Girls Rock Camp

These pictures reflect the amazing work and growth everyone at camp experiences – learning how to play, finding the courage to be yourself and expressing your feelings. I am always astounded at the change between portraits taken the first day and ones from the end of the week. Girls, who before had been retiring or shy, are suddenly looking at my camera lens straight up, unafraid and unadorned. Camp is such a safe and encouraging place that they are no longer afraid. They are confident! So very confident, and if you know teenage girls then you know what a miracle this is.


Learning how to play from your idols helps. Watching awesome bands play lunchtime shows, then talking to you afterwards about the way they write songs or started in music, does as well. Forming a band and playing a song you created in front of a sold out crowd, learning how the soundboard works, how all the equipment functions together, what sound check is, demystifying the technology so you don’t worry about electrocuting yourself – these are all part of the experience.  Having grown ups talk to you as peers, not as “oh, look she’s so cute trying to play the drums” is a big part of it too.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls could only have started in Portland, Oregon. The fierce DIY ethic and vibrant music scene let this scrappy little non-profit survive past it’s first year. Last year saw the birth of the Willie Mae Rock Camp in New York City, and this summer inaugurates the Chicago branch of the camp.  Everyone wishes we didn’t need the Rock Camp, that parents would buy their little girls a guitar for their birthday as a matter of course, and that all-girl bands weren’t classified as such, that music scenes gave the girls as much props as the guys.  But check out your favorite music rag. How many bands have a woman in it? How many six plus member bands have more than one girl? Or any at all?  We’re not there yet. Rock Camp is trying to change the future for the better.