In 1987, as Bruce Springsteen was working on his eighth studio album, “Tunnel of Love,” he saw a few pictures that his younger sister Pamela had taken. Though she’d been working as an actress (playing the lead in the cult horror films “Sleepaway Camp” II and III), she’d begun to develop an interest in photography, and he suggested she fly out to his home studio in New Jersey to take some photos.

“This was prior to me becoming a professional photographer,” Pamela tells Next Avenue. “I had just started shooting for myself. Bruce was like, ‘Why don’t you come out and take some pictures of me? I got this album coming out.’ We went into the recording studio, took some pictures of him behind the board and then some portraits by the window in natural light. Then, at the end of that day, we went upstairs. He had a writing room in the house where he had his guitars and table by the window. And we literally shot maybe one roll of film up there.”

The resulting images included some of Pamela’s all-time personal favorites, as well as her first-ever published photo. “They ended up using [a photo] for the cover of ‘Brilliant Disguise,’ one of the singles from that record,” she says. “That was my first thing I ever had published. That was encouraging! [Laughs]”

Today, Pamela is a highly regarded music photographer who has worked with just about every big name in the industry — from Willie Nelson, Keith Richards and Olivia Newton-John to Ice Cube, Trent Reznor, Tom Morello and of course, her brother Bruce.

Over a recent Zoom call, she talked to Next Avenue about her decades-long career and what she’s working on now.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Next Avenue: The film “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is getting great reviews. How has it been for you to see your family’s life up on screen?

Pamela Springsteen: They did an amazing job. The actors are exceptional. They address mental health and depression and tell that story in such a beautiful way. I’m really proud of my brother for putting it out there. It was emotional to watch, for sure.

You actually started out working in movies. Was acting your goal?

No. I was graduating high school and didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have any passion. I was super shy. I was not actor contender in any way whatsoever. I was living in Northern California, and I was down here [in L.A.] visiting. I met this casting director, Eve Brandstein, who cast “The Facts of Life,” “One Day at a Time,” and shows like that. And she was like, ‘Are you an actress? We’d love to have you come in and read for us.’ I thought, ‘Yeah! I’m gonna move to L.A.’ That was my dream since high school, to move from San Francisco to L.A.

I had absolutely no acting skills whatsoever, and Eve literally changed my life. She knew I wasn’t ready for anything, but she was so supportive, and she gave me one-liners here or there, or extra roles. I got into a very serious acting class. I did the Meisner Technique, which is a two-year program. I did take it really seriously. And then I got cast [in a film]. My first actual job was playing a cheerleader in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” That was an amazing movie to be part of.

How did you go from that to photography?

Photography became my hobby in my early 20s. I was shooting pictures for myself. I didn’t really think of it as a career, but having time on the other side of the camera turned out to be super valuable for what I ended up doing. By the time I was 25 I was starting to get more serious about photography because I wasn’t really fulfilled with acting. But being on the other side of the camera was helpful for shooting other people and knowing what it feels like to be in front of a camera and feel vulnerable. It can be intimidating. So, [acting] was a steppingstone to what ended up being my passion, and photography was a very clear passion for me.

Neal Preston, who’s a big music photographer, invited me to a Stevie Nicks concert that he was shooting. I went to the show with him and was watching him work, and that was my lightbulb moment. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do!’ From that point on, I was looking for anything that would expose me to photography. I worked in a photo lab. I met [photographer] Glen Wexler and pursued him to hire me, even though I had no studio experience whatsoever.

How did you go about getting him to hire you? And when did you go off on your own to launch your photography career?

It was a few weeks before the holidays, and I went in and showed him some of the stuff that I had been shooting. He was like, ‘You have a really good eye, but I can’t hire you because you don’t have any experience.’ I didn’t know how to load a Hasselblad [camera]. I didn’t know how to plug a light in. I really knew nothing. I said, ‘Well, I’d be happy to work as an intern.’ He’s like, ‘I’ll think about it.’ And I never heard back from him. In January, after the holidays, I called him up again and I was like, ‘So, have you thought about it?’ [Laughs] He’s like, ‘You can come in as an intern and we’ll see how it goes.’

‘Photography Was Everything to Me’

By that point, I was all in. Photography was everything to me. I found what I loved. And I basically worked 24/7. I worked all day for Glen, doing whatever he wanted me to do — run to the lab, pick up lunch, anything. I was passionate about it, and I learned quickly. I learned how to light; I learned how to print. He taught me all these things. It was an incredible opportunity for him to give me, and I worked really hard for him.

At night, in exchange, he gave me access to his studio and his equipment. I had a friend that worked at A&M Records as an assistant, so at night, I would get the new acts and I’d say, ‘Come to the studio and we’ll do some shots.’ One of those artists was at a barbecue with the photos that I had taken of her, and a publisher named Marvin Jarrett was there. He had just bought the name Creem Magazine and was going to publish it as this glossy, beautiful music magazine. He had half the funding and an amazing designer, but he knew very few photographers. So he called me up and he was like, ‘I saw your photos. Would you be interested in shooting for my magazine? We’re going to be launching soon.’ He hired me to shoot numerous spreads in each issue. It completely launched my career.

