Music Photography Blog

by Adam Elmakias

A Music Photography Magazine Issue #1

A Music Photographer Magazine

We are making another music photographer magazine. It is loosely related to my previous project – Your Music Photographer Magazine. This time it will be a collaboration between my current music photographers friends and, well – and hopefully you.

I have wanted to do this for awhile I just didn’t have the resources or the inspiration, but I ran the idea by some of my music photographer friends and they were very encouraging. So here we go. The music photographer magazine already has 25 music photographers in on it. They have picked out their images, written their captions and dissected their EXIF data all in the name of learning, sharing, and growing together.

I didn’t hold any kind of popularity contest or who is the best photographer I know to pick these people, just thought about who I was friends with any whoever came to mind first – I picked. I have so many more amazing photographer friends then this, and hoping to making more magazines in the future so I can share their work as well. Here are the first 24, more info on how to be a part of this mag after the list.

Alexey Makhov
I met Alexey at an A Day To Remember concert in Moscow. He was a huge fan and I remember taking him backstage to meet the fan. Now he has even worked for ADTR on a tour when I wasn’t avail. Amazing guy, and one of the only Russians I have ever met (in Russia) that has smiled at me.

Alexey Makhov who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Anna Lee
Anna and I couldn’t figure out when we met. But I think it was at this show in San Diego. It was brief, but she is very sweet and look at her amazing hair damn I am jealous I miss having long hair… and such cool colors. Not to mention she has a knack for capturing bands in their natural environment. Badass Anna.

Anna Lee who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Brad Heaton
Thanks for pushing the limits and showing the rest of us how it’s done. I have never seen someone shoot the same show 50 times and make it look special each time. Well done, somehow you are 6 foot 5 and still a sneaky mouse

Brad Heaton who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Brad Moore
Brad helped me out a ton years ago, he used to work for Scott Kelby and played an integral part in getting me on his blog as a guest blogger.  Since then we have become friends and it’s been lovely watching his path as a music photographer.

Brad Moore who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Ben Gibson
I asked ben where we met, he said on the beach in Brighton, UK. He texted me and said it like this “Yeah, I remember phoning you and you not knowing where the beach was despite being parked next to it for the day haha.” I thought this was hilarious, it was true. Tour can be quite disorienting. Anyway we had a beer under the street in this wooden bar together with a man from rocksound magazine. The other guy in this image is Del. He is a great photographer too, we will get him in the next magazine!

Ben Gibson who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Brendan Donahue
When I met brendan he was young as cuss. I was young too!I think he still is. I stayed at his place in St. Louis and hung out with him and his mom. We got Starbucks the next morning and went to warped tour. Brendan, you are a badass. Happy to have you as a friend, even if we only see each other once in awhile.

Brendan Donahue who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Christie Goodwin
I met up with Christie in London. At the time I was living there and she met me at a pub and we had non alcoholic beverages and talked about life and photography. A refreshingly kind and delightful human to spend a rainy London evening with. Thanks Christie, you are a legend and I will forever look up to you.

Christie Goodwin who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Conor McDonnell
I think Conor emailed me a long time ago. That’s how I first heard of him. Since then he has continued to conquer the world and it is a pleasure to watch. The first time we hung out – I have no idea. It;’s hard cause the way most tour photographers life is so dense with *stuff* that happens. You have hours worth of stories, happen every day, for months at a time. Everything kind of blends together after awhile and all you can remember are faces and events memories triggered by photos. So I remember getting food at Urth in LA with him. Good man, always smiling.

Conor McDonnell who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Daniel Boud
I met Dan in Sydney, Australia years ago. He took me to this place where we went swimming off the coast and it was beautiful. One of the coolest things ever. I am from Wisconsin so I can only tread water long enough to not drown and he can do it for what seems like an eternity but I tried my best. Thanks for the good vibes Dan.

Daniel Boud who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

David Jackson
Ive known of Dave since i was a kid, h te is actually one of the reasons I got into music photography. I used to study his photos in high school. Since then we have hung out on multiple occasions and even gotten each other some gigs. All around great man, farther, photographer – and with a similar hair satyle, at least on the top half of his head. I think I lost our selfie homie.

Drew Ressler
I met up with Drew better known as the legendary RUKES a few years ago in LA. Since then we have had quite some tasty meals. Most noteably this time we were both stuck at the Phoenix airport randomly so we got lunch, or maybe it was dinner.

Drew Ressler who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Elliott Ingham
Elliot and I met on a tour not that long ago… three years now? Which is weird because I feel like I have known him for 10 years. I think that in itself is the beautiful thing about Elliot – he makes everyone feel like they are family with his genuine friendship.

Elliott Ingham who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Jake Chamseddine
Jake. This homie, Well we only met once. He was on tour with Panic! – how badass that was his first tour? He went straight from being an amazing instagram based photographer to a touring music photographer. I think he is on tour with Lorde now. Impressive Jake.

