My Story as a Music Photographer

Recently, a fellow photographer reached out a few college project, which included detailing their “dream photoshoot” and the way they’d obtain it, whereas taking reference from a photographer who evokes them.

For this project, this photographed requested, “what was your path to success and how did you get to be where you are?”

I’m at all times so humbled to be included in assignments like these through the years. It’s a humorous thought to think about success. I am unable to actually say I’ve ever considered pictures as a profession, not to mention success on this pursuit.

I wished to write down an article to reply these questions, with the hope that maybe the solutions could assist others.

Starting Out as a Music Photographer

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, photographing my first live shows there and falling in love with music pictures within the metropolis’s venues.

I began photographing exhibits in smoky basement dives and native golf equipment and theaters, photographing principally bands I listened to. I shot at no cost for an area road press till I began to shoot for a weekly newspaper and leisure publications that ultimately paid my lease each month. For a number of years, I photographed 3-5 live shows each week.

I by no means actually appreciated my hometown on the time. After all, I had no body of reference. In hindsight, it was the proper place to develop as a music photographer, with a thriving native music scene and the essential mass to safe tour stops from a lot of the largest excursions at its stadiums and arenas. But it was not NYC or LA, and even Chicago. For me, discovering success meant being discovered.

Being Seen: Sharing My Work on ishootshows.com

I registered the area for this web site, ishootshows.com, in 2006, just some months after photographing my first live performance. I wished a website that was simple to recollect, that I may shout over the din of a present if somebody requested me the place they might see my pictures. But it would not be for practically a yr that I began posting. shared my pictures, updates like upcoming exhibits I deliberate on photographing and different small updates.

Along the way in which, I began sharing posts on approach and equipment, like how you can do take care of crimson lighting, or the lenses and cameras I used. As I discovered, it felt pure to share alongside the way in which.

At the time, there have been solely actually a couple of pages I discovered on the web that actually gave any perception into music pictures. One was a photograph.internet article that was extra about photographing portraits of bands. The different was Daniel Boud’s boudist.com web site, which featured two nice posts on how to get started in music photography. Daniel’s weblog actually impressed me to start out sharing what I discovered alongside the way in which.

Why do I point out all of this background to reply a query about one’s path to success?

Nearly each huge break of mine has come from somebody discovering me, from the primary shoppers who flew me out to shoot with them from my hometown to Nikon and Rolling Stone, and even the Tonight Show. Most discovered me by means of looking Google some variation on “music photographer” or “concert photographer,” which led them to my weblog and portfolio.

I genuinely really feel like I owe a profession to this weblog you are studying proper now.

Some extent of distinction

Having this web site lengthy earlier than social media like Instagram gave me a spot to share my pictures. There have been web sites like Flickr that existed, with nice communities for live performance pictures, however having my very own web site gave me one thing of my very own.

In hindsight, extra basically, it let me share extra than simply pictures. I began writing posts on the gear I used, how you can {photograph} live shows from a technical perspective, how you can get a photograph go, and so forth. This weblog additionally offered a platform for connecting with others, participating by means of feedback on submit and welcoming questions that I’d reply in different posts.

Over the years, I’ve had many consumers who mentioned they employed me due to this weblog. Not simply because they discovered it, however as a result of they’d learn articles and appreciated the truth that I responded to feedback and shared what I may, past the pictures.

I keep in mind after I first began this weblog, I used to be extraordinarily excited that in the future I had ten guests in a day. Then 20, then 50. For a time, should you googled “concert photography” or “music photographer,” this weblog was usually on the primary web page. So after I say I owe a profession to this weblog, it is due to everybody who learn an article or clicked by means of, and to all these folks to whom I’m so grateful.

A Path to Success

It feels intensely awkward for me to write down about success, because it’s one thing I’ve by no means actually thought of and even one thing which have felt like I’ve achieved. There is at all times one thing extra to do or different alternatives. I by no means got down to have a profession, I simply wished to shoot exhibits.

So as an alternative, I’ll listing a timeline of some milestones and occasions which have felt vital to me.

2006-2007: I photographed my first live performance on a whim. After that first present, I used to be hooked. About per week after that first present, I began contributing to a streetpress in my house city, taking pictures at no cost. Everyone volunteered their time for the publication, so it felt like a good deal on the time. I used to be the publication’s essential photographer throughout this time, so I eagerly photographing as many exhibits as I may, many in small and dim membership venues.

2008-2009: These years held lots of firsts for me. I began freelancing usually for the Riverfront Times, an alt-weekly newspaper in St. Louis. I transitioned to taking pictures virtually solely paid freelance gigs round this time and was contributing to 2 paying publications in my space. I got here into these gigs as a result of I met editors from the publications within the photograph pit. In 2008, I had my first project for Rolling Stone, photographing Warped Tour. In 2009, I had certainly one of my first huge business gig photographing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Fuse TV. Other highlights embrace doing a shoot for Wrangler Jeans and taking pictures for American Express in 2009 as nicely. These have been actually thrilling years as a result of it felt like I used to be lastly making progress as a photographer.

