Blog-o-Tips and shit.

Here is my list of the top five things I think all of you aspiring photographers need to do.
1. The biggest glaring reason I'm writing this is because WAY too many of you are using Flickr and Myspace as your "websites" Get a real website, or nobody, and I do mean nobody, will take you seriously as a photographer. They're great networking tools, but nobody wants to sift through your spring break photos or wall comments about how drunk you got last night, or how hot you look in your profile photo.
2. Use your REAL name! I mean your full name. Unless your name is like Ursula Flaberfatz or something, and you want to be a wedding photographer, in which something like "Special Moments Photography" is appropriate. Using your real name will allow you to be recognizable, and people can remember a name. Nicknames are another thing. I got stuck with Megan Picturetaker about five years ago in Montana, so it's on my blog, and myspace, but not my website URL. Most of my friends have nicknames, and they do just fine because they've gotten to a point where people recognize their name just as much as their nickname. Sometimes your name is John Smith and you're screwed, so come up with a creative solution, like John Smith Media, or John Smith Images.
3. Get business cards... and put a GOOD photo on them. By good I mean one that reproduces well in such a small format. Live photos are sometimes okay, but for the most part I find them way too busy. The more simple a photo on the card, the more I connect with it and am likely to check out the site. At the same time don't put a really beautiful landscape on your card unless you're a landscape photographer.
4. Stop using your camera as an excuse to be a jackass at shows. Just because you have that shiny new Canon Rebel doesn't give you a license to walk out into the middle of the stage while the band is playing, unless that band has given you specific permission to do so! I can't tell you how many bands complain to me about kids with cameras getting in their way at shows. I've said this thousands of times, but no one in that audience paid to see you on stage, they paid to see the bands and you need to respect that!
5. Stop working for free. You might live in your parent's basement, and not have bills but the rest of us professionals are trying to eek out a living. It's totally okay to hook up your friends once in a while, but if you get a rep for working for free, it sticks. I know this as a fact because every time I go home every band in Montana expects a hookup because I didn't charge when I was starting out. Photographers that work for free drive down the market so that no one can make a living. Think about how much your time is worth, and go from there. It is a job, the only difference is that we enjoy what we do from 9-5.

These are all my opinions, so take them or leave them. This is just based on some questions I've gotten from my formspring.com account. Feel free to click and leave me more questions for more blogs-o-substance in the future.

Blog o Substance #3

Sorry about my fluffy posts this last week. I swear it will all make sense eventually. Today I'm making up for fluff with Tuesday's Blog-O-Substance! YAAAY!

"Duuuuude your photos are insane! How do you come up with ideas like that? Are you on drugs or something?"
Today's Topic...
Creative Brainstorming
No. I'm not on drugs or something. I don't do drugs. Sure I have a beer on occasion and I'm by no means straight edge, but I don't snort and 8 ball and then sit down to edit. I use this little guy. This is my Moleskine notebook. One of about 4 that I have sitting in my car, by my bedside, in the living room and on my desk. I try to always have one within arms reach because if you think you can remember that crazy idea you had for a photo, if you're like me you can't and it will be gone in 10 minutes. Even just jotting down a couple words about an idea will help you remember it. If I don't have one near me, I'll twitter a couple words to remind myself later, or send myself a text message.

So that's how I remember the weird stuff my brain throws at me. Coming up with the weird stuff is a whole different thing. As you know I went to school for photography, but before that I had a stint in graphic design. At Montana State one thing they love in the graphic design department are brainstorm maps. You know, those things where you write down one word in the middle and spiderweb other ideas off of it. Like Cheese leads to chevre, chevre leads to goats, goats leads to herd, and all of a sudden I'm pitching a shoot for a band goat tying a heard of goats at a rodeo... I like that, I'll have to write it down. Sitting down to hash out ideas in this way trains you to think bigger. So never hesitate to come up with the strangest ideas you can. Then you always have a long list of ideas to pitch when a band hates the standard "flying V" band photo.

I'm also very blessed to have a network of friends in the film industry, who are all brilliant and hilarious. Sitting around on a Saturday night with a few beers leads to many many ridiculous ideas for all of our projects. Some are tangible, some we put on our "When I'm so famous I can demand ANYTHING" list for the future. Such as how one day I want to photograph a band in front of a Rube Goldberg machine that blows confetti at them. Think of the most obscure ridiculous ideas that you can, then scale them back to reality. My absolute favorite thing about shooting bands is that you don't have to have an answer to "why?" Fine art always needs a reason, but you can have a band jumping out of a skyscraper for the hell of it and no one will question it, just make the image look good.
Sorry this entry is a bit small, but I'm off to a Hollywood prop company to pick up a fake octopus. Dream big!

