When searching through music catalogs leaves you frustrated with no results, it's time to get creative with how you source the perfect soundtrack.

Music photography is a heavily saturated industry. With many emerging photographers happy to shoot for free to have their name associated with musicians, it has become very difficult to make a living by specializing in music. But there are a few pioneers who have risen amongst this heightened competition; this is the story of renowned music photographer Kana Waiwaiku.

One mistake that I've noticed many photographers make is not thinking about what type of music they have playing while on a shoot. You'd be surprised how changing the tracks up a little can dramatically affect the outcome of your images. Check out these free playlists before your next shoot.

Successful concert photographer David Bergman has been shooting in front of screaming fans for years. His new workshop can land you right next to him in the shooting pit for one of his big-ticket clients.

Do you ever find yourself having an emotional reaction to a movie and you're not quite sure why? If you're making movies, you need to spend time being intentional with the music you select. It's too powerful a tool to leave in the drawer.

As an entertainment and tour photographer, Susannah Brittany primarily shoot stills and video shots for some of the world’s top pop and country music artists. This basically involves shooting all day long: while they are doing media interviews or meet and greets, of/during travel on the bus, behind the scenes content of the artists getting ready or in-between shows, and then of course, while they are performing. Her work ends up being used used for new media distribution, including YouTube, social media, and sizzle reels.

This funny video created by Julia Mattison is probably the best thing that came out of the invention of Instagram. If you're addicted to Instagram, this song will make you feel ashamed. If you're a friend of someone who's addicted, this video will remind you how much your friend can be annoying. Happy watching everyone!

While Taylor Swift’s gorgeous looking revenge-fest music video to “Look What You Made Me Do” continues to break streaming records across the Internet, I’d like to shine a light on some of the lesser-known music videos that have stood out over the last few months that don’t demand the eye watering budget of a Swifty vid.

All too often in our business, we are thrust into a job in which we either have no time for or cannot afford lighting tests. I find that these gigs force me to fall back on my old tricks and techniques. This can lead to the dangerous place of shooting stuff that all looks the same. Sure, you can try out new ideas on personal projects, but sometimes, the job calls for stuff that you don’t own or cannot afford to get. Usually, when planning a shoot, I have great theories and fantastic ideas on how to pull off a look. However, the idea of winging it in front...

Take a quick moment to watch Profoto’s latest clip showing off their wireless flash trigger, Connect, used by Hélène Pambrun. When you’re done, give Profoto’s accompanying story a read.

It's set in a ghost town, the Tianducheng development in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. It has an Eiffel Tower replica and empty buildings which sets a perfect scene for this incredibly choreographed music video. Directed by Romain Gavras, the video has hundreds of kids with peroxided, yellow-white hair and matching outfits running through the deserted city to the foot of the replica Eiffel tower, and a very unique dancing style captured with great aerial video.

Sure, you could go grab incredible live shots of an artist and post them all over the internet. Guess what? If those images aren’t in their manager’s hands when it is time to make the new round of posters or t-shirts, you’re no further along in terms of advancing your photography business than you were before you hit the shutter button.

Kendrick Lamar's newest music video, "ELEMENT," was released this week. The video is directed by Jonas Lindstroem and The Little Homies (aka Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free) and takes Photographer Gordon Parks' iconic imagery and breathes new life via video. I'm not sure how many of our readers listen to Kendrick Lamar, but you should. He's brilliant, in both lyric and music video direction.

Photographing live music is a difficult but rewarding genre and can require a masterful understanding of settings to get the best images. If you can use speedlights, however, you not only gain more control over the results, but it allows for greater creativity too.

Any video editing task depends on what type of video it is (documentary, music video, industrial/business, TV show), what style will be used, will it include extensive animation/effects/titles, and so on. The ultimate sacrifice one has to make as a video editor is time.

For all you creators out there! LG understands there’s more to the final output. There’s also the “process.” All the hours spent working, toiling, creating, that no one ever sees. The endless brain-strain and ideating a creator dedicates to their goal is what makes up their UltraWide Time. Few will ever see or understand the process, where all the work and magic happen. But LG understands.

Matthew Hogan, a talented photographer and videographer from Tyler, Texas, shot country band, JB and the Mooonshine band. He not only shot the band for a promotional photoshoot, but for their music video, as well. Using Alienbee lighting, a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens he composited the individual band members together for the final image.

It's no secret that I love the music phenomenon of EDM or electronic dance music, and it seems I'm not the only one with fans ranging from all ages across the globe its popularity only seems to be spreading. With so much new music and artists coming into the scene it's interesting to see how the music can be visually interpreted into music videos.

Where do you get your inspiration from? The outdoors? The city? Or maybe human beauty? Wherever it comes from, it drives us as creatives. As visual artists, we translate this inspiration into images or videos but the process of getting there isn't always easy. Long hours, little sleep, and the added stress of paying the bills can leave us losing focus. Maybe your original passion isn’t as strong as it use to be or all the family photo sessions you have taken on leave you feeling like all the fun is gone? So what do you do when you feeling like you're loosing your creative edge? Crank up the tunes and start jammin' out because here are three ways music can transform your photography.

You’ve just finished shooting a beautiful wedding video and your edits are being finalized. But wait — you still need to find the music to go behind each scene. Use these five insightful tips to find the perfect music that will enhance your next wedding video.

I shot and edited a narrative film in the last month. It was a first for me. I had this scene in my mind of a person burying a suitcase or bag in the woods, like it’s something he or she wanted to hide or get away from. I had a second idea about a guy walking down a long passage way and knocking on a door with no one opening for him. I decided these two contrasting visual ideas will be my story.

