During the whole Lady Gaga saga last month, I came across a Temple University Graduate thesis called:
THE PRODUCTION AND USE OF POPULAR MUSIC CONCERT PHOTOGRAPHS by Maria T. Sciarrino
In the lead in to the thesis, a couple of quotes stood out:
Rock and roll has a handmaiden, and her name is photography. The music alone cannot convey the rebellion, liberation, ecstasy, and group dynamic that is rock…. After the music stops, the still image remains, a conduit for the electricity that is rock and roll. Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955—Present,‖ (Buckland, 2009, p. 3)
Art critic Ken Johnson (2009), in his New York Times review of the exhibit remarked: ―Rock ‘n‘ roll and photography need each other — or, at least, rock musicians need photographers. You can‘t be a star if you don‘t have an image‖ (para. 1).
In short, concert photographs help create the social reality of music and performance (Gamson, Croteau, Hoynes, & Sasson, 1992).
The part in the thesis that stood out more than anything was the fact that all of the photographers interviewed were never around when people were allowed to shoot the whole show.
Justin Edwards, in last weeks post, Justin Edwards tried to pinpoint when the three songs thing started, and couldn’t.
This week, I was standing in the parking lot of Calumet Photo, talking to a few photographers. One line that kept on standing out in the conversation was the “Standard first three songs.”
So maybe we can start keeping track of when the “Turning over your copyright to the band” becomes the STANDARD.