Blog o Substance #2

"Horse" Selective Development Silver Gelatin Print
Megan Thompson 2006

Today’s informative rambling is going to pertain to a question I often find in my inbox…
“How did u learn to do all that stuff u do in photoshop? Can u send me a link to where u learned it?”
I can usually tell from their slaughtering of pronouns that they are not currently enrolled in a four-year program the local college. Here is my usual reply…
“I went to college, here’s the link to where I learned photography… www.montana.edu”
Snarky yes, but hey, that’s me. There are always people asking where they can find a short cut, a tutorial, or a how to. Very few people I encounter actually want to take the time to study the art and science behind making a photograph. Ask them what SLR stands for and they will stare at you and blink twice before mumbling, “Lens something… I dunno”. Here’s where the digital age gets tricky. Do we spend time educating students about silver halide crystals when there’s a huge chance they’ll turn out like me and exit the darkroom never to return? In my opinion yes. I’m a snob though, so if you ask me flat out, I will say, “Yes, I consider myself a better photographer because I learned alternative processes!” So HA!
This brings me to the real point of today’s blog.
“Should I go to school for photography?”

My professors would be the first to say that, no; you don’t need to go to school to be a great photographer. I back this up whole-heartedly; I know a lot of great photographers who don’t have $22,000 in student loans like I do. But most of the people I know who don’t want to “waste their time in school” aren’t that good. Chances are if you’re reading this and found me on myspace and you think that I am the greatest damn photographer in the world, then you my friend should go to school.

I know that for me personally going to school for photography was probably the best decision I ever made in my life. Up until I switched to the photo department I, A) Wanted to be a band videographer, and part time horse trainer, B) thought I was awesome already and most importantly C) Thought that taking good photographs was EASY. It is not easy. If you think it is easy, you probably need to go to college.

I decided to double major in graphic design and photography after seeing Annie Leibovitz’s portrait of The White Stripes. I looked at that photo and thought to myself “WOW. I want to do this for a living… what she does… this right here.” I decided to major solely in photography after the graphic design department made the executive decision that I sucked, and booted me out of the program. Failing so splendidly made me work about twice as hard as most of the people in my intro photo class because I was so afraid of not getting through that gate too. Fear is a powerful motivator, that’s why I edit with a bear in the room.

Like I said when I went into the program I thought I was pretty awesome. The reason most people should go to school is to be ridiculed and criticized and to learn how to let it roll of your back. I would have never gotten any better had it not been for my professors telling me when something was terrible. They also saw through any bullshit in about .5 seconds so they kept me always making better work. Working on assignments also makes you look at your work from all different angles. How do you see the 7 deadly sins versus your classmate? Working in such close quarters creates a competitive edge that will prepare you for competing for jobs in the real world, and keep your brain always producing. That’s how I come up with these ridiculous ideas for bands, my brain is always producing them, and I just need to remember to write them down.

This gets me to the last point I was going to make about photography being easy. If you think that taking photos is an easy gig, then you haven’t taken enough photos. Look at your favorite photo, then go out and try to recreate it. I’ve been trying for about three years to get an Annie feel in my lighting and I can’t do it. I can’t do it because I’m not Annie Leibovitz, and I haven’t been taking photos since the conception of Rolling Stone Magazine. But I’m finally able to take what I like about her photos and put my spin on it. Taking a photograph is easy, you just push a button, but making a good photograph is very hard. Look at how many images a photographer takes to get just one image that’s good enough to publish. You should never feel like you're good enough, because then you won’t strive to get better. That’s why I went to school. I’m the type of person who can’t learn anything technical unless it’s forced into my brain for 20 hours a week. I don’t think I’m anywhere near as good at photography as I want to be. I want to keep learning, and I think all good photographers should feel that way. I never stop reading, and looking at new work and you shouldn’t either. I feel like my generation is spoiled, and kids want to be handed a fun, cool career like “rock photographer” without working for it.

So should you go to college? If you’re like me, then yes, you really should. Go for nothing more than the opportunity to learn so much more than just photography. Go to learn how to teach yourself about photographers, learn about new and exciting processes, and learn about fine art. Maybe you don’t actually want to photograph bands. Maybe you want to document cornfields and the people who maintain them, but you don’t know it yet. Most importantly, COLLEGE IS FUN! Go to college and live it up while you’re still young enough to not be the creepy nontraditional student.