2010-2011: After the thrilling years previous, this span of time felt like lots of the identical. There have been extra alternatives, however fewer firsts. I used to be nonetheless photographing 3-5 live shows per week throughout this time and I used to be proud within the second to pay my lease by photographing live shows. When I look again at pictures from these years, they really feel strong and competent, together with pictures from 2009 as a turning level. I really feel like my strategy as a photographer began to solidify on this time.

2012-2014: In 2012, I first photographed for iHeartRadio Music Festival, which I’ve photographed ever since. This was my first time engaged on a competition media staff. In 2013, I did my first work as a tour photographer, photographing a collection of enviornment/stadium excursions. In 2013, I additionally began freelancing for Red Bull and photographing their occasions. In late 2013, I moved to NYC and continued to freelance for iHeartRadio photographing their theater exhibits in addition to working for Red Bull.

2015: In 2015, I had my first contact with Nikon, after they discovered me (through Google) and requested me to be a part of a digital camera launch marketing campaign for the Nikon D500 DSLR digital camera. This was an enormous second for me, as I’ve at all times used Nikon cameras and liked the gear.

2018-2021: After a pair extra very small tasks with Nikon, in 2018 I used to be invited to turn out to be a Nikon Ambassador for Nikon USA. I had the fortune of engaged on a couple of different digital camera campaigns within the subsequent few years, together with the Nikon Z7, Nikon Zfc, Nikon Z6II and Nikon Z7II. In 2019, I used to be capable of every a masterclass with Creative Live, filming a workshop over 5 days in Seattle, Washington. I had by no means thought it was attainable to be a part of such a undertaking, however this was actually a dream alternative, made attainable because it was sponsored by Red Bull.

2022: In early 2022, I acquired a chilly electronic mail from a photograph editor at NBC asking if I wished to check out for the position of photographer for the Tonight Shows starring Jimmy Fallon.

2023-2025: In 2024, I used to be employed as teacher by Best Buy to assist train their digital camera gross sales associates portrait pictures utilizing Nikon cameras. In the identical yr, I held a two-day music pictures workshop in LA sponsored by Nikon USA.*

* I had by no means actually thought of myself a instructor, however these alternatives in addition to the Creative Live workshop have given me the understanding that I actually love educating and mentoring. Which in hindsight has been the true essence of this web site for thus a few years.

2026 and past: A continued existential disaster. After considering of myself as “just” a music photographer for a really very long time, now as I reside in a realm of movie star and leisure photographing the Tonight Show, who is aware of what the longer term will maintain. I nonetheless love that I get to {photograph} reside music and artists 3-4 days out of the week.

Standing Out as a Photographer

I’m usually requested how you can get larger gigs, appeal to larger shoppers or usually how to achieve success as a photographer. When I hear these questions, I really feel like all of them circle the identical problem: How do you stand out?

There are as some ways to face out as there are totally different sorts of individuals on this world. But what feels clear is that to face out, it’s a must to be totally different.

This distinction can definitely come within the work — in your visible type, the presentation or consistency. But this may be arduous to tug off, particularly while you’re taking pictures elbow to elbow with different photographers within the photograph pit. If you are a genius degree photographer whose work stands out simply on visible distinction alone, maybe simply making pictures and being seen is sufficient.

For everybody else, I really feel like the chance is to additionally think about how one can take your abilities and the instruments it’s a must to discover a manner you will be totally different from the group.

For me, my weblog was a car that gave me a degree of distinction, even when that was by no means the purpose. Writing has at all times come fairly simply for me. I’d definitely relatively write a 1,000 phrase article explaining one thing relatively than movie myself speaking for social media, or ship 10 or 10,000 chilly emails. I do not wish to go to events to community. For me, this platform and sharing what I discovered alongside the way in which was a manner I may stand out, in hindsight. At a time when nobody else was sharing a lot information about music pictures, this weblog let me have a voice.

I genuinely really feel like everybody has strengths they’ll lean on. You do not should be the most effective — I’m definitely not the most effective author. But inside your individual private disposition, your abilities and the instruments you will have obtainable, there’s some facets which might be basically you that may be your car.

There’s no single system for achievement that is going to work for everybody. If there have been, the purpose of distinction would not exist. If there’s one factor that feels true, it is that you must lean into your self. Do what comes, if not simply, than naturally. Follow that individualism in your self.

If you are doing the very same factor as everybody else, it is arduous to face out. Do what others cannot or will not. Do the arduous issues, even when simply 1% greater than the particular person subsequent to you. That 1% may make all of the distinction.

If you instructed me it will take a decade or two and writing over 1,000 weblog posts to have a profession, I do not assume I might have began. The process would have felt too daunting. I waited practically a yr to write down my first submit on this weblog as a result of the thought of beginning it felt so heavy. But after the primary submit, I made one other one. And then one other. Stack it up, day after day, the inconceivable can begin to appear like the inevitable while you look again, as inconceivable as that feels.

Sharing, educating, nerding out about settings, approach and course of — I liked all of that from the very starting. Success will not look the identical for everybody; it may possibly’t. But give attention to your self, make the pictures that solely you can also make. That will at all times set you aside in one of the best ways.