Photo Assignment: Concert Photography!

In my short time as a concert photographer I was able to travel to so many cool places and I was able to meet a ton of fantastic people. I didn't get to travel as much as I would have like to as a concert photographer before my girlfriend and myself had our daughter, it is my opinion that as a father there is nothing more important to me than spending time with my daughter and family, I realized very quickly with all the travelling required as an event photographer I was going to have to prioritize photography or being a father if I was actually going to do one or the other really well.

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There are few rules a concert photographer has to live and die by if a photographer is going to attempt to try to penetrate the concert photography Realm. There are so many young concert photographers vying for a photoPass at shows these days with limited slots for photographers to shoot. Concert promoters are now relying on data from sites like Alexa rankings to determine in a list of priority which photographer is deserving to be at shows and which photographers don't make the grade. So I guess a good place to start in terms of rules of thumb for photographers is you're going to want to try to find the best possible blog or media Outlet to report for since that will be your best chance to gain access to the shows you actually want to shoot. Reaching out to a blog or media Outlet you want to work for by email is pretty easy to do. Email photo editors to let them know you are available on short notice if they ever need a photographer to go to a show, at that point once you send a few images from your collection to demonstrate to promoters what you're capable of it's just a matter of time before you get a response and they start to rely on you as a secondary photographer if their main guy is not around or sick.

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The next thing you're going to want to do as a concert photographer is turn off your flash. Using a flash to capture ambient light in a venue or concert setting is next to impossible to do properly and usually not very desirable considering the quality of lighting available at most of these shows today. Although using a flash to capture portraits of people attending the show in the audience is cool because it's kind of a different thing when you're capturing an artist who is performing on stage you're going to have to turn off your flash and take it off the camera because it's not going to make a lick of difference and it's going to affect the Integrity of your images overall by using that flash.

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Concert photography is all about timing. From showing up at the venue early and getting your PhotoPass on time to emailing concert promoters to get the photo pass, every aspect of a photoshoot when it comes to concert photography relies on timing , when time is not properly managed photographers will miss the photoshoot entirely and at the end of the day that looks bad if you're working for someone who was relying on those images for a blog or news story. If you can not manage time well, concert photography may not be you're bag.

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Practice makes perfect in photography as well as concert photography. Exercising photographic techniques is fundamental to improving one's overall Talent and peeking the interest of potential clients or artist who you desire to work with. I can't say enough about exercising photographic technique's that will help you better understand dynamic lighting and composition to better help you gauge the kind of photographs that work for your style and the ones that you can live without.

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See full collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jazminmillion/albums/72157606678021476

Note: Right click on any image and open in new tab for full res ;D

Photos and post by STEEMIT user: Jazmin Million

***I appreciate you taking a few seconds to check out my introduction post to concert photography and I look forward to reading your responses to the images I was able to capture throughout a portion of my experience as a concert photographer.