Blog o Substance #1

Recently I've been getting bombarded through my myspace e-mail with people asking for "tips or tricks" on photographing bands, or clothing companies. So I've decided to try to address these through this blog once a week so that I can then point the inquiries to my blog, and not have to respond to each e-mail. While I'm not going to give away all of my tricks, I'll definitely be giving away some valuable advice on how not to make the same mistakes I made. So... without further procrastination...


Goodnight Sunrise in the Desert.

Working with bands: Do's and do Not's
One of the e-mails I most frequently receive goes something like this...
"I want to photograph bands like you do. How did you get to photograph bands like Goodnight Sunrise, We the Kings, and All Time Low?"
These e-mails usually come to me from 15 year old girls. To which I mentally respond... "Do you want to photograph bands like these, or do you want to date the boys in these bands?"

I think that female rock photographers have the hardest time being taken seriously because of the over abundance of teenage girls calling themselves "photographers" in a ploy to hook up with the cute lead singer. This phenomenon also leads to bands thinking of female photographers as glorified groupies, and me getting slapped on the ass. So 15 year old girls, KNOCK IT OFF!

But back to the question at hand. Suppose you're like me and you're in it because you love music, and aren't necessarily in it for the fun of having a boyfriend on the road six months out of the year. I started photographing bands that I was friends with. Photographing your friends bands is easy because if you screw up, they'll usually be cool and understand. You can spend a lot of time getting it perfect. I've been photographing Goodnight Sunrise since 2006. I've built a relationship with that band and they're like family. They never hesitate when I have a crazy idea or a new technique I want to try out. That being said they're usually on the cutting edge as my style develops.

If you're like me as I said, and are photographing bands because you love music, you shouldn't have a problem meeting tons of local bands. If you don't have any friends in bands, start going to shows and talking to people. When I was working on The Forgotten State I spent 2 years embedding myself into the scenes in different cities. If I wasn't at a show 3 hours away in Missoula, I would get a call from someone asking where I was. I can't stress enough how important it is that you have to LOVE it. Love is an understatement. You have to eat, breathe, sleep, dream, and sweat music. If I find myself in a slow spot where I'm not booking much, I make a point to go to all the shows I can of bands I've photographed. I'll dust off my live shooting skills, and get introduced to the other bands playing. Maintaining relationships with the bands you work with is important because if you're nice, they will want to work with you again. If you act like a big shot during the shoot, and spend more time dropping names than taking photographs, the band will most likely tell their friends that you were a pain to work with.

Most importantly make sure you listen to what the band wants. If you have a fantastic idea that you're excited to do that involves fireworks and a slip and slide, but the black metal band isn't feeling it, you need to respect that. That also goes the other way, if the band wants to be photographed in their tighty whiteies and you don't feel comfortable with it simply tell them All Time Low already did it, and you don't want to copy someone else. Stick to your guns. I have a lot of little personal rules that I try to follow at all times. I very very rarely will photograph a band where anyone is smoking, because I don't want to portray it as cool to their young fan base. It's an extreme pet peeve of mine when a band of 18 year old boys wants to be portrayed in that way to their 14 year old fans. Moral rules are tricky because if the band is dead set to be chain smoking in a hotel full of call girls and drinking, they'll find a way. I've been flat out ignored, and a band has started smoking anyway because they really wanted to look like "players"... with cancer in their future.

Last but not least RESEARCH! Read every music magazine you can get your paws on! Keeping up to date on what's trendy in photographic styles is essential. If you don't know what a band means when they come up to you and say they want their photos to look "Spin Magazine" then you're screwed. Spin and Alternative Press have totally different photo styles. Chances are if a band is coming to you wanting AP photos you have that style already. Bands are pretty good at researching photographers before they plunk down their hard earned merch dollars. Don't stop at reading magazines either. I have a coffee table full of around 20 photo books by everyone from Franchesca Woodman to Annie Leibovitz. Don't settle for trying to emulate the photographers in Alternative Press, strive to be like the best of the best. Go sit in Barnes and Nobel for a day and look through high end fashion, music, and culture magazines. I even read wedding magazines looking for new lighting styles to try out. If you don't read PDN, start now. Photo District News has some great lighting set ups in the back of the magazine, and lots of interviews with world class retouchers. I've gleaned a ton of information from that magazine.

To sum up...
Be professional, especially if you're a girl.
Love music, or find a different niche.
Listen to what the band wants, and make sure they respect your style and moral code.
READ! Get off the internet and go to the library or a book store!

P.S. Stop calling photographs "shots"! God it's annoying.