Honing Photography Skills at Free Music Concerts
At the age of nineteen, my son developed a passion for photography, especially music photography. He would regularly attend concerts of bands that I had never even heard of, and would proudly show me the photographs that he had taken the next morning at the breakfast table, as well as talking about the gig itself. If only I could find a way to attend more concerts so that I could practice my photography in these venues on a much more regular basis, it would be superb, he would often say. The stumbling block was the cost.
How to practice photography at free music gigs
I would like to say that my son or I had found a solution to enable him to attend music concerts on a more frequent basis to hone his photography skills via our intellect, but that would be a lie. Another passion that my son had developed as a teenager was posting on social media. And the solution, I am pleased to report, came about somewhat by chance via social media.
My son had been posting a lot of the photographs that he had taken on his social media profiles. He soon built up somewhat of a following from people who also liked the bands that he was going to watch. He really enjoyed interacting with these people and would get feedback about the photos that he had taken, some positive and some not so positive. He also received plenty of tips from more seasoned photographers on how he could improve. All of this was just what he wanted as my son was eager to get better and better, and wasn’t bothered about the odd negative comment.
On one particular morning, my son raced down the hall stairs to speak to me in a rather excited manner.
“Have a guess who has contacted me via Facebook?”
“I have no idea”.
“The lead singer of the band that I went to see last night!”
He continued to talk (at a quicker pace than usual) about how this singer had thanked him for taking the photographs and for sharing them online. This is exactly what they love as it helps to promote the band, he continued.
The lead singer then gave my son free tickets to their next concert and said he could attend all future concerts for free as long as he continued to take and post the photos on his social media pages.
To say that my son was over the moon would be an understatement. And it then gave him an idea and that was to see if other local bands would be interested in a similar arrangement.
Some were and some weren’t but from the ones that were my son had achieved what he had wanted, and that of course was to attend these music concerts on a much more regular basis.
His photography skills improved massively but not only that he was having the time of his life as he was managing to combine three of his main passions of music, photography and social media.