The following is exerpted from Chapter 2 of Concert Photography, which discusses the ways and means of establishing yourself in the music business once you've wedged your toe in the door. Suggestions are illustrated by real-life examples employed by some of today's most successful music-business photographers.
Now you've actually shot a few performances. Are you happy with the results? Unless you're already a seasoned photographer accustomed to working in difficult circumstances, chances are you'll find there's plenty of room for improvement. That will come with experience. The more performance work you do, the more comfortable you'll become with its unique demands. Staying active in the game is also important to help establish you as a valid player. Therefore, you must find a situation that permits you to shoot on a regular basis. There are several possibilities once you're able to produce technically competent photos.
One of the easiest and most effective ways is to latch on to a local band or artist that you feel has potential. It could just be a band you like, or one that includes someone you know. If you know someone in the band, or close to it, gaining inside access is obviously easier. In general, you'll find that most beginning or unknown bands and solo artists work in venues that don't require special clearances. Just show up and start shooting. Anonymity allows you to work and learn without the pressure of living up to someone else's expectations.
The time to share the results comes when you get something good. Poor photos only hurt your cause. Most musicians love to see photos of themselves performing, and chances are they'll be delighted that someone cares enough to make the effort. I've been amazed to discover that many bands--even some that have been together long enough to have a press kit and promo photos--have never seen good shots of themselves in concert. That means you have an excellent chance to make a good impression. Once you've gained respect, doors will open to rehearsals, backstage, and posed shots. The better your photos, the more likely they will lead to paid promo or album cover sessions. With the dramatic drop in recording costs over the past few years and the explosion of independently produced albums, an album cover session is now within reach of just about anybody with the right skills and connections.
The experience you gain from working with a band that gives you free rein can be invaluable. After all, a guitar player by any other name is still a guitar player. From a technical standpoint, it really doesn't matter if it's Eric Clapton or Joe Blow you're shooting. Most of the elements at play in the performance of a big star are also present in the performance of any relatively experienced working band. You'll learn the best angles to get clear action shots, how to compose and expose properly, and what lenses are necessary to fill the frame of your viewfinder. You'll also learn the harsh realities of working crowded clubs and the fickle mysteries of concert lighting. And by working with a band on a regular basis, you'll learn the characteristic stage gestures of each member and how to anticipate good shots. At the same time, you can use your connection with the band to develop contacts with club managers, promoters, and other local bands.
Tying your allegiance to talented but unknown artists can be particularly fortuitous if your instincts are good and you get lucky. If they hit big, you just might get to go along for the ride. And if they get really big you may even end up with a book archiving their early years somewhere down the line. More likely, however, the band will not survive, no matter how good they are. That's just the reality of bands. Conflicting goals, musical directions, talents, attitudes, and work ethics serve to splinter 99% of all bands before they succeed. Still, the more talented members usually move on to other bands, which widens your circle of possibilities.
Joel Bernstein was a 15-year-old Philadelphia high school student in 1967 when he was mesmerized by a coffeehouse performance of a young, relatively unknown Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarist. "I'd been playing guitar since I was eight," he recalls, "but I'd never heard anyone play in open tunings the way she did. I was fascinated." A fledgling photographer, Joel decided to bring his camera the next night. The film from that night was the first he ever processed and proofed himself. By his own admission the shots weren't very good, but they hooked him on photography. Over the next year his skill improved and he photographed the singer on several more occasions. "Eventually, I did a shot of her in the fall of 1968 that I can still look at and say, `That's a good picture.'" It was good enough, in fact, that Joni Mitchell asked Joel to become her personal photographer.
Soon he was meeting and photographing her musical friends, including Laura Nyro, Leonard Cohen, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young. His byline began appearing in magazines and song books and on album covers. In June 1970, one week before he was graduated from high school, he shot the cover and inside photos for Young's classic LP After the Gold Rush. Shortly thereafter he shot the photos for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's 4-Way Street. Both album sessions, he points out, were shot "on spec," meaning he didn't get paid unless the photos were used. With the results he was achieving, however, it wasn't long before record companies began hiring him for sessions. Subsequent album photo credits include some of rock's biggest names, including Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Prince. Despite his success and talent, however, photography has always been only a part of his working identity. Among other jobs, he has toured with Bob Dylan and Prince as their guitar technician and has a long, successful history as a recording engineer. He has spent the better part of the past five years listening, choosing, mixing, and engineering three decades' worth of material for Neil Young's long-awaited boxed set.
"The path I took is still open," says Joel. "I encourage young photographers to find a band that's not already playing arenas and get attached. Even if you take a really good concert shot of a big-name band and somehow get it to them backstage, it might end up buried under a mountain of things that they're getting in the dressing room that night--most of which are terrible. The chances of sending a photo backstage and having somebody publish it are pretty small. It would be much more to the point to find a band who you can shoot in a more intimate setting like a club or theater. If you can, take them a portfolio and say, "Hey, I have this one idea for a group shot. Could I just take one shot of you outside?" Any shot that's not in a concert situation is going to be worth more because, when all is said and done, the best concert photograph is still just a concert photograph.
"Andy Warhol used to say that his idea of a great photograph was a famous person doing ordinary things. There is something to be said for that. I think my pictures of Joni in her kitchen or in an off-guard moment are much more to the point than something I might do of her in the studio. In my own photography, I've tended to avoid studio setups. The first one I ever did was for Prince. He loved it and used 50 things from one session, so it sort of succeeded in that sense. But it's not the kind of thing that I like to do or include in my portfolio."
Mark Leialoha had already been shooting concert photos on his own for some time when he chanced upon a young, struggling band from the San Francisco Bay Area called Faith No More while on assignment for Artist magazine. Though there was little or no photo demand for them at the time, Leialoha persisted because he liked their music and felt they had a shot at making it. Sure enough, when their time came, Mark had established a solid working relationship with the band and was ready to meet the sudden demand for photos. He became the band's tour photographer, and dozens of his photos have been published in books and magazines throughout the world. "I've photographed Faith No More on more than 50 occasions," he says. "One good thing about shooting a band many times is that you don't have to try to be everywhere at once. A lot of times I'll go to the show with one idea, and I'll do nothing but concentrate on that. For instance, another band I've shot a lot is Slayer. One night I decided to only shoot the drummer. Naturally, the drummer loved it and I came up with some great drum shots, which isn't easy to do. After that, anytime somebody needed individual live shots of the whole band I pretty much had all the drum shots locked up, because everybody else was concentrating on the lead singer and guitarist. I've done the same thing with keyboard players and bassists."
These days Leialoha routinely works with the biggest names in hard rock, but he's never forgotten the lesson he learned from Faith No More. He continues to seek out sessions with young, unsigned local bands, even when it means little or no money. "I like doing sessions with young bands because they are fun to work with. You do a photo session with a big-name band or artist you don't know and get maybe five or ten minutes with them, because that's what the time slot allows. With a younger band, they want you there as much as you want to be there, and you can feel free to experiment. Some of my best ideas were worked out in sessions with young, unknown bands and later used for magazine or album cover sessions for more famous ones. And if their time finally comes, and a record company is ready to spend some money, you hope they'll remember your interest and call. The hard aspect of starting with an unknown band is that you usually end up doing stuff for free or next to nothing while they are developing. When they get rich, sometimes they can't get away from the idea that you should still be working with them for free. As your business grows, you tend to charge old clients old prices and newer clients new prices, which means you have to continually keep moving on to new bands."
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