Music Photography

A published photographer by the age of 16, Alec Byrne has worked with a plethora of rock legends. In a new interview, he has opened up about what it was like working with musicians such as David Bowie and Bob Marley.

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.

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.

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.

Shooting live music appears to polarise photographers, with some enjoying it and some disliking the lack of creative control. While it isn't my favourite genre to put my camera to work, I do get some satisfaction from the atmosphere, unusual lighting, and singular poses. I noticed, however, that I had a bad habit: I didn't move very much and simply reframed the images using different focal lengths of my 70-200mm. So I decided to take a risk.

Living in the live music capital of Texas, there is no shortage of opportunities to experience incredible shows while taking some memorable shots. Capturing the excitement can be tricky, however, as dim lighting and moving subjects don’t usually play well together. Here are some tips for making the most of your next concert.

Best idea ever? The crew over at Droptree Productions took every chance on breaks and in between takes to capture clips for a ridiculous (and amazing) music track, just for funsies. And we love funsies. It's not just a lip dub of a popular track either, it's all about film production and has everything from a fresh beat to a rippin' guitar solo from a dude with a giant beard. Stop what you're doing and watch this.

Dancing on treadmills, zero-gravity choreography, laser-beamed toast, and extreme dominoes — this is a list of some of the wonderful and wacky ideas OK Go have turned into music videos. Every one is wonderfully executed, but how do they devise and develop such elaborate and complicated ideas during their creative process?

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. Websites like Audio Jungle make it affordable to license music, yet the huge library means finding the ideal track difficult. On the other end of the scale, Marmoset provides excellent, curated music but may be too expensive for your budget. 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.

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.

"Glow" is a creative new music video from Toronto-based cinematographer Jonah Haber. Using a glow-in-the-dark background similar to what is often called a shadow wall, Haber captures the dancer's movements as a series of shadows frozen in time.

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.

Beautiful images are crucial to create an attractive video, but the soundtrack is just as important if not more. Put crappy sound over your breathtaking pictures, and people will probably not even watch more than a few seconds before stopping the film. When creating content for YouTube, finding good music or sound effects can be quite a challenge. But there are solutions, here are three of them to help you out and hopefully make your clips even better!

I am a fan of good music. We all are. What I like even more is when a music video is directed to the music I like in a creative way that leaves me questioning how it was done, and how I can use the same tricks in my editing if at all possible.

One thing I’m sure all band photographers, like myself, question all the time, is the necessity for the Three Song Rule limit at live concerts. Is it still as necessary as promoters and agents make it out to be, or is just because it’s become the norm over years?

Last year I told you all about a new commercial music site that was just starting up in beta version. As with all beta sites, there were a few things that customers wanted changed. Artlist.io listened, and has completely rebuilt the site from our requests to release the full version. Check out all of the great new features this subscription based music website has to offer!

Fed up with audience members filming the show with their phones, one musician stopped playing mid-song and turned their own behavior back on them.

If there's one thing I've learned from scoring films, it's that the importance of the interplay between music and moving pictures cannot be overstated. Here's how to choose the right music for your video. 

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.

All films start with a small seed. An idea. It’s something we as filmmakers all have in common — we want to turn a thought into something tangible, a place where we can meet someone and share a thought. These ideas change with the season, but there’s always something there. It’s what makes us filmmakers.

Jason Miller works as the Global Content Marketing Leader at LinkedIn by day, but is somewhat of a rock 'n' roll photographer by night. With an extensive portfolio consisting of the likes of Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters, and KISS, Fstoppers chatted to Miller to get his thoughts on working as a semi-pro photographer, and how he balances his day job with his passion for photography by night.

Tonight, you may have witnessed one of the greatest Super Bowl matches in history between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons. For the first time, we saw two teams take the epic battle into overtime and ultimately watched the Patriots take their fifth championship. We witnessed yet another incredible performance from Lady Gaga, in which she used 300 drones to coordinate a light show behind her during the game. This is how it was done.

