Music Photographer

If you visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, you’ll learn quickly that music’s as much about sight as sound: David Bowie’s painted face captured in a portrait; Michael Jackson on stage, moonwalking; Madonna doing her best “vogue” on a magazine cover; the Beatles crossing Abbey Road on an album cover.

Music is full of iconic imagery, and when you’re a Music Photographer, your job is to collect, capture, and catalog it with a camera.

Sometimes, it’s for the Artist. Sometimes, it’s for the record company. Oftentimes, it’s for the media, including newspapers, magazines, and websites. Almost always, however, as a Music Photographer, it’s an attempt at chronicling music events and personalities for consumption by fans and the general public.

Because potential images are everywhere, Music Photographers work wherever there’s music. For instance, you may work in a photo studio, taking photographs of Artists for album covers, magazine spreads, and promotional items, such as posters, programs, and press kits. Or, you may work in a recording studio, documenting the recording process with images that will be used in CD liner notes or in a retrospective about a band. Perhaps most often, however, you work onsite at concert venues — stadiums, clubs, theaters, etc. — photographing live performances as a Concert Photographer, with your live-action shots being used later alongside concert reviews in magazines, on music merchandise that’s sold by the Artist, and in marketing materials created by record labels.

More than a Photographer, you’re also a Historian: Camera in hand, you keep a visual record of the world’s auditory culture.