Do you want to be a music photographer? Find out exactly how you can do it.

Would you like to photograph bands like Incubus and Pearl Jam, choose what festival to cover and attend 4 or 5 gigs a week? That’s exactly what professional photographer Tim Cochrane does and he’s here to tell you how you can do it too.

Tim how did your photography journey begin, did you study at university?

I didn’t actually study photography. I went to university after years of wanting to do sound engineering. I was always into music as a performer, so I went to university and did a degree in sound engineering. It was pretty good.

How did you go from a sound engineer to photography?

It was my trip to Australia that changed things. I went to Sydney to work for Sony as a sound engineer, and whilst I was there I lost my passion for it. After years of wanting it, I did it at the top level and then discovered it wasn’t really for me after all. It turned out to be, long hours of editing talentless singers, for little or no recognition, for very little financial reward. It was extremely tedious. It was just the sort of job that I didn’t enjoy.

But obviously being in that position gave me access to the right sort of people. Sony is quite small in Australia compared to the UK or US. There’s probably only 100 people that work in the Sydney office, so it’s quite easy to meet the right people.

So you were in the right place to network with influential people. How did you go about promoting your photography skills?

I had always done photography on a really basic level. I had quite a few cameras that I’d taken with me, just basic digital SLRs. I just asked the right people. I spoke to the girl that did the website, she looked after all the pictures and the content for the web design. At the time they were doing a lot of videos, they would get the Australian artists to come and do like a little video clip for the website for example “we are (insert name of band) you are watching Sony …..” So that was what prompted me to get some live shots as well. So that’s how I broke into it in the beginning.

I did it for free to start with, but I had good access to Pearl Jam when they came over and Tenacious D, really big artists and I took shots purely for my own portfolio. Just to get the access and be down the front at a gig was great. So that’s how it all got started.

From there I used that to start a website, then I went on to do local magazines. I was shooting for ‘The Drum Media’ which is a free street press, it’s strange because in Australia people don’t pay for their music press it’s all free in the street press. I was getting paid, though it wasn’t a massive amount. But that’s how it all started all the time, I was building up a bigger and bigger portfolio of shots to show other people. So I set up the website which is a great way to show people whenever they want to see my work, instead of having a traditional hard copy portfolio.

Did you have any web experience before building your site?

Only from doing personal sites for my own use. My site wasn’t complicated, it’s all lending scripts from other places, quite basic. It’s simple and classic. I think it’s a really important thing to be able to have in this day and age, to be able to show people what you can do. Then when I got back to the UK, I contacted several of the agencies. This is how music photography works, unless it’s for one of the big magazines like NME or any of those types which have their own photographers.

How did you go about contacting the agencies?

I just emailed the picture editor or the relevant people, you’ll find all the details are available on their website, so it’s not hard to find out. It wasn’t like I knew anyone who could get me in.

I contacted them said this is the link to my website, if it’s the type of thing your interested in let me know. I had some quite nice shots that I own the copyright. There are two distinct differences that you have to be clear about when you assign your copyright. So when you shoot for somebody they take the pictures for payment or whether you keep the copyright for the picture and you then sell it as many times as you like.

So I had some pictures of Johnny Marr (formerly in The Smiths), I managed to photography him in a lift, purely from being in the right place at the right time. I had all these pictures which were “World Exclusives”. So the agency said ‘yes, we can sell these for you’ so it was a nice bargaining tool.

How did you know how much to charge for your photos?

With the agency what happens is, you send the images to them to sell on your behalf. So for instance at Roskilde Festival after a few days work, I’ll upload them to their website, then they do the selling for me. They take their commission which is roughly 50/50, which may seem a lot for them to take, but, you have to consider that they have access to a world market, and you don’t have to do anything other than take the photos. The sales soon build up. To be able to access that market on a personal level, you would be on the phone or email for 24 hours a day, just to get that kind of exposure. So it’s really worth it.

When you’ve been with the agency more and more they put more work your way, and you can use the agencies name to get more work. That automatically gives you a better standing.

What is the process for photographers who want to take photos at festivals?

It works in several different ways, sometimes you have to go through the PR Agency, others through the festival direct, with Roskilde festival for example, my agency had to write to them on headed paper to request it, formally attaching my name as the photographer. But every festival seems to work in different ways.

How do you work out your expenses to go to an event, do you have to estimate what you’ll make on the photographs?

You have a rough idea of how much you might make, so say the Chili Peppers haven’t done any festivals in the summer in Europe, it would be good to photograph them before they go to Reading Festival in the UK. Because magazines may want to use the photographs as a preview or as a bit of a warm up. Say the Who may not be as hot because they may have done Glastonbury a little while ago, so a lot of English photographers would have already shot them, so the photos won’t be worth much. But it’s still all good for archive material, you may sell it years down the line through the agency. In terms of working out costs, the agency I’m with will go halves with me on what I spend, they’ll go 50% on my train fare and things like that, so that’s pretty good.

