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A few days ago, a Chicago photographer sent me the contract that Rihanna is handing out on her currant tour. I am sure the usual (sad that they are now called the usual) issues are in place- first two or three songs, have to shoot from the soundboard. I guess these issues are so common, they are not even written into a contract anymore!

In the first paragraph, they explain that you can only license images to the publication you are working for, and have written into the blank space allowed. So…… since most publications these days only pay a meager sum, if at all, you probably break even on the parking at the venue and the gas needed to get there and back (if that). So the question I always ask is: WHY DID YOU SIGN THIS AND SHOOT?? WHY DID YOU GO IN THE FIRST PLACE??

Next paragraph: Photographer shall provide copies of the “photographers edit” of the images to Tourihanna. Photographer agrees that any image which were not provided as part of the edit shall be permanently destroyed/deleted by photographer so that they may never be seen by any third party. YIKES- WHAT IF THEY COME TO YOUR HOUSE TO CHECK!!!!!!!!

Next paragraph: Tourihanna shall have the right to reject any or all of the images by sending photographer written notice (“Kill Notice”) of the same. If Tourihanna rejects any image by sending a kill notice, then photographer agrees to permanently destroy/delete any such image and all copies thereof so that they may never be seen by any third party.

So, lets talk about photographic kills. In the movie business it is traditional for all the stars of a film to have a percentage set that they could use to “kill” photos that they did not like. The bigger the star, the bigger the percentage. Arnold Schwartznegger, in his prime had the right written into his contract to kill 99% of the photos taken of him on the set. I worked on a Brian DePalma film in the 1980’s called “Light of Day” starring a very famous Michael J. Fox, Joan Jett, and Michael McKeon. I was given total access to the set for ten days in Chicago and Cleveland, with the purpose of me being able to license images to music publications. The contracted kill %’s were:

Michael J. Fox             75%

Joan Jett                        50%

Michael McKeon            25%

So after the first day of shooting, I went home, had the film processed and arrived on the set with pages of slides and a magnifier, ready to fight for my images. The band (Michael, Joan and Michael) were sitting in the shade next to their trailer. I sat down and asked who wanted to look at photos first. MJ Fox said “I was watching you yesterday, you seem like you know what you are doing- use whatever you want. Just make me a few prints of us looking cool when we are done.” The other two looked at me and said “We are with him.”

The other side of the story: In the 1980’s, I used to do a lot of work with Nightranger. When they were at the height of their fame, I went to a show in Chicago. After the show, the band invited me to jump on the bus the next morning to hang with them and shoot for a few days. So off I went. Shot about 3 shows and countless offstage posed and casual shots. When I got back home there was a message on my machine from their manager, telling me he wanted photo approval. So like a fool, I made about 300 duplicate slides and sent them out to him. A week later, he left me a message with the numbers of the three images that he had approved. I called him a left him a message that, because the request for approval happened after I had done all the work, it could not be enforced and I was sending out whatever I wanted to. Never heard from him again.

So back to Rihanna: My first rule- never agree to photo approval. I always tell them that I will send them a disc with my edit, and if there are a few (5 or less) images that they don’t like I will not send those out, unless I think one is really great, in which case there will be a discussion! Since, more than likely, nobody from her management’s team will ever look at everyone’s edit, and since they will not allow anyone to syndicate without their prior written consent, GOOD LUCK ON THAT ONE!!

One last point: toward the end of the contract, there is a line that says that “Photographer acknowledges that if Photographer breaches this agreement in any way that Tourihanna shall be irreparably harmed and shall be entitled to injunctive relief to protect Tourihanna’s rights hereunder, in addition to, pursuing any damages that Tourihanna may claim against Photographer. YIKES AGAIN!! I almost want to ask for a photo pass to break the rules and see how they try to prove that a performance photo of her in a magazine does irreparably harm and what that that transgretion worth.

My final thought: If you were dumb enough to sign this contract, hold on to the photos for a few years, until her career is over, and then license then as cultural artifacts of an age when people with not a lot of talent made a lot of money!

Yesterday my friend Aaron and I went to spend some time with Booker T. Jones. Arrived at the venue at the appointed time, and several minutes later a taxi pulled up in front and Booker, his wife Nan and the band popped out. During sound check, we had a great conversation about many varied subjects, including what their eight kids are doing, who they played with the day before (The Black Keys), how great it was to go to Japan, and even a little about music! Then we listened to a little of the sound check. Aaron’s comment (he is an editor at Downbeat) was:

“Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone we worked with was as nice as these people?”

Couldn’t agree more. It seems that the older the artist is, and the longer that their career is, the more they appreciate what the press can do to help their career. Maybe that is something that younger artists should be looking at!!

