Beginner Live Music Agencies

[gazmather1973]

Hey guys, I have been shooting live music for about a year now but I am limited to shooting for 1 online magazine. Its great when I get the gigs but there are times when after submitting gigs I would like to shoot nothing happens and i am left twiddling my thumbs with nothing to shoot. I hear a lot about agencies but after sending a few emails out I am rarely met with a reply. Is my work not good enough, is the market too saturated with live music photographers? If anybody out there has any info they could spare me I would be truly grateful. Here is a link to my site so you can gague the level I am at - www.stagedivephotography.com Thanks in advance

Gaz

 

[Suzy McKnockers]

Hi Gaz

I was hoping to read more responses to this as im quite keen to move in to this area more. That said however I posted a music related topic on this site last week and also got any interest or comments - So one can only assume that there arnt many live music shooters on here sorry to say or so it seams

Do you have advice on how to get in to this type of photography? - what have you been doing in the past and where are you from?

Cheers

J

 

[landwomble]

Can't profess to be any sort of expert at this but I shoot a lot of gigs. I found a friendly promoter at my favourite small venue (which is one of the few that also has some fairly big acts - so I've shot Benjamin Booker, Miles Kane and J Mascis there recently) where he gives me a plus one to anything I fancy and I make the images available to him for use on the venue's Facebook page. I don't make any money but I do cover quite a bit and any night of the week I could be shooting someone.
If you max out social media by tagging the bands in your pictures, hitting up twitter etc, ideally the same night, then you can get quite a bit if attention.
I've got a few shots published in online zones and some in print for Time Out etc too this way.
Next step was to use my promoters contacts at other venues and maybe approach some zines to ask who they are reviewing next and among if they wanted the gig photographing.

I'm not making any money doing this, mind...but I am enjoying myself.

 

[Suzy McKnockers]

Thats Great! id love to shoot Miles Kane.

i read in the past about the money not being that good in this particular sector of photography however the upside is you get to shoot awesome bands - thats a pretty fair trade in my opinion!!
Do you get to shoot the full gigs or do you get 3 songs or as such?