Photographing Live Music

It is a great privilege to photograph a musician at work. Just being that close to the music is exhilarating and one art form can inspire the other. I believe it is important to build up a relationship that is non-invasive to the performer and the watching/listening public, to be almost invisible to the punter and to be an encouraging, friendly face to the musician in a sea of darkness.

I have made documentary photographs, seeking out the truth, since going through college and photographing music is a natural extension of this. My interest in the genre was reawakened whilst living in Tucson Arizona in 2004; documenting live performances of dance, poetry and dj skills by young disenfranchised people experiencing non-mainstream art. Since living in Bideford I have been fortunate to photograph its Folk Festival and the North Devon Folk Festival.

Many of the skills associated with photographing the interior of a small dark cave with bright light coming in from the front can be transferred to shooting live musicians on a dimly lit temporary stage at a Folk Festival or on a weekend in a local pub. The cramped conditions and low light are the most obvious but unlike a cave, here you're usually restricted to a shutter speed of faster than 1/15 of a second else the performer is too blurred. Like my landscapes the music photographs are often made up of a multiple of single images. This is because I sometimes need the foreground and background in focus, or so that each member of a band is in focus, or without movement, or simply to capture the best (decisive moment) for each performer. I won't use flash unless I can't get a picture otherwise, because the atmosphere and intimacy created with low lighting needs to be captured naturally.

Bideford Folk Festival

2009 was my fourth year photographing the Bideford Folk Festival. The Festival Committee benefit by getting some great images for their promotion, programme, website and as a record of the event; musicians benefit by obtaining images, I allow them to use on their own websites, for no charge and I benefit by getting to experience more of the festival than anyone else! Click on the slideshow to the left for a sample of 2009's festival.

In addition to the live concert and session photos I offered the option of posed publicity images to the musicians this year and you'll see examples of these for ‘Tri' and ‘Bloater Town Band'.

ReCyc Junk Band

The highlight of my music photography must be the commissioned work I did for Wren Music in 2007 as an ‘arts' worker and documenter of their junk band, Recyc, undertaking a funded project the ‘River Taw, from Moor to Shore'. This work, in collaboration with musicians Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll and the 14-16 year old band members, resulted in a video made up of stills shot at 4 frames per second, illustrating their journey through the writing, making and performing of music inspired by the River Taw and the journey of the river from it's source to the sea. Thousands of single photographs were taken of the ReCyc band members playing their self penned music, many at four frames per second; which were then constructed together as small animations. Examples of all of this work can be seen via my blog.

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