Contracts, Photo Releases and other Nonsense!!

I shot a concert the the other night, unfortunately I was ambushed with a contract at the door, “no signature, no entry mate!” I was told.  Having already travelled 90 minutes to get there I figured I’d sign it, and decide what to do with the images at a later date.  The contract is less ominoous than others that I’ve seen but this had unusual seemingly random clauses that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.  There was no questioning of copyright for once, but other really odd stuff like “images may only appear on a website for a maximum of thirty consecutive days“… why??  who knows, but obviously not very portfolio friendly.  Also the record company who’s contract it was, wanted a byline credit for the record company whenever any of the images were used, again, bizzarre.

I’ll not mention the artist or the record company because I’ve asked to get it recinded, luckily my magazine who commissioned the work is again standing behind me and has told the artists management that there will be no coverage of the artist or event until they drop the contract.

The really bizarre thing is that it hurts the artist and PR agency, because the contract is issued by the record company (not the artists management).  Sometimes I share some shots with the PR/Management comapny as a good will gesture, however the contract I was made to sign disallows this, oops!  I’ve asked at the very least that anyone applying for a photography pass for any of their future gigs should be sent the contract in advance to them to allow them to make the decision whether to attend or not before they travel, rather than getting ambushed on the door!

I’ll keep you updated, in the meantime, I’ve started a thread on Concert & Music Photographers Network to get the feedback from others experiences and thoughts about contracts and photo release forms.

Good shootin’ everyone!

Is the Pap Culture hurting (Music) Photography?

I recently read either read an article or watched something on TV where an old hand in the photography business (it might have been Dennis Stone the Heathrow celebrity photographer), wherever and whatever it was, they were remenising about the kind of access you used to be able to get to stars and how it’s all changed.  Another music photographer recently said that the difference between Paps and most other photographers is that Paps try to make their subject look as bad as possible, other ‘togs do their best to make their subject look as good as possible.  So where did the line become so blurred?  Even in the few short years I’ve been shooting at concerts there seems to be this general anti-photographer feeling, unless you’re hired by the studio/label/PR, at which point you’re introduced by one of the inner circle.  I could have it all wrong, but that’s my feeling about the whole thing.

So my question is, how do we (the music photographer niche) go about winning that trust back and perhaps even going back to the times when proper access was easier to come-by, and when they didn’t have a constant contingent of bodyguards and lawyers automatically assuming everyone is out there to rip them off?

Apologies for the rant.

Competition Time

Every now and then a photography competition comes along which is entirely ethical and respects photographers copyright. I’m sure by now everyone is well aware of the TV and News exploiting the “Citizen Journalism” situation, you know the one, where they say “you act as a free photojournalist for us, and we get to keep your photo, own your copyright, use it in perpetuity and in return we’ll give you 15 minutes of fame“.

But today I saw The Daily Telegraph, sponsoring The Adventure Travel Show and along with it they’re also publicizing the cunningly named Daily Telegraph Adventure Travel Show Photography Competition. The really great thing about this is that firstly it appears to be a proper photography competition that’s open to non-professionals, which is cool, and we always need more of those, but along with that it also has proper Terms & Conditions including this gem:

It’s important to note, however, that you still own the copyright to the photo that you contribute to the competition and that if your image is accepted as the winner; we will publish your name alongside it on the website gallery. We cannot guarantee that all pictures will be used and we reserve the right to edit your comments.

Now how cool is that!?! I realise that it’s not an uncommon thing to see in photography competitions and should be the norm, it’s just nice to see it from a competition organised and sponsored by a daily newspaper. The competition runs to Midnight on 4th January 2008, so be sure to get your entries in before that, and good luck!!

Concert Photography Part 2b - Technique

So you’re going to be working with limited light, and probably gonna have your lens wide open, you want to avoid camera shake, but still want some creative control over the way you shoot, and for me (and many others this means using shutter priority on the camera, with a shutter speed set to 1/160 and 1/125 second depending on the over all effect, amount of light present and type of shot you’re going for. 1/125 and lower, means you’ll either be using an IS/VR (image stabilization or vibration reduction) lens or you have a steady hand and you’re looking to get some motion blur from the artist (that’s motion blur from the guitarist moving his hand etc, the background or surrounding should not be blurred otherwise it’s camera shake ).