My portfolio was built in a really short amount of time because of all the artists that I had access to shooting for him, and then I started shooting for SPIN, Musician Magazine, and other magazines, so the record labels started seeing my work and they started hiring me for publicity shoots and album packaging. It just took off from there. I was fortunate, but I was also ready and worked really hard.

You’ve photographed your brother Bruce many times over the years. Do you approach your work differently if you’re shooting someone like him versus someone you’ve never worked with before?

Yeah. When you get hired to do a photo shoot, there’s so many expectations that you have to deliver. You get hired to shoot whoever it is, Willie Nelson or whatever — you have album packaging, publicity shots, single sleeves, social media. You have all these images that you need to provide to your client in a relatively short amount of time, so you have to be prepared. And also, you have your assistants, hair and makeup, a wardrobe stylist, catering. It’s a production, and the team is really important.

The wonderful thing about working with my brother is we don’t do any of that. We just go, ‘It’s a beautiful day out. Let’s drive out to the desert, and we’ll grab some shots.’ It’s literally just he and I. Those shots for “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” where he’s walking down the highway, that’s just he and I out having a great time. It’s great to work that way.

Prepping for a Shoot

I try to integrate that into every shoot I do. You do what you need to do to get those shots that are expected, but I always like to take the artist and say, ‘Come on, let’s just you and I go.’ Like with Willie Nelson, when I shot him at the end of the day, I’m like, ‘That’s your favorite truck, right? Forget these people. Let’s get in the truck. Let’s go for a drive, just the two of us.’ And we did. We drove around his ranch, because that’s where we were shooting, just the two of us. And it was the best part of the day. There’s two shots that they used on album covers from that last hour of he and I because he’s smiling and having fun, and it’s relaxed. So I try to take that into every shoot I do, no matter who it is I’m shooting, and just make sure I get a little bit of that kind of time.

How much advance planning goes into a session? For example, if you’re shooting Willie Nelson, do you go in with an idea of what you want to do? Or do you let everything play out organically?

I do a huge amount of prep so that it can be organic. I listen to the music and get really familiar with them and what images they’ve done before. Usually it’s a two-day thing where you show up and you do the location scouting the day before the shooting. In that case with Willie, we went to Texas. We were shooting on his ranch. I met him the day before to try to develop a rapport. I mean, that’s the job. It’s a people person job. Yes, it’s about lighting and making people look good, and all the technical aspects of it, but it’s really about relating to people. That’s the most important thing of the day, making a connection with the person that you’re shooting. So that’s where my focus is. I was lucky, because I was able to do that with him the day before, and I felt like we had a good rapport going.

The Cool Mom

The day of, everything was pre-lit. I didn’t know how long I was going to have him. They were like, ‘It’s cold; it’s winter. You may have him for an hour. You may have him a couple of [hours]. We have no idea. We’re just gonna have to see how it goes.’ I had five different setups, and every single one of them was ready to go. I prep down to what cameras I’m using, what lenses I’m using, what the lighting is going to be, and everything is completely ready. Because when I’m shooting, I don’t want to be focused on any of that stuff. I want to be focused on the person. And also, it’s a built-in safety net, so you have your plan and now you can play. If you see something that wasn’t in the plan, you can do that. The plan gives you a foundation. You can always rely on that but then when you’re in there, you can let go and organically work with the artist.

Are there any photo shoots or artists that stick out in your mind?

I shot Ice Cube a few times, and that’s always a bit of a standout for me. I shot him initially for SPIN Magazine and I had him for 30 minutes, which was not abnormal. I wanted to do a really good job for those 30 minutes. And then those 30 minutes turned into 15 minutes because they were late, so I wasn’t sure how that shoot went. But three months later, I got called to shoot his album cover. So I thought, ‘Oh, okay! Great!’ [Laughs] He came to my studio, and we shot the cover for “The Predator,” which is one of my daughter’s favorite albums. She’s 23 and she’s like, ‘Mom, have you heard this?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. Have you looked at the credits for the cover of that?’ And now she’s got it on her wall. Now I’m the cool mom, because I shot that.

What have you been working on lately?

I took a bit of a hiatus from photography. I raised my daughter. Now she’s in college, so the last few years, I’ve been putting myself back into my photography, which I love and I’ve missed. It’s exciting because I’m jumping back into it full-time with a whole different level of experience. Bruce was touring through Europe and the States, and I was able to go with him. I spent the last couple of years on tour, shooting the shows, shooting some behind-the-scenes, and getting into video, which I hadn’t had any experience with before. So I learned this whole new skill. I got to travel and do what I love on a daily basis with someone I love. That was the greatest gift ever.

I taught my first workshop with Rob DeMartin, who’s also Bruce’s tour photographer, last month. We did a week in Maine, and that was a really rewarding experience. It was a small group of 10 students, and it was a powerful week, because their work was so fresh. It was inspiring for me, because I think after you’ve been doing something professionally for a long time and there are expectations about what you have to deliver, you stop breaking rules. When you first start shooting, you don’t know the rules. You’re just seeing something fresh with your eyes, without any preconceived idea of what it should be. So being around this group of students and photographers was really inspiring. I was like, ‘We need to start breaking some rules again!’ [Laughs]