I recently photographed a small concert gig and really liked it alot. The artists were my sister's acquaintances so when one of them approached me to photograph their gig, i agreed to it immediately. It was my first time doing it and really it was fantastic. Just loved capturing lights and fogs with the artists.
How do i go around starting this officially? Do i go to recording companies or local bands and ask them if they need a photographer for their gigs and covers? I'm just looking into small local bands just to start out first. Any advice on this? Appreciate everyone's help!
Cheers,
Don.
Not much market locally. I would say no such market at all in a real world sense.
The music scene in our country is considered very small. The musicians are mostly indie artists, which means they are hobbyists, when they perform, they are paid little. They don't earn enough money from their own performance gigs to pay you, if they do pay you its from their own pockets - money from their real day job/parents/just rich, after a while, they start feeling its unnecessary costs. Especially there are a lot of photography hobbyists willing to do it free immediately, as you had yourself recently did.
The real big shows from the money making music industries, that is, the real stars and celebs - they already got their own photographers, AND they also got the media (newspaper/magazines). How do you, me, or any of the rest of the 1000+++ photographers out there compare to get in? If you get my drift.
I used to charge a musician half the rates of what I charge commercial clients for events, she paid me with her own money. After a few years, she went on to become full time musician. She no longer hire me I think because after becoming a full time musician her income took a dive and also it became highly unstable.
Had a young guitarist friend who play locally and regionally southeast asia, occasionally USA even, and still, he had never ever asked me even once, (himself is a film photography enthu), contending with deep orange blurry pics from wannabes - just BW it and keep the sharp ones with lucky compositions.