What was your first gig ? How do you end up photographing it ?
I technically first photographed music at the 2012 Jazzfest . I brought my camera as a fan and had no experience with shooting concerts . I tried to get some photos of Tom Petty from the crowd , and realized that it was extremely difficult . I had no knowledge of a photo pit or how you would even get access to such a thing . I just took a few shots and never really thought about pursuing it any further than that for a while .
Flash forward to a few months after I graduated college , and after looking over this book my boyfriend got me with photos of Led Zeppelin from the 70 ' s , I realized that I really wanted to photograph music . I had had my own business of photographing portraits for a few years at this point , as well as a degree in photography , so I was already getting paid to do most of what I had been doing . However , I knew I couldn ' t just start saying I wanted to be a music photographer and charge for it until I had some photos of music to show .
It ' s kind of like a vicious cycle of needing experience but nobody wants to hire you until you have experience . I posted on Facebook that I wanted to collaborate photographically with a band , and for anybody who was interested to contact me . The status got no likes or comments , so I was like alright then , guess this isn ' t going to happen .
My brother told me one of his fraternity brothers was in a band , and to message him offering free photos in return for providing me with access at one of their shows . So I reached out to them and they were all about it ! They put me on the guest list to come to this local dive bar where they were playing . I photographed the entire set ( pretty timidly I might add ) and I had a blast . I was not using a really great camera or lens , and the lighting of the bar was absolutely terrible . But getting thrown in the worst possible environment with a crop sensor camera was probably the best way I could have started . I learned a lot by shooting shows like that .
Members of the band started changing their profile pictures to some of the images I took from that night though , so I was really excited that they weren ' t a complete bust ! A local publication asked me a few months later if they could use one of the shots from that show for their blog , so after that I just kind of started shooting and contributing to all kinds of publications , radio stations , bands , and people .