There is an ever growing cancer that is gnawing away at the life of a music photographer; the photography contract.  The actual origins of the contact are unclear; some people say Led Zeppelin, some say Rush, some say Blondie, and so on.  Just as unclear are the reasons for its birth; was it fighting in the photo pit distracting the band or was it New Romantics worried out being photographed with their make up running as the gig went on? 

One theory is that there was suspicion that whilst some photographers didn’t use flash and left after a few songs, other spent the whole gig in the pit using flash.  If one set of photographers could manage to take their photographs in a few songs without flash, what devilish activities were the photographers who stayed lomger up to?  What they apparently didn’t realise was that the newspaper photographers used black and white film and, with grain for newspapers not being an issue, pushed the film and then left promptly to make the deadline for the next morning’s editions, whilst magazine photographers didn’t have the urgent deadline and, using low ISO colour film, were more dependent on flash. 

Whatever the origins and the reasons, someone, somewhere in the late 1970s/early 1980’s decided to start imposing restrictions for photographing concerts, which along the way led to a contract with more formal terms and conditions that a photographer has to sign to get access to a photograph a concert.

Some contracts are generally fairly reasonable; for example, three songs, no flash has become “industry standard” and, so long as you have a photo pit and half decent lighting, you should be able to get some good photos.  If this condition had always been imposed on photographers you would have missed out on a number of classic photos, i.e. Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar at Monterey, but photographers understand why the rule is there and can live with it.  Additionally, most photographers have no issue with signing to say that they won’t use the photos for unlicensed merchandise; that’s a reasonable enough request. 

But more and more liberties are being taken by PR companies and band management in relation to the terms and conditions they are including on their contracts, to the point where they are becoming an insult to what we do and, even more important, are having serious repercussions on the long-term viability and livelihood of professional photographers.

Let’s consider a few recent examples that have made their way into my inbox. 

First up is the photographer’s contract for The Police gig at Suncorp Stadium in January.

 

Although it’s based on a pretty standard format it is more restrictive than contracts in the past, with photographers unable to use photos for artwork or exhibitions without asking for additional permission. 

However, I crossed out the word ‘display’ before emailing it back to the PR company.  They refused to accept it, said that no changes could be made and made me sign a fresh contract.  The reason I removed this one word is because although I was doing it for a magazine, they have a website and their photographers can upload their gig photos into public galleries on the site.  Therefore, by hotlinking the photos from the magazine’s website, everyone in the world could display the photos on their website, myspace, blog, etc.  However, if I did this, in the strict sense of the wording in the contract, I would be in breach of the contract.

Next up, the Frontier Touring standard contract.

Extremely restrictive, not only specifying that photos can only be used for the named publication but putting restrictive timelines on when the photos have to be used by.  Sure, you can get permission to use photos outside of their terms and conditions but haven’t they got better things to do?  Or is that the whole point of these contracts; they are created by PR people to provide them with something to do and justify their existence.   

And finally the contract for Soundwave.  Two very interesting clauses on this one:

10. All photos intended for publication are to be submitted to KMW & Chrissie Vincent Publicity for approval prior to publication, such approval will not be unreasonably withheld.

11. KMW is to be provided, at no charge, with at least twenty of your best photos of the event for the promotional use of KMW with you to be credited.  Photos of all aspects of the event are greatly appreciated (not just the bands!). Our preferred format is scanned copies at a minimum 300dpi. If this is not possible, please supply hard copies.

In terms of workload, Clause 10 makes no difference to me; I’ll just cc them in when I email the photo to the magazine.  However, considering what Soundwave is – an metal/rock/emo-type day festival – it does beg the question of why they need to approve the photos and whether a clause like this infringes on the freedom of the press.  For example, say there’s a Jim Morrision in Miami type incident where a worse-for-wear singer whips the ‘ol’ fellah’ out, or maybe there’s a Fall Out Boy at Reading Festival bottling, or taking things as extreme as you can go, a Dimebag Darrell incident.  Are a publicity company going to approve these photos and let you publish images of what has happened?  More likely in these cases I think it would be a case of publish and be damned.  

But Clause 11…well, Clause 11 is something else…

The poor, hard-up, near destitute promoter wants me to work for free, and not just me but every photographer covering this festival in each city it visits.  Five cities, say a very conservative 10 photographers and twenty photo graphs each makes 1,000 (and probably more likely double that) free photos for them to use for ‘promotional use’.  Promotional use for their website? Next year’s Soundwave adverts? T-Shirts? Mugs?  Five cities times maybe 10,000 tickets sold, plus merchandise, plus trading fees and you want me to provide you with free photos to do whatever you want with?  But hey, they’ll generously give me a credit…   

Even more laughable is should you contact the PR company to ‘enquire’ about Clause 11 they will tell you that this is an ‘industry standard’ clause.  Obviously that is complete and utter BS but it does make you wonder how long before it does become ‘industry standard’ and promoters make you provide them with free photos for EVERY show that they put on. 

The clock is ticking on the long-term viability of music photography as anything but a very expensive hobby and it is fast approaching midnight. 

One of the earliest musical memories that I can remember is staying at my aunt and uncles place when my parents went on holiday and hearing ‘Outlandos D’Amour’ by The Police and ‘Parallel Lines’ by Blondie.  Going by what school I was at at the time I think this would have been early 1979.  Fast forward 29 years and I’m stood in front of Messers Sumner, Summers and Copeland with a camera in my hand and two songs in which not to get too starstruck and overwhelmed by the situation.  On top of all that, it’s also the first time someone has let me loose down the front of a stadium show…… 

First band up was the never-heard-of-them-before somewhat dull and unadventurous pub rock sounds of Fiction Plane.  Found out after their set that they had Joe Sumner – Son of Sting – on bass.  Good to see nepotism alive and well in the music industry in 2008.  He did a nice jump off his amp at the end, although I almost managed to miss it.

