One of Las Vegas’ best celebrity and rock ‘n roll photographers is Erik Kabik. You’ve seen Kabik’s photos on all the websites and magazines that are about Las Vegas. His photos are usually credited as Erik Kabik Photography/ Retna Ltd and those photos are usually a spectacular rock star shot. I spoke with Erik a while back about what life is like as a famous celebrity photographer.
Accosted in Las Vegas by The Prince of Darkness
There were some photos that I had seen last year of Ozzy Osbourne on stage in all his glory having a little fun at the expense of the photographers at the base of the stage. One of those photographers was Kabik. He had the pleasure of having Ozzy pick him out of the photographer pit to be on the receiving end of a bucket of water. The shot was Ozzy all wild-eyed throwing the water right at him. I’m a big Ozzy fan, but is Erik still a fan after his camera gear was soaked?
Kabik explains that the photo that I saw was done by Chase Stevens, who was the Las Vegas Review Journal’s photographer. He was standing next to Kabik and took that shot. Kabik happened to be looking down at his camera at the crucial moment, so there was no time to get out of the way. “As I looked up, I saw Ozzy’s eyes looking directly in my eyes as the bucket of water was being flung towards me. So, I had no time to even, like, move! So, it just blanketed me and then covered my cameras and I just fell to the ground.”
“OMG, was that you that just got pummeled?!” said the texts he was receiving from people he knew in the crowd that could see him up near the stage.
Kabik explained that Ozzy always does throw water into the crowd at his concerts, but said he didn’t know if he has ever directly thrown it at the photographers before. So, that may have been an unusual occurrence. He said that his equipment can usually take it, but it certainly isn’t good for that to happen. It happened right towards the end of the shoot so he had already gotten enough photos. “So, he hit me. I went to the ground. Then I just ran to the side of the stage… and dried off my gear as fast as I could in panic mode. It was pretty crazy,” he laughed.
When Erik Kabik is not being attacked by The Prince of Darkness, he is the house photographer for events at The Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas, one of the hottest new venues. He also is still doing plenty of other celebrity and rock ‘n roll photography in and around many venues in Las Vegas. You can follow Erik Kabik on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see a constant stream of incredible concert photos from Las Vegas.
