Juliette Lewis
It’s a bit late, but better late than never, right? First let me wish everyone a happy new year. I thought I’d spend my first post of 2010 to reflect on my work with concert photography in the last year. I really only started shooting concerts in early 2009. A few years before then, I offered to help friends in bands out by shooting some of their shows in Hamilton – I had my Nikon d70s which I purchased in January of 2007 and a kit lens. The last year before switching over to Canon, I bought a Sigma 30mm f1.4 which helped a lot in the low light, and being in small venues let me get up close.
April 2009 was my first taste at ‘official’ concert photography. Ben Folds gave me my first break by letting me come down to Syracuse, New York to shoot one of his concerts. Having been a fan of him and his previous band, Ben Folds Five for years – I couldn’t say no. The concert was on a Sunday and I drove 4 hours each way to shoot the concert and get back in time for my Monday morning meeting at the office. I was lucky enough to shoot for him again about a month later in Oakland, San Francisco. By then, I knew I wanted to continue this in my hometown of Toronto.
Through the powers of twitter, my friend Krissy Meyers linked me to a (now) good friend of mine and another concert photographer, Pete Nema. He let me tag along with him during Toronto’s big music & film festival, NXNE and shoot beside him. I came out for two of the nights and shot maybe a total of 10 bands within those two nights. I had enough photos to have something to show other managers or promoters of bands to try to get whatever I could – and this was all still with my Nikon d70s.
In July of 2009 I bought my Canon 5DmkII and 2 L series lenses: the 24-70mm f2.8 and the 70-200mm f2.8 IS and haven’t looked back. Expensive as hell to purchase everything all within a week (including batteries, tripod, flash, and another lens, the 35mm f2.0) but it was well worth it. Since I wasn’t a writer and couldn’t review a concert to save my life I couldn’t get photo passes to any of the larger shows unless I worked for a publication or did a lot of research. That involved looking for any band’s management or promotion company’s email on band’s site and cross my fingers hoping that showing samples of my work would be enough. Of course I got turned down but I also got approved for some artists such as: Juliette Lewis, Lykke Li, Miike Snow, Steve Martin, Zeus and Moby.
Thankfully, others took notice of my work and I have had the priveledge to work for 3 websites, shooting for them as well. They include: I Heart the Music, We Go To Shows and Blare Magazine. In the last half of 2009, I’ve gotten to shoot many shows, including a few award shows. I’d like to thank the following people for their support, advice and friendship:
Philip Bloom, Carrie Musgrave, Pete Nema, Frank Yang, Josh Khan, Stephen McGill, Kimberlee McCormack, Jennifer Polk, Steve Weiss and of course the many friends I’ve made through flickr and twitter.
Here are some of my favourite shots from this past year… d70s shots included. All of the full sets of these shows can be viewed on my flickr site and I hope you Enjoy. A word of warning though – don’t expect to get rich from trying to get into concert photography. If you don’t like music and are just hoping to make some extra money then look somewhere else. It’s a great marriage of my love of music (no joke, I probably listen to music for about 10 hours a day) and photography. I still have a full time job and only a few of the very talented can live off of shooting concerts. If you are interested in getting into some concert photography work though and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send me an Email.
Juliette Lewis
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