After sound check, I did a quick photo shoot, and Aaron did what he called one of the best interviews he has ever done.

Showtime (one of two sold out shows that night). He started off with two songs from his new album, and then introduced the next song by telling us that he wrote it while in high school. The band kicked into “Green Onions” in my opinion, the greatest instrumental track in pop music in my lifetime!

During the set, he mixed the set list between recent stuff and classics from his vast catalog, switching between organ and guitar, playing both with a style that is only his. All in all a great night, and one of the few reasons left to still be in this crazy business!

I was walking around downtown last week with some time to kill and popped into a Border’s store. There was a sale and I bought three books, all by artists that I have worked with in the past.

1. A mystery written by Steve Earle, with cover art by my friend Tony Fitzpatrick

2. Patti Smith’s autobiography

3. Ozzy Osbourne’s biography

Had to start with Ozzy, of course! This is one funny dude. His description of growing up, becoming a thief and spending 3 months in jail, starting a band and becoming world famous is hilarious- so much that while reading it I am glad the windows are closed, as the neighbors would think that I am crazy- laughing out loud every five minutes.

Having been around Ozzy many times in the last thirty years, I have seen him go from John Osbourne (a quiet guy sitting backstage) to OZZY as soon as I point a camera at him!

In 1982, almost entirely by accident, I took my biggest selling photo ever during one of his shows, after which I became friends with Ozzy and his wife Sharon (now a big TV star). Many years during Ozzfest, Sharon and I walked around the grounds with her introducing me to everyone she came across as “This is my friend Paul, who shot THE picture of Ozzy and Randy.”

That picture has been a passport to many great photo shoots. When the band I am shooting sees that picture, the usual response is, “You shot that? Of course, you can do anything you want!” The drummer of Mastadon even asked me for a JPEG so that he could have the picture printed on his bass drum. Recently the guitar player of The Civil Wars, a folk country band from Nashville, asked for a JPEG so that he could use it as a screensaver. This photograph has opened many doors for me, and I will be forever grateful for being allowed to hang around with one of the coolest couples in rock and roll history.

Recently, it came to light that several states (Florida, Minnesota and Iowa) were trying to pass laws prohibiting people from photographing farms in their states. This was brought on by photographers uncovering issues in large factory farms that were unsanitary and unsafe, and blogging them to the world. Sounds familiar!! Seems those farms want to control what is out there in the press, so that they don’t look bad!

Nearly 33,000 people signed a petition on www.slowfoodusa.com to stand up for transparency and the right to take pictures of farms.

Since then, the bill has failed in Florida, and will hopefully fail in Minnesota and Iowa in the next few weeks.

Wouldn’t it be great if photographers in the music industry worked together to change the rules?

In the early 1980’s a group of music photographers got together to try to protest the contracts that were being trotted out pertaining to photographing musicians. After many meetings in New York City, we decided to boycott the Julian Lennon tour that was starting up the following month. Our tactic was to go to the show, ask to see the road manager at the box office, and reject the contract. The main thing is we all agreed to go to the show and then refuse to shoot. On the night of the first show of the tour, we called the two photographers from that city and told them to “be strong.” The next morning we called them to get the great news. They both told us that the 20 minute drive to the venue was a lot of work, and they decided to sign the horrible contract, because they didn’t want to waste all that time! The movement failed.

Since then, the rules have been getting increasingly worse. Is there any chance of a national protest happening in 2011?

Flew to New York for a quick turn around job. YIKES! What a town.

I had to go to the Jimmy Fallon show and photograph ?uestlove from the Roots. Got to 30 Rock and had to wade through a block long line of people who had been sleeping on the sidewalk for about five days waiting to get in to see Lady Gaga on Saturday Night Live! Man, that is a fan base! Some of them were waiting to see the host, Justin Timberlake, but most of them were there to see Gaga. When I arrived at the 6^th floor, I spent a great hour with ?uestlove and Tariq from the Roots. Hard to find nicer people in the music business.

Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Then I started watching the people at the gate. How did people get anything accomplished before laptops and cell phones??

Almost everyone at the gate was either talking or texting or working on their laptops. When boarding started, people waited until the last minute to close their laptops, butr continued talking and texting. Once they got to their seats, laptops came out again. Nobody turned off their devices when the announcement came on until the flight attendant came by to warn them. What is so important that they can’t wait till they get home? As soon as they were able, all the devices came back out, till the announcement came to shut them off. When we landed, as soon as the wheels touched the ground the cell phones came out. As we were taxiing to the gate, I looked around and every person that I could see from my seat was either talking or texting! Is everything just more important in the 21^st century??