You should always, always, ALWAYS, spend the time before you go into the auditorium, or before the bands come on stage checking your settings. You may only have 10 minutes to work, so to find out 6 minutes into the gig that you’ve been working at ISO 400, or lower (because you didn’t check it after the last studio shoot) is not fun. So, physically check everything, what’s my ISO?, Shutter priority selected? Spot or Partial Metering selected?? Spare (EMPTY!!) Memory Cards in your pocket?? These are the same things you’ll be checking every time before you go into a gig, so with that in mind, print your list out, laminate it, and keep it in your kit bag, it gives you a consistent list of checks every time, and if you have a small pen or marker in your bag (you do carry a pen with you right??) you can add anything else you think of at the gig, and make it a part of your list when you get back to the studio.

Lens hoods are another subject which causes contention amongst people. I think it’s essential unless you’re trying for a creative effect with flare. When the artist/band is on stage and the lights are changing and flashing, you’ll almost certainly be taking light from the side of you and chances are there will be some light pointing right at you. Some shots look great with lens flare, but personally, (like any effect) the overall impact is reduced if it’s present in absolutely every shot, but each to their own, personally I always use a lens hood to reduce flare unless I specifically want effects.

Memory cards are fiddly things, have a system for swapping them out, and have plenty with you, they’re cheap enough. Don’t wait until you have only a few shots left, try to plan for the change, between tunes or something. Again if the management only allows you a couple of tunes to shoot, then keep your largest card to hand for this, better to have lots of space left than have to change out cards in those few precious minutes you have. Have a system for changing out cards, I keep empty cards in my left pockets, and used or full in my right, so a card that comes out of the camera goes immediately into the right hand pocket, ensuring it doesn’t get reused. If you don’t have a time limit, then try and plan the change outs for between songs, or when you think things are going to be uninteresting (you already have shots of 3 guitar solos, maybe now is a good time to swap the card out??). Ony you know how many shots you take, so if you get to a gap between tunes and you have 25 frames left on your card, only you know if that’s enough to take you through the next number or if you need to change out now?

Feel free to move around for a different feel, and to help try and give the shoot some context around the band, are the band playing a famous auditorium or venue, like The Royal Albert Hall in London, think, is there anything you can work into any of the shots to tie that in?? As I’ve mentioned before get your bread and butter shots out of the way, and assuming you’re not going to get ousted after a couple of tunes, you’ll find that as the gig goes on, there will be a lot that you’ve already covered, leaving you time to experiment, artistic, special effects silhouettes, etc, this is a great time for being creative with stuff and learning on the job.

Just remember, one of the most important things is to have fun, and if you’ve prepared and thought about exactly what you want to do ahead of time, understand which shots you need to achieve your brief, checked your check card that you keep with you, once this is all taken care of, the technical side can take a back seat to your creative side, and you can let your creativity flow, and get lost in the event.

If you found these articles useful, please tell me, but more importantly tell others The next article is going to be on the very important subject of etiquette. Stay tuned!!

Concert Photography Part 2a - Creative Interpretation

Welcome back, apologies for the long delay, sometimes life just gets in the way, and things get pushed back a bit. So without further ado, here’s part 2a!!. After spending some time writing this part of the article I realised that it was going to be another tome. So I’ve split it into two parts. The first part is know your audience, who are you selling to, what style are you shooting? The second part is, what methods and technical settings am I using to get my shots.

I believe it was Ansel Adams that was attributed to have said “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” and you should regard this article in a very similar way, the techniques that I talk about here are not by any means the definitive way, or perhaps even a good way to achieve concert shots, they’re simply the way I do it.