Joshua James Halling
Ill be honest. I don’t remember meeting Josh. Well I remember, but not he first time. He is a hard soul to forget. But it was warped tour, and the days blur together between the constant noise and sun and lack of sleep and over consumption of alcohol. But he said we met in Jones Beach Amphitheater on Warped and i take his word for it. We didn’t have a photo together so he drew this for us. Prob stick to photography bro. 🙂

Kane Hibberd
I flew out to Australia for an art show I had behind a coffee shop with Kane. I think it was 2011? Maybe 2012 However my flight got delayed because someone burnt toast at the airport in San Diego so then I missed my connection in LA and I had to stay home one more day and I missed the opening of the gallery event. But Kane was nice enough to pick me up and take me to his studio where he gifted me a mannequin hand that I took all the way home to San Diego. Thank you Kane for being so inspiring.

Kane Hibberd who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Matty Vogel 
We dont know when we met. So we say *Warped tour some year* . Matt comes from Minnesota which is very close to where I am from, so we are kind of related. He loves cats, I love cats, so we get along. He takes pictures of cities like I wish I could take. One day Vogel.

Matty Vogel who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Max Fairclough
You know, we think we met on Soundwave, which is a tour in Australia but neither of us can remember. I stayed after in Perth and we hung out then. Max is quite kind, a little bit tall – and a has a very nice sense of fashion – one that I could probably learn from.

Max Fairclough who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Nick Mahar
Ive only met Nick once. He made time for me briefly before Logic’s set at Leeds festival in 2016. It was quick but he was very kind and it was a pleasure to see him. We have both followed each others work for quite some time.

Paul Harries
I met Paul a long time ago. I don’t know when exactly but I was on tour with a band and he was photo shooting them for Kerrang! Actually I just hit Paul up to ask and he think it was an All Time Low tour and I think it was ADTR which was before ATL so in conclusion I’ve probably followed Paul a lot longer than he has known of my existence.

Paul Harries who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Robert Noise 
I met Robert through Blink-182 – he makes nice coffee and takes me to nice coffee spots. He shoots with a lot of weird cool cameras so he teaches me about them.

Steve Brazill 
I originally met steve because he wins the award for nicest man on the internet, and in real life actually too. But i was having trouble with my Synology Was system and helped me fix it (it was never broken, I am just terrible at this stuff). Since then he has been incredibly helpful with me on a lot of projects, including this one. I think Steve is the most kind man I know.

Steve Brazill who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Thomas Falcone
I met Tom pre-photog life. His pre-photog life! He used to do merch on warped aka sit in a tent all day harassing those of us who were *working* with his fire hair and snarky smile. Just kidding Tom you the best. Happy to call you my friend.

Thomas Falcone who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Todd Owyoung
I think I met Todd before he met me. You see, Todd is kind of a concert photography god/ lord/ guru. He was doing a shoot with a band I was on tour with at Warped in St. Louis. I just fanned out and didn’t talk to him much. A year or so later he let me stay at his place in St. Louis for a night and made me wonderful food, taught me about drinking whiskey, and took me out for ramen. He has the most kind wife as well! We watched Seven Samurais, that movie is so good. Thanks for all you do for the community.

Todd Owyoung who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

Zoe Rain
I met Zoe in Europe. She was out with Macklemore and we played a good number of festivals together. She has continued to impress me, her portraits are out of this world too.

Zoey Rain who is featured in A Music Photography Magazine

The Music Photographer Magazine!

I want to stress this magazine is an effort to bring people together and learn. I am not saying we are the best photographers, I am just saying we are like minded and want to create something together. These are people I admire, I respect and I feel comfortable backing fully. Now when I was making this I started with who I know, who I had a relationship with. But I know there are more of you out there, and I want to learn about you, and your work.

This is where you come into play. Any music photographer – on stage, off stage, back stage, in the studio – anything having to do with music artists – I want to publish your photographs. I don’t care if you have been doing this 10 years or ten days. All I care about if your photography.

So here is how it works…

Who?
Any level music photographer

What do you need?
A music photograph with a story

What kind of photographs am I looking for?
Unique music photographs. Preferably ones that contain emotion. Something more than just a person on stage. Don’t really care who is in your photograph, more interested in how you photographed them and what you were able to create in the restricting music environment that is a concert. Portraits of musicians are okay, as well as lifestyle shots. Basically anything having to do with music.

How to submit?
You can do it via instagram or twitter with the hashtag #aMusicPhotogMagazine, or just tag me. Whatever works best for you, works for me. I see everything, mostly. Please caption your photograph with a rough story about it (you can change this later) and have a contact email at the end of it. This is important, there are going to be a lot of entries so make sure you get this right! I need a way to contact you via email.

When?
Now => April 10th. If you haven’t heard from me by the 10th, please make sure you put your info down here so we have you for the next one.

After I select 25 people I will be contacting you. No need to reach out or anything of the sort, just submit. I will take it for there. It just me, I am one person – so patience. Compiling 60 peoples images, data, and caption to be ready for print is way more time consuming then I could ever imagine. Lots of work is involved with this.

Thanks again everyone! I love this community and love the people involved, and can’t wait to show everyone what we have been up to (in print)

Much love
Ae