Die-Die-Die

Do you need to do any research into the bands before a shoot?

Maybe when you first start out but, when you’re doing more and more gigs, you begin to get an idea about what’s going on. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on the net researching it. When you’re doing it on weekly basis, you’ll hear people talk about whose playing when and where, you just need to keep your ear to the ground.

Do you buy any music magazines?

NME do a great listings on the web, so you don’t even have to buy the magazine. You set the date and you can find out whose playing and where. So I do tend to use that a lot to see what’s coming up. I normally plan about two weeks in advance so that’s about the right amount of notice to get a photo pass.

How do you decide what gigs you’re going to cover?

On a weekly basis I probably travel into London as it’s only 20 minutes away from where I live. I live in an area which gives me easy access to surrounding towns. So anything within an hours journey is quite common. I normally wait until a tour gets somewhere near to me, unless it’s the first night then I might travel a fit further, as you may get an exclusive. Try to plan to go to a gig every night, obviously some may fall through and some don’t come off as people don’t get back to you in time. Normally it works out 4 or 5 gigs a week for the live stuff and I fill in with other bits in the day.

If you want to go and cover a band what is the procedure?

The agency has access to a few of the databases so they know what label and what PR agency deal with what band, which is really quite useful. So that tends to be how I would go about it. I’ll ask the agency who are the people to contact for such and such a band. Red Pages are a good database, but there are about three or four. I think anyone can subscribe to Red Pages, but I’m not sure how much it is. Obviously when you do this more and more you build up a database of people that you can contact. A lot of the time PR companies will deal with 10 or 20 different artists and there’s probably only 40 different PR companies in London. So you see the same names coming up all the time. When I photographed Incubus it was through the record label and that’s according to which region they are playing. So if they go to Australia then Sony Australia will deal with the press.

Who has been your favorite band to photograph?

That’s a hard question, you can get a nice shot if they are quite active and run around a lot, as mainly people just stand behind a mic stand and you’ll just get a standard shot 45’ from them. So when they do jump around a bit it lends itself to more options for the photographer. For a live performance it’s probably Johnny Mayer, he’s not very heavy but he’s very animated and Pearl Jam as they are like one of the biggest bands in the world. Eddie looks the part and they are totally rock and roll, all the guitarists are there posing it out. Yeah they’re great. But for posed stuff, probably Johnny Marr from the Smiths because he was such a nice guy to go with it.

What advice would you give other up and coming photographers who want to get into music photography?

Well going through an agency is one way of doing it, obviously they could contact magazine direct, but a lot of them have got very established people who have been working for them for years. For example; NME if I work for them it’s only because there normal photographer can’t make it, so it’s only as a reserve. It’s very hard to penetrate that closed in community, they already have like 4 or 5 photographers that they always use, so don’t be disillusioned that you’re not getting replies from NME because they are a very tight knit community and it’s extremely hard to get in there.

Portrait of model Harriet

But there’s plenty of agencies and they vary in quality, some specialize in music whilst some don’t. The one I work for is Retna which is one of the big US/UK ones but there’s also Getty, WireImage and LivePix, so that’s one option. But basically to get started I would approach bands directly, a lot of bands have myspace profiles, so you can send them a message and ask if they would like some live photo’s or pictures of them as a group for them to use for free. People are usually keen to get some new shots in a different style.

You can experiment and find your feet by seeing which style suits you. Live is great as well because there’s likely to be a lot more animation you can get right up close to the stage. Some gigs there may not be a special area, but if you get there early you can get right to the very front. You’ll have the band on either side of you and hopefully you’ll get some good shots and they’ll appreciate it and my put the images on their myspace and you can build up your portfolio. So it’s not necessarily having high profile names, but you can show people the shots and they can see the quality. Then later on down the line you can incorporate more successful bands and get work through local papers, then regional papers, and other free music magazines where you can get access to bigger named artists. They may not pay much if at all, but it’s more about gaining access.

How many people do agencies tend to take on?

It’s hard to say as my agency do US as well, but in the UK say 25 photographers and then maybe 6 or 7 portrait photographers. So it’s quite limited, but it’s a case of if they like your work they’ll take you on. So try and do something a bit unique or different.

Is there any technical advice you can give about how to present your work?

Stay away from using a lot of the same gig, say you go to a really good gig and you’ve got lots of good material try not to use it all. Be harsh on yourself and narrow it down to one really good shot. Go to lots of different gigs so you’ve got some variety. So you haven’t got 5 photographs of the same guitarist, they might be cool shots but it looks like you haven’t done much work. It’s better to just display one of each gig it makes it much more interesting. Put a website together with ONLY your best work and get some diversity in there.

To check out more of Tim’s awesome photographs click below.

www.timothycochrane.com

www.myspace.com/timcochranephotography

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