The music video might be the perfect vehicle for an artistic statement: It's succinct, it has a built-in springboard, and it's conducive to both abstract and literal statements. Here are 18 of the most creative and interesting music videos out there.

I'll admit, I was a little shocked when I came across Henri Kack's Reddit post last week. That's right, the band notorious for taking down Napster in the Northern California Lawsuit filed in December of 1999, is now being accused of using an image from a concert photographer/fan without permission. Released on the band's official Metallica YouTube page on November 17, 2016, in the latest video for their song "Murder One" you can see at 5:33 the image in question. Although altered and animated, it's clear that this is indeed the same image that can be found on Kack's DeviantArt page.

Jain is a musician from France, but she's lived all over the world during her teens, from Dubai to the Republic of Congo and even in South Africa, where the music video for 'Makeba' was shot. The song's name is a reference to Miriam Makeba, a well-known South African singer and songwriter during the 50s and 60s. Her mother used to play it at home, and she noticed how different the African beat and rhythm is to that of the Middle East and Europe. In the music video, it's smart editing and visual effects that bring simple ideas together to give the video the rhythm that perfectly taps into the African beat.

Motion Array has been hard at work adding new features recently. For example, they recently came out with a video portfolio site builder. With this feature, any paid subscriber can create a custom site to show their video work, complete with text, images, and contact information (all editable). Users can even use their own custom domain or have one supplied by Motion Array. But now, Motion Array is at it again with Requests. Essentially, any paid member of the Motion Array community can put in a request for any type of creative asset that Motion Array offers.

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. 

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.

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.

Shooting with major artists is something most photographers dream of. Did Christian Tierney get lucky, or was his get-up-and-go attitude the key to his success in the music business?

Love him or hate him, it is hard to ignore the impact that Kanye West has made over the past decade and beyond in the creative world. He has left his fingerprints all over the industry whether it's as a recording artist, songwriter, fashion designer, or an entrepreneur. He has slivered his way into a category that he has actually created; it is hard to define or even completely understand his genre. And that's why it can be very inspiring to listen to him explain what goes on in his mind when the lights are dim and his guard is down. As a creative with your opinions of him aside, this two minute monologue makes you think.

Musicbed, the popular music licensing platform for creatives looking to perfect their stories while supporting musical artists, has announced an all new app for iPhone. Touted as not “just some update,” the app has been completely rebuilt to share the same experience of the new Musicbed website that was launched earlier this year. With the Musicbed app you can bring your synced wishlists with you, discover new music, and collaborate with others to find the perfect sound for your shared project.

[UPDATE] The winners have been announced! Check out the winners page to see some incredible video editing.

Filmsupply and Musicbed have partnered up to bring you a film competition that could change your life. Without having to shoot one frame of footage, you could win up to $100,000 in cash, prizes, and incredible experiences. Although you're not restricted to only using their content, this competition allows you to tap into the huge libraries of both Musicbed and Filmsupply to create and submit your 60-second film. Check out the submission guidelines below.

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. 

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.

In this moving film, Italian Pianist and Composer Ludovico Einaudi performs his piece, “Elegy for the Arctic," while on a floating platform in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The moving and haunting film and music are augmented all the more by a fortuitously timed moment that captures everything Einaudi is trying to convey.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen Nicolas Vuignier spin his phone around him while skiing, creating a cheap bullet time effect. The same technique has been used to create a stunning music video, and I can’t stop watching it.

I attended the Canon Roadshow, held once a year, where Canon gets to show off their latest gear. We got to have lunch with the Canon people, and we also had great keynote speakers who told their story and presented their work and how they do what they do. One of the speakers, Laura McCullagh, shoots live music events. She's shot acts like Die Antwoord and Mumford and Sons, to name a few. We were fortunate to get some pointers from her on how to get great shots.

Shooting or being involved in a fashion or beauty shoot is a lot of fun. It’s a day where creative personalities, the photographer, stylist, hair and makeup and assistants as well as the client's creative team get together to produce a story, a body of work that they want to show the world. Everyone is focussed on bringing their best ideas to the party. 

