San Francisco, on Dec. 14. It’s complete with Yearbook signings, a live show with six bands, and superlative awards like “Best Guitar Face,” “Best Base Stank” and “Best Drum Animal.”
He calls it “part show, part party, all friends.”
Finding Craft and Community
Streitz’s story may be a familiar one: He moved to San Francisco for his job and spent most of his time focused on his career, “going to work and coming home,” as he put it.
This didn’t leave a lot of time or space to build a core “crew,” a connected group of friends that one might call a community—something he hadn’t had since grad school. It was meaningful to discover one waiting for him in the Bay Area music scene, especially one so supportive.
“I say us now because I feel like I’m part of this community, even though I’m not a musician,” he said.
This, like his photography, developed more organically rather than through overt intention, the cumulative effort of showing up and putting himself out there. Streitz didn’t set out with a particular goal for a number of photographs or shows. He simply began going and shooting, branching out beyond his wife’s shows.
These days he attends two to three shows a week at local venues like Rickshaw Stop and Kilowatt. The former he cites as a favorite for its lighting. The latter, he said, is “becoming a little bit like Cheers.” A place where everybody knows his name.
This development is also a bit like his stage photography. There’s no elaborate setup. Streitz can’t immediately recall the exact model of his camera. And he doesn’t have to adopt a different, more outgoing personality to make it happen.
“I’m only an observer and a spectator,” he said. “I don’t have to create the beauty. I just have to recognize it, and then capture it when it occurs.” Although having a background in the foundations of design definitely helps.
Streitz officially operates under the company Earthling Entertainment, whose name is an offshoot of the Orbit 17 space theme. His work so far has solely been a hobby, one he’s generously shared with the bands he’s met. While he’s been content with this model, next year Streitz plans to start venturing into the world of for-hire photography.
The yearbook and its accompanying event are also two firsts for him, hyper-focused on the Bay Area music scene. On Friday, six Northern California bands will take the stage while, in between sets, a curated playlist of local bands will stream through the speakers. On the invite list are artists, promoters, managers and fans of the bands he’s photographed.
“The more you support the other bands, the more they support you,” he said. “A lot of people in the community realize that being there for each other comes full circle.”
Streitz tried to make sure every band had a spot in the yearbook, which consists of large-scale photographs of his best shots, followed by a timeline of the sets he’s done. He hopes it’s a physical, tangible memento people can look back on fondly, as well as something that can bring them all together to progress their own careers. Because the stronger the community, Streitz said, the better the music.
Attend Yearbook Night 2024, and pick up ‘2024 Yearbook’ copies, on Saturday, Dec. 14, at 6:30pm, at Kilowatt, 3160 16th St., San Francisco. Tickets $23.69. dice.fm
Listen to The Playlist: Class of 2024 on EBX’s Spotify—Meet some of the 127 local bands that photographer Lee Streitz captured for his 2024 Yearbook.
