Concert photographers are some of the most passionate types I know as well as the nicest. The adrenaline rush of photographing a musician you really love, less than ten feet away from them in a cramped space full of other people doing the same thing is really. Stand up for. Shooting a concert, especially a festival, can be super hard work. You lug around twenty pounds of photo gear for at least four hours, you are concentrating and using all of your brain muscles during the set, especially if that set has lighting jumping all over the place. You have ten minutes max first three songs to get your money shot.
The Wedding Photographer
Go to any live music event and if the crowd is big enough, there will be photographers snapping away for the first three songs. Concert photography is a blast, but does that blast produce bucks? Circa I was living in Chicago, arguably the biggest culture hub of the Midwest. Deeply involved with the local music scene, I went out to shows just about every weekend. As an aspiring photography student, I naturally took my camera with me to many of these shows and quickly found live music was my favorite niche. Most of the shows were small local acts, so I didn’t have to worry about press passes. Unfortunately I also wasn’t worried about the monetary side of this as my liberal arts education was teaching me everything about critiquing 20th century paintings and not a single thing about the business end of photography. Local bands soon caught on to my presence and would occasionally invite me to photograph them in exchange for drink tickets or occasionally a small cash payment. I might have done it for free back then anyway. A couple years later I graduated with my liberal arts degree. It was time to make all that tuition money back, right? At the encouragement of friends and family, I sought out advice from more experienced music photographers.
Working as a Music Producer
Surely some had made a decent living at it, and I could find one. I sent this photographer an email explaining that I was hoping to also concentrate on live music photography as a career and asked if he had any advice. His words of wisdom? He explained to me a truth that became obvious once I started paying attention: there are thousands of photographers out there who want to shoot music, and almost all of them are happy to do it for free.
Does This Mean Nobody Can Make Money Shooting Live Music?
Career Search What do you want to become? Career Overview: A Music Photographer shoots live concerts, musician portraits and band promo photos. Music Photographers shoot live concerts, band promo photos and portraits of Musicians for use by media outlets or the bands themselves. They also edit their photos. Although some venues do have House Photographers, the majority are freelancers who have been hired by the venue, band, or media outlet, or who will shop their work around to the media. Since it can be difficult to generate sustainable income solely from music photography, many Photographers also provide other services such as wedding photography, product photography, etc. For example, if I am planning to shoot a live performance, I may do some advance research and look at photos from other shows to get an orientation of the types of light being used and the stage set up. If I am doing a backstage or set up photo shoot I may spend some time researching the personality of the Artist. These are the people who can provide you with the credentials you need to shoot bands. Career Articles. Quality Blog Posts. Advancement Most Music Photographers start out as Interns or by contributing photos to blogs for free, so advancement would come in the form of getting paid more money per shot or event. Advancement would also mean establishing a name and reputation as a talented and in-demand Photographer.
“Don’t Even Bother, Kid.”
Give it a go! Tags blogs dubstep lfo-tool marketing massive microphones native-instruments resources sidechain sound-design soundcloud xfer youtube. Make sure to create a custom folder of stock music to show them how versatile you are as a producer. Get started on Patreon today. If so are you using one of the options listed above or do you do something else? Usually, most music that you hear on commercials, movies, or even video games, has been picked from a stock library. From selling beats, sample packs, or merchandise, to offering production services, or even just collecting your royalties the right way, there are a variety of money making tactics that can financially benefit you. However, with so many viable opportunities, how can you know which ones are the right ones for you? Another way to make money is to provide paying fans exclusive access to a video hangout with you or your band. You can pick out any commercial or video that you find online, mute it, and try making a custom track that would fit with it! Popular Courses. Royalties are not always easy to track.
Previously 120Pearls. Discovery through the lens and the pens.
Instantly I felt the pressure of the task before me. Even though I had nearly a year to prepare before the big day it still felt like I had a mountian to climb.
It was this pressure that pushed me to get help and make sure that I did the best I possibly could with the experience that I. These are four of the most important ways to get started in wedding photography, but by no means is an exhaustive list of wedding photography tips.
Okay so the global economy is still pretty much in the ICU, but things are starting to look a little better right? The going rate for real estate photography is going to change based on region so you might want to see if you can find local rates in your area. A DSLR, a wide-angle lens and a tripod will go a long way. Fine art photography is probably the most competitive and most difficult avenue to break into due to the fact that the market is saturated with photographers trying to sell their photography and the fact that wall space is limited we all only have four walls in each room to hang photographs on and typically we want those photographs to mean something to us.
Are you making money with your photography? If so are you using one of the options listed above or do you do something else? Share below!
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH PHOTOGRAPHY — Things I wish I knew
1. You’re a Music Producer, Make Music!
Although general public outcry in the photography industry and in one case, a well-directed tweet have resulted in a few small victories, concert photographers worldwide are still struggling to come to grips with the harsh reality of providing their services for free, with zero expectation of monetary compensation or even retaining copyrights to their own photos. So what does all this mean to you? Well, if your primary motivation for getting into live music photography is to try and make enough money to earn a decent living, then you might want to reconsider your options. But for the most part, those folks are the exception rather than the rule.
Concert Photographer, House Photographer, Photographer
You might be wondering to yourself how this is even fair, or whether music photography is somehow unique in this regard…. But beyond that, if you happened to be a well-equipped concert photographer in particular, then you could enjoy virtually unrestricted access to the photo pit of just about any show you wanted to shoot. This was because the equipment required for the job maoe lenses and full-frame cameras was prohibitively expensive for most amateur shooters, tto you had almost zero competition for the muic gigs. To paraphrase Joe McNally, your [high-end] camera effectively became a passport— and you could use it to gain access to people and places that would have been completely off-limits to you. However, things soon began to change. Camera technology improved at breakneck speeds. Prices dropped dramatically. Before long, it became possible for novice photographers to acquire relatively high-end equipment without breaking the bank. And guess what? This is exactly where we still find ourselves today. Are you ready for it? There are WAY too many people out there who are perfectly happy to shoot shows for free, and then fork over the fruits of their labor for absolutely nothing in return. Instead, do what I did— focus your time and effort on shooting band promos portraits instead, and start training yourself to think of concert photography as more of a way to build relationships with your target clientele—not as a photographef of revenue in and of. So to summarize, the real secret to making money with music photography is to:.
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