Photographers Irwin Wong and Michel Jones put together this catchy spoof of Bruno Mars' "Billionaire" music video. I defy you to not find yourself bopping along to this one or catch yourself listening more than once.

It so happens that ultraviolet light bulbs (or black lights) weren't discontinued in the 90s. In fact there are plenty of photographers out there who are shooting some incredible stuff under black lights. But shooting video in this guise brings its own set of unique challenges. Here are some tips to create video in this hedonistic and fluorescent style.

Picking the right music for your next video project can elevate your final cut or destroy it. The soundtrack is the beating heart of any video project, and you can direct your viewer toward an emotion or message based on your selection. Here are some tips to choosing the right music.

Using music in your films is one of the best ways to drive emotion, connect to the audience, and elevate the video. If the visuals and the music are out of sync, however, disaster can happen. Here are a few tips for editing music to videos from a seasoned professional.

82-year-old photographer, Robert Freeman, famed for his worth with the Beatles, has passed away.

My buddy Paul Mckelvie in the UK just showed me this music video for Benga that he worked on a while back as a runner for the video's directors, Us. The concept is fantastic and the execution turned out great. Once Us had the idea for the video, the next problem was trying to figure out how to actually do it. There was a lot of math homework, calculating the number of records per second against the frame rate. It worked out to be that 960 records would be the equivalent of 1 minute and 20 seconds worth of wave form.

The first time I heard Lana Del Rey was watching her music video for "Video Games" last year. I thought it was just a tribute video to some old songstress I had never heard of. Little did I know this "gangster Nancy Sinatra" was about to be the next big thing in music. Her videos are always visually stunning, so when I found this behind the scenes video from her music video for her cover of "Blue Velvet," I had to share it. "Blue Velvet" was recorded and released in conjunction with H&M's 2012 Autumn Campaign in which Lana Del Rey modeled in. The BTS video lacks dialog but still gives a very good insight into the production process.

A while ago we posted the video Dream Music Part 2, which has since blown up and become a huge hit online. Marc Donahue, one of the co-creators along with Sean Michael Williams, shot me a link to their behind the scenes reel, which shows timelapses of timelapses, using various setups with their Dynamic Perception Dolly kit.

With no audio to worry about, and just around four minutes to fill, music video production is one of the most accessible ways for cinematographers and videographers to broaden their creative horizons and be paid. To secure music video work, your prospective client will expect a summary of your idea first, which is known as a “treatment.” This is a guide to what you should include, and how to make your treatments stand out for the crowd.

Imagine an application that can write music for your video with only some hints from you about the style of music and the length of the video. Imagine an app that will write music that fits with your dissolves or add a punchy note wherever you like for emphasis.

One of the greatest experiences in watching films is when the sound and image work together in a cohesive unit that drives the intended emotions home for the viewers. Creating that experience takes the work of highly skilled professionals, like Hans Zimmer and Richard King. In this video, they discuss their workflow on the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises", talk about Bane's voice, creating effects for the Bat, and give viewers a taste of what it's like to work on a project of such scale.

Live music session recordings have always been a pillar of the YouTube community, as much as movie trailers and sneezing cats. But over the last few years, thanks to the VEVO dscvr & Sofar Sounds movements, they have seen a great surge in popularity. Here is our essential guide to filming and editing live band sessions.

Alice Hirsch (they/them) is a portrait and music photographer based out of Toronto, Canada. They combine the best of vintage images with a new world mindset of collaboration and exhibition.

Seattle-based photographer and cinematographer Mitch Pittman captured his friends The Musical Mountaineers and Nikki Frumkin in an ode to the mountains in Mt. Rainier National Park. Watch the video and read how.

Do you love movie soundtracks? Do you know why you like the soundtracks that you do? Do you ever struggle to add music to your films that has meaning to the themes and stories of the production?

As we all know, even the most stunning visuals require an equally amazing and unique soundtrack to bring the audience's emotions to their full potential. Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Christopher Boyles from Skywalker Sound discusses his work and the burden of creating original sounds for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" that will stand the test of time.

Academy Awards season is swiftly coming and to get the buzz going a little earlier the Oscars have come out with a brand new trailer with talk-show darling Ellen DeGeneres and 250 dancing extras. The trailer was directed by Paul Feig who is best known for "Bridesmaids" and "the Heat". It looks like they used an ARRI Alexa to film the trailer. It's a fun and cute glimpse into what we can look forward to at this coming year's Academy Awards show.

This livestreamed special event which sees Paul McCartney discuss his photography and memories of a unique time in history is one not to be missed, and you can watch online globally.

Concert photography is probably one of the most appealing genres to shoot for any photographer. When I first picked up a camera, the only thing I wanted to photograph was my favorite bands as they played live. Our good friend and Canon Explorer of Light ambassador David Bergman is launching a pretty unique live workshop called Shoot From the Pit that will not only let you work side by side with David himself but also shoot a variety of artists as they perform live.

Finding the perfect soundtrack for a video project or short film can be a laborious and painful process for budget filmmakers, yet it’s a task that requires plenty of care and attention. Music Vine claims to have filled this gap in between by providing affordable, high quality, curated music licensing. We sat down with Co-founder Lewis Foster to speak all things music licensing for video projects.

In a day and age where DSLR HD video is all the rage with indie film makers, Scotty Liberatore decided to take a different route. Using only a Lomography LomoKino 35mm Film Camera and a few different film stocks Scotty made a very interesting and unique video for rapper Diatribe.

SerialBox Presents is a live music project created by Texas photog and all-around creative, Ryan Booth. Serial Box produces music videos that are shot entirely on a few 5Dmk2s with audio tracked into ProTools. There are no overdubs, no cut-ins, and no pick-ups. What you see and hear is one time through, mistakes and all.