# Music Photography...



## Steve5D (Aug 29, 2012)

My main avenue in photography is music: Live music, CD/DVD covers, magazines, etc. 

Anyone else?


----------



## mishele (Aug 29, 2012)

BigTwinky is big on this stuff!!


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 29, 2012)

And "Big Twinky" would be...??


----------



## mishele (Aug 29, 2012)

He's not on as much as he used to be but he still pops in from time to time.


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 29, 2012)

Ahh.

Anyone else?


----------



## tirediron (Aug 29, 2012)

I've taken pictures of a stereo before...


----------



## Tuffythepug (Aug 29, 2012)

Well, I do like to shoot live music shows when I get a chance but it's for my own amusement;  I've never sold any shots.    Our of curiousity how do you get into selling shots for cd covers ?  Do you sell to stock photo houses ?  Or directly to artists / managers / and cover design people.


----------



## lisa_13 (Aug 29, 2012)

I am a music photographer!!!

Lisa Czech Photography | Portrait, music, event & commercial photography | Braintree, MA Portraits


----------



## orljustin (Aug 29, 2012)

lisa_13 said:


> I am a music photographer!!!



How do you photograph music?


----------



## Derrel (Aug 29, 2012)

I sometimes shoot my very own CD cover artwork shots! lol


----------



## Steve5D (Aug 29, 2012)

Tuffythepug said:


> Well, I do like to shoot live music shows when I get a chance but it's for my own amusement;  I've never sold any shots.    Our of curiousity how do you get into selling shots for cd covers ?  Do you sell to stock photo houses ?  Or directly to artists / managers / and cover design people.



Depends. Most of the CD covers I've shot have been after being hired by the artists, and that's usually after a period of time of simply getting to know them. Artist management will probably have input on what photos will be used for a cover but, far more often than not, I'm hired by the artists. For two of my DVD covers, I was hired by the producers. 

I don't deal with stock photo outlets, and never deal with cover design people...


----------



## spacefuzz (Aug 29, 2012)

I've done stuff for family members who are musicians but that is all. Some of the shots ended up on CDs/ magazine interviews etc.


----------



## CCericola (Aug 29, 2012)

I took photographs of a band in college once for their CD and posters. They never made it big but they were nice guys. And photographing in South Philly was fun.


----------



## DiskoJoe (Aug 29, 2012)

Ive only done some club photography for friends. Mostly just event promo stuff for their facebooks. I got a press pass to shoot a devo concert once. That was fun. Good show.


----------



## lisa_13 (Aug 30, 2012)

orljustin said:


> lisa_13 said:
> 
> 
> > I am a music photographer!!!
> ...



i do a lot of live shows as well as promotional photos!


----------



## lizzys (Sep 14, 2012)

I cover shows for a handful of online publications. I get to pick the shows I want to cover and my main genre is rock/metal.
 Every now and then I will get hired to do a live concert shoot with local bands around the area... I have not been print published yet, but I have had a number of my photos shared across social media sites. Recently I've been getting asked if I sell prints, but I'm not really sure how to do that from a legal aspect. Some shows I am under a signed contract for, some I'm not - but even when I'm not, I don't want to step on any toes.


----------



## StreetView (Sep 25, 2012)

(Warning: this accidentally turned into a wall of text)

OP, thanks for posting your original question. I've been shooting for years and have just recently started down the path of small venue concert photography and things are moving along much quicker than I originally planned for, so I have some questions as well. A bit of background; I've been given control over the (new) photo gallery section of a friend's webzine/music review site and the webzines staff is comprised of about a dozen _volunteer _contributors from around the East Coast. These contributors send along gig reviews, album reviews, op-eds, links to free crap that's posted throughout the internet, etc to the content manager who then publishes the final pieces to the site. I was introduced to this operation via a friend of a friend, and approached them with the premeditated idea of getting into live music photography.

So, Ive set up a pretty ideal system for myself. I just search through the local venue schedules for interesting things happening on nights that I have some free time and I contact the bands directly.  My intentions were to just shoot for free at first in an effort to work on my technique, get comfortable in this vastly different shooting environment, check out some free live music (and drink free beer!), start building a cool gallery on the webzine, and hook these local musicians up with some cool photos. Ive been there; done that in the world of trying to start a band so I figured I would try to help these bands in my own little way.

Luckily, Im already being asked to cover more shows by some of the bands Ive shot over the past couple weeks and some are offering compensation for the second go-round. Radical. But, not all of the bands are in such a position to do so, and I still dont have enough of a portfolio/reputation throughout the scene to get into the bigger clubs for consistent paid work.

So;
1. How do I go about charging some bands for work and others hooking up for free? Let the bands offer? Feel it out via my pre-show communication and rapport? Im not really interested in slowing down by only shooting for bands that will pay me, since I learn A LOT with each show, on top of the fact that I want to keep pumping the webzine with consistent material.

2. Regardless of whether one band pays and another one does not on any particular night, how do I protect the copy rights of my work shot for any and all bands? Should I have a member of each band sign a quick release when I arrive at the venue? The (best 10) photos from each set are already being sent to the webzine, does that nullify anything that is signed by the bands?

To be honest, I fully support the idea of giving these start up bands free sh*t. Its kind of ingrained in my interpretation of the punk ethos of all for one to help the cause, I just want to stipulate that I am to be compensated in case their labels decide to run a photo on an album sleeve/poster/what have you sometime in the future (not really that punk, unfortunately).

tl/dr: How do I Know My Rights and how do I then protect those rights? This situation appears to be many shades of gray.


----------



## Kolander (Sep 27, 2012)

Classic concerts, chamber music above all. I do love string instruments, violin, viola and cello, including the building -so besides performances I use to make illustrated features in luthiers workshops.


----------