Photographed a band at the Aragon Ballroom this weekend. It is a general admission, first come- first served venue with a capacity of about 5000 people. The true fans start lining up the morning of the show in an alley down the block, and when the doors open, they run up the stairs to get to the front. Historically, there have been bands that caused people to sleep out in the alley for up to four days (Van Halen comes to mind). These people, I am surmising, were aided by substances legal and illegal. Many of them passed out in the front row before the band came on and had to be carried out.

This weekend, the situation was a little different. The band was Rise Against, a punk rock band, who in the last few years have risen from playing at the Warped tour to selling out two nights at the Aragon. That is 10,000 tickets, or 5000 people coming two nights in a row. Either way, a great accomplishment! The band is very political, and has a faithful audience. They also preach being “Straight edge”, meaning no drugs or alcohol. I talked to some of the people being crushed against the barricade and they told me that they had been there for  three and a half hours, after sitting in the cold in the alley for about 7 hours in 50 degree windy weather. That is some kind of dedication!

I think with these kind of fans, this band will go a long way (Doesn’t hurt that they are really nice guys, also)

Wednesday: Manchester Orchestra. Never heard of them till a few days before the night of the show. Watched a little of the Bulls- Hawks game with them on the bus before the show (They are from Atlanta so it was a little tense- Bulls were kicking butt). Took them outside for a little shoot at the end of the first quarter- priorities! Then they had to do a show. Band was really good, and the crowd knew the words to almost every song. Average age of the audience was about 17- man did I feel old!!!

Thursday: Of Montreal. Had seen some articles about them a few years ago but never tried to shoot them. My mistake. Did a quick shoot with them after soundcheck and then prepared myself to talk the road manager into letting me shoot more than 3 songs. Went downstairs to find him, asked him my question and it was met with a perplexed look. “Don’t worry everybody with a photo pass can shoot the whole show- stills or video. Also everyone in the audience can also shoot anything they want.” YIKES!!!

The show was amazing. There were people dressed as pigs and Mexican wrestlers beating each other up in between band members playing some great stuff and a lead singer/showman who prowled the stage, sang great and looked great in a mini-skirt.

Friday: Little Big Town. They were opening for Sugarland. Drove to the suburbs in rush hour traffic to find out that there was no pit, just a country version of a mosh pit in front of the stage! Trying to shoot in that situation, for a person my height, was troublesome. To add to that, it seemed to me that there were many parents in the pit with small children on their shoulders! Still a pretty good show, though. When I was walking in, I ran across a press photographer who shoots a lot of shows. He was carrying a 300MM lens with a monopod. He told me that he always carries it to arena shows, because it has become the norm for photo access to be confined to the sound board. Oh well, another freedom for photographers down the drain.

Saturday: Surfer Blood. Another band I have never heard of! Four nice kids from Florida. Sold out the venue. Will probably be pretty big. I felt like I was about 100 years old by midnight. I shouldn’t complain, though. Four bands who let me shoot in four days!

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.

Recently, I read a blog post from an Australian photographer named Justin Edwards:

http://www.notaphoto.com/throughout-the-universe-in-perpetuity-why-i-dont-sign-copyright-grabbing-photo-contracts

He made a number of good points on why he doesn’t sign “rights grab” contracts, but the one point he made pretty much said it all.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen it asked, but following on from “first three, no flash”, I’d say it’s extremely unlikely that anyone would be able to pinpoint the first time a photo release was used or the first time a copyright grabbing contract was used and who the bands were. Once there was no “three songs, no flash” rule, now it’s industry standard in all but the small, local shows.  Once there were no releases. Once there were no copyright grabbing contracts.  In the last couple of years there has been a noticeable increase in photo release contracts and an increased erosion of photographers’ rights.

So, this is the point- if people keep on signing these contracts, artists will keep on giving them out!

Even if people sign fake names, bands will escalate this practice until it is the norm in the industry. And…you can only sign a fake name so many times until you are caught. Then the whole business is over!!

Most artists and publicists think of photographers as third class citizens from the start- a bother that they have to put up with to get publicity for their smaller bands. Most arena bands don’t believe that they need people to photograph their shows, unless they are from a major paper or magazine, or a large photo agency

And now, ironically, large agencies, (because most photographers don’t bother to edit), are restricting photographers posting from large events to the assigned photographer only.

So the business of photographing live music is pretty much over. I still get several college students a month coming over to get advice on how to make it in my business. I used to have a standard response:

If you work your butt off, you have about a 25% chance of earning a living in the music business.

But today, I have a different response:

Even if you work your butt off seven days a week, you have absolutely no chance of ever earning a living shooting pictures of musicians!