Ok Go is a band whose internet fame probably started with the music video for their song "Here It Goes Again." The brilliant part of that video is the production quality. It isn't your typical cinematic, beautifully lit, shallow depth of field aesthetic; it looks like a VHS tape from a family gathering in the 90s. The video gained its fame from the pure creativity involved. Since then, their videos have all shared one other quality that makes them so entertaining and captivating: they are all just a single take.

Finding just the right music for your video project can be an overwhelming process in filmmaking. You may have spent weeks, months, or even years tirelessly capturing footage and now it comes down to music track selection which can make or break all the film work you already put in. Musicbed, the popular music licensing website, has just launched a new “Discover” page which they hope will make the track selection process faster and easier by giving you a much more personalized experience.

Recently, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with photographer Noah Abrams. I talked with him about his work, some ongoing projects, and his day to day life. Noah grew up skateboarding in Columbus, Ohio. He also mentioned to me that he never truly considered photography as a career until later into his 20's, although he had dabbled with it for years throughout high school and college. To learn all of this, I began with a question that many people have for working photographers: where did your initial interest in photography come from?

Hear me out on this one. As a concert and event photographer (and music lover), I will argue until my dying breath that the most important piece of equipment we have after our camera is ear protection. In fact, this made my recently published list of 10 concert photography tips for everyone. I've gone through nearly a dozen different kinds of earplugs over the past five years, but the Music•PRO high-fidelity earplugs from Etymotic are something absolutely unique, and I'm thrilled to be able to review them. They're electronic. And they're alive.

As announced at Adobe MAX 2015, Adobe released new updates to its professional Creative Cloud suite of applications. Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Audition CC, Dreamweaver CC, Photoshop CC, Fuse CC (Preview), Adobe Stock, and more have been updated. You can download the new versions from the Adobe Creative Cloud app.

Los Angeles festival juggernaut HARD announced yesterday that there will be a total media blackout for the HARD "Day of the Dead" event. This along with other festivals cracking down hard on photographers may spell an end for freelancers.

While the original source couldn't be independently confirmed, the studio behind the recently released movie, "Everest," apparently sent BBC a clip of the still unreleased film without audio effects. Instead, throughout the entire otherwise hair-raising scene, the actors speak to each other in a tone seemingly more appropriate for a focus group discussion between amateurs trying to solve a Rubik's cube than for a life-threatening situation climbing Mount Everest.

I shoot concerts. Like, a lot of concerts. Since I shot my very first local show back in 2008, I have had the immense privilege and pleasure of photographing over 1,000 bands in the limelight on a lighted stage. And it's not easy. I've argued for a long time that live music photography is an animal; a beautiful, untamed, unpredictable — and sometimes vicious — animal. We go to concerts for the experience. It's the energy, excitement, and of course, the music. But we usually can't take it home with us. So that's where the photos come into play. It doesn't matter whether you're in the crowd with your point-and-shoot or if you've got two DSLRs slung over your shoulders in the pit, there are some there are some tips and concepts you can abide by to make sure you always get the best photos possible. This advice covers everyone from amateur to pro — from the crowd to the pit — there's something for you in here. 

In the continuing saga of musicians complaining about others stealing their work or not getting paid enough for their work and then ripping off hard-working photographers, the rapper T.I. has joined the pack. T.I., most famous for hits "Rubberband Man" and "Whatever You Like" has stolen a Trinidadian photographer's work for use in an invitation to a party he's hosting. The photographer has called him out!

Taylor Swift has come under a lot of fire in recent months regarding some of the restrictions and limitations in the contract photographers are required to sign when shooting her "1989 World Tour", but Mickey Osterreicher, the general counsel for the National Press Photographer’s Association, just announced via a statement to Poynters that the seven-time Grammy winner has agreed to revisions to her contract that will hopefully make it more palatable to media members.