Not sure what bright spark decided on Fergie for the main support.  Pretty bad mis-match, but luckily because of the three song rule I at least managed to miss her Rolling Stones-Led Zeppelin medley thing.  Just goes to show that there are occasional benefits of being made to wait out on the pavement outside the venue between acts……

And so to The Police.  It’s funny how staged and choreographed the whole thing was and yet, with their jazz backgrounds, a bit surprising.  Not only did the photography contract that we all had to sign tell you what the two songs we were going to be photographing were – Message In A Bottle and Synchronicity II – but the contact itself was from the US tour.  Looking at a few reviews it seems that they’ve played the same set in the same order every night of the tour.  Also, the PR woman told us in advance that at the end of the second song Sting and Andy Summers would converge on the Sting’s side of the stage and do a jump at the end of the song. 

Of course it didn’t pan out quite like this, with Sting doing a jump at the end of the first song with Andy Summers still over his side of the stage.  Guess that serves me right for beleiveing anything anyone who works in PR tells me……

Because of this, I think most photographers in the pit missed the shot and I only just managed to capture it.  It’s not a very good photo though, with Sting too far over to the side, which meant I didn’t get his bass headstock, and looking like he’s got no teeth.  Also I think I was too side-on to him anyway.  So if you see loads of photos from this reunion tour of Sting jumping, it’s not because everyone is such a great photographer, anticipated what was going to happen and has great timing, it’s just because they’ve been warned in advance to be ready for it.

 

It’s interesting looking back on the photos that I took this night; very few of Sting but plenty of Andy Summers and especially Stewart Copeland.  This was predetermined by myself, as although Sting was the main songwriter and the main singer, the key to their sound and their success, at least for me, was all in the drumming.  Just a shame that Stewart Copeland is a classic example of the ‘time waits for no man’ adage – he was always the cool one in the band, now he looks like someone’s granny!  Luckily there is no correlation between how you look and how well you drum.

 

Having seen a fair number of fantastic photos from the UK of Enter Shikari from the likes of Danny North and Peter Hill, this was a gig that I was really looking forward to photographing (despite feeling the effects of the Big Day Out the day before).

Whilst The Arena can be very hit and miss when it comes to lighting, and is more often than not very, very red lighting when nit is being a ‘hit’, it has the advantage of being one of the few venues in Brisbane with a permanent photo pit. So it was disappointing to get to the doors of the venue and see a poster saying that because of poor ticket sales they’d moved the gig to The Zoo. The Zoo also has very hit and miss lighting, more ‘miss’ than hit in recent months, but has no photo pit. And photographing a band like Enter Shikari from the crowd wouldn’t be top of my list of things to do for fun.

My worst fears were realized when the support band Amity Affliction played in the dark, with no one working the lighting desk, something that didn’t change for the headline band.

Managed to squeeze down the side of the stage and get near the front. A couple of seconds after they had come onto the stage saw something whiz past my lens as I was looking through the viewfinder – the guitarist, complete with guitar, had decided to go stage diving over my head……Because of the signs everywhere in The Zoo warning of expulsion for stage diving and crowd surfing, the band were worse for stage diving than the audience, but it was still very uncomfortable being in the crowd and near the front with so much camera gear.

And so the combination of lack of light and a band that doesn’t stay still for a second made it a truly forgettable photographic experience; the worst set of photos that taken in a long, long time, possibly ever. Such is life.

About as good as it got.

This would have been great if not for the motion blur in Rou’s face.

As would have this, if the front of house spotlights in The Zoo didn’t point on the heads of the people in the front row…

 

Let’s face it; whilst Tyondai Braxton is as close to a front man as you’re going to get with Battles, it’s all about trying to get photos of drummer John Stanier in full flight.  This would normally be a fairly easy proposition at many venues but being the Zoo in Brisbane there’s the lack of photo pit. So I started on the left hand side of the stage and couldn’t really see him behind guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams and his rack of keyboards, although I got this shot, which I love.  I think this sums up the visual memory of seeing Battles play live and John Stanier’s reach for his cymbal, located way above his head.  My timing was lucky enough to get his arm between the two lights in the background, which helps the composition.

Then I tried the right hand side of the stage (with many thanks to the guy who let me squeeze in against the stage for a couple of songs), which was better as I could actually see his face.  At least when he wasn’t he wasn’t leaning right over his hi-hit.

I’d photographed John Stanier before when he played the same venue with Mark of Cain a couple of years ago.  Didn’t have a whole lot of luck then, with this the best shot of him from that night.

I guess that for now it’s John Stanier 2: Justin Edwards 0.  Tomahawk next time perhaps?

Whilst I have been writing a regular music photo blog on myspace for much of the last two years – you can check it out here – I thought it was about time that I went out on my own, went a bit more legitimate/professional and set up my own blog. 

So welcome to ‘This Is Not A Photo Opportunity’.

I stole the title from Banksy.  I think it was Rankin who said something like ‘amateurs borrow, professionals steal’…..

It’s hard coming up with domain names these days; all the clever/witty/cool/obvious domain names with anything to do with music and photography are long since taken.  So this was the best one that I managed to come up with over the course of the last few days and I like the simplicity of www.notaphoto.com.  Obviously what I do IS a photo opportunity so it also has something of a memorable stupidly about it.