So you've been asked to shoot some band photos, or maybe help put together a press kit. You've got some general portraiture experience under your belt, but nothing specifically in the area of music photography. So what do you do?

Well, follow every item on the list below and I guarantee you'll have CRAZY, face-melting success as a band photographer. I mean, everybody's gonna know your name. Seriously.



No sarcasm or satire here at all.

Nope, not one bit.

Carry on.



1) Stick with the "tried and true" formula.

You've seen it a million times before-- the stereotypical band portrait. A group of four, maybe five guys are standing on a railroad track. Each of them has a blank stare on their face, and they look absolutely bored out of their minds. One guy is smoking a cigarette; another is holding a bottle of Jack Daniels.

And then there's one guy looking off in a different direction than everyone else (you know, for that "artsy" feel). The camera angle is extremely low, making everyone appear to be 8 feet tall. Overall, you just get the feeling that these dudes are WAY too cool for school.

Then you see a different shot of the same band, but this time they're standing in front of a brick wall. Their poses and expressions haven't really changed, but a few of the band members have switched positions. Everyone still basically looks like they're waiting for a train.

Sound familiar? It should. There's a reason that band portraits have followed this same general formula like eleventy billion times. It just works. So why mess with a good thing?

2) Treat your musician clients just like any other.

Modern technology has gotten so sophisticated that even a monkey can take a well-exposed photograph with hardly any effort. It's literally a matter of pressing a button, and the camera does everything else.

So now that all the guesswork has been taken out of the equation, the barrier to entry in the photography field is lower than ever, and everyone and their brother is now a "professional photographer" by virtue of their shiny new $600 Best Buy DSLR.