Bands and Music

It's always amazed me how inspiration emerges and evolves  differently for everyone. For example today I've been finding inspiration all around me in the most obscure places. Sitting here watching a documentary on Steven Tyler and his musical career, drug addictions, idols, and family. I've had quite a few musicians ask me to shoot for them lately and I've been wondering to myself what makes a really great band photo? What makes a great musician is probably the first question. And what is the difference between shooting a model and shooting a band? There are a lot of similarities.

One of the most obvious differences that jumps out at me are "the rules." For models in a sense there are all kinds of rules that you must follow for certain types of photography. You must remain proper, or elegant, sophisticated, silly, flirty, and most importantly lady-like. Obvisouly there are always exceptions to these rules (see ellen von unwerth or Terry Richardson). Check out this cool interview with Terry below....Here he is speaking a bit about the ability to open yourself up for the camera and share your soul (in a sense) with another person. This can be a very liberating and connecting experience. I usually go into my shoots not knowing my models but by the end (when its a great shoot) we feel like we have been longtime friends...because we were able to make that connection. I think thats one of the biggest challenges for new models and its one of the reasons shoots with musicans can be so exciting. Musicians are generally used to baring their souls...and I've learned from experience they love it and want you to listen to it, feel it, and live it with them.



Another stylistic aspect of band photography is the "coolness factor." All musicans want to look cool. Their ideas about what that means may vary but its an important thing to consider when shooting. Then incorporating that into creating a new and unique look or style. In my opinion nothing is ever really new, you are just taking something that has already been done and putting your personal twist onto it and infusing the life and soul that we talked about above. Now I am ready to go shoot some bands. Hit me up if you are interested in getting photos or video for your band!