Some folk in the business of concert photography my look upon my work as cliche, or passe, but the way I shoot is very much in accordance with my target market (the publications that commission the work I do). You should always bear this in mind when shooting. Typically publications like NME don’t want the normal “up-the-nose-shots” of bands and prefer something more off the wall, more cutting edge, which is fine if you can pull The Raconteurs to one side after a gig and take an hour of their time composing some bang up shots, but for the other 99.99% of photographers that don’t have that kind of access, it might not be a possibility. But always remember, as a general rule of thumb, when you’re starting out you should shoot the type of music that you love. If you hate classical and go to a classical music gig, your photo’s are likely to reflect that (unless you’ve been hooting stuff you don’t like for a long time and know how to get the shot the editor wants). As long as you’re shooting gigs of bands that you’d normally pay money to go and see, it’ll never get old, or dull, or boring. What’s more, you’re pictures will reflect your love and enthusiasm, it’s inevitable.

So bearing this in mind, quite often (the larger the gig the more this is likely to hold true, festivals often being an exception) you’ll be out front with the other photographers, for two or maybe three numbers, so first thing is to get the bread and butter shots, if you go out with artistic intentions and come away with nothing of use to the magazine you’re submitting to, then you have to ask why were you there?. Know the picture editor of the publication (this goes for anyone wanting to get work from a magazine, as well as those already doing so) know what they like, know the magazine, know the subject matter. Ask yourself; What style of publication is it? What’s the overall feel of the magazine? What type of stuff do they regularly publish? Do I cover bands that are appropriate fodder for them? To take an extreme example; you want NME to take a look at your portfolio, you need shots of new or cutting edge bands, and contemporary music shots, with an edgy feel to them. Mojo on the other hand, might love some “up-the-nose” shots of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, if it’s currently topical and a great image. But I digress, get the main shot, so you have something to go back with; for me perhaps this means a couple of close-ups of the individual bands members (that’s all the band members), a couple of wide shots of the group on stage, a couple of real close crops of the main artist. Ok, you’re happy that you got those, now you can start getting a little creative, some of the crowd perhaps, some with some lens flare?, some silhouettes? some blurred? BZZZZZZZZ times up, security is escorting you out of the auditorium. Two numbers have played, and assuming it’s not Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the songs are going to be probably 3 or 4 minutes each, there should be no surprises, the stage management/security will tell you in advance how many songs you’ll be allowed to shoot for. If you’re good with security, they’ll be good with you. Don’t start shooting, before or after you’re allowed, or they’ll get angry, listen closely to their instructions, and you’ll do just fine, don’t listen and ignore them and be prepared for a very short career, because you’re likely to bump in to the same security guys more than once!

So you’re back in the studio, looking at the images, post processing, if you’re working to a commission, don’t hang around prep the images for transfer (ftp, email, CD, DVD) and get them off at the earliest possible opportunity, editors have a job to do, they have to produce a magazine, if they don’t ever have to chase you for images, and they’re always sent to them in a timely fashion, then they’ll be much happier than if they have to chase for the images or worse have to redo a layout because your images simply weren’t there in a timely fashion.

I hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful or insightful. Next time, I’ll be talking a little about f-stops, shutter speeds and other stuff.

JPGMAG Submission

Every now and then the urge takes me to enter a photo into a competition (or in this case submission to a mag). That’s exactly what I did today. So don’t hang around, head on over to jpgmag and vote for it (or not) or even better… just click the link below

Professional Photographer of the Year 2007

Professional Photographer Magazine this month have announced their ever popular PPOTY Competition which is sure to draw entries from all over the UK and beyond. I’ve submitted some images to a category or two already, I’m quite pleased with the images I’ve submitted, to win something would be an uber cool accolade, well see how that goes. Winners aren’t announced until after the competition closes on August 31st, until then we’ll wait and see what happens. If you’re entering, good luck!!

Love Landscape Photography?

Charlie Waite, one of the worlds leading landscape photography talents has launched Landscape Photographer of the Year Competition in conjunction with the AA and Light and Land Photography Tours. A snippet from the website says:

Take a view, the Landscape Photographer of the Year Award, is the brainchild of Charlie Waite, one of today’s most respected landscape photographers. Together with AA Publishing, Britain’s largest travel publisher and a division of The Automobile Association, he has created this prestigious award.

With a total prize fund exceeding £20,000, plus a six-week exhibition at the National Theatre and the publication of a full colour book of Best Entries, Take a view is set to become a desirable annual competition for photographers of all ages for years to come. Britain’s heritage is celebrated by people around the world and entries are welcome from everyone, whether resident in Britain or simply visiting.