Where are the pics?

[boobtube21]

The last few gigs I've played people have been snapping pics of us (the band), and we don't know who they are.

When my San Diego band played in Fresno, there were camera flashes going off all over the place, only photos I've seen are the ones the drummer's wife took. Last 2 gigs with my LA band, same thing. 3 different people took close-up pics of me on steel at the Kibitz Room; I have no idea who they were, and I've never seen the phtots.

Shouldn't there be some protocol, like if you take pics of a band, you could email some copies of them via MySpace or something?? It would nice to be able to put them on the site, or share them with friends/family. You can't take pics of yourself onstage you know!

[Wilko]

I bring a camera to most of my gigs. It is very hard to take pics of myself, but I shoot the crowd and/or band, and sometimes they take the camera and shoot me/us.

[Mesotech]

We have a similar problem with our band. People take pictures and rarely share them with us. We added a page to our website encouraging folks to email us copies of the pictures, but it hasn't helped much. Sometimes I find some in our Myspace friends pages, and I'll copy them from there. We rarely have every member of our band onstage all at the same time (there's 6 of us) and we have a "band camera" that whoever isn't onstage at the time takes custody over and snaps our own photo's whenever possible. Other bands I know of tend to have a wife/GF hanging around taking pictures specifically for the bands use.

We've even had a professional photographer come to our shows and take some really nice pictures, but he charges by the picture for you to get a digital copy or printed copy of them. Even though we're the subject, he doesn't have to give us copies for free because we're in a "public place" and the law has established that anyone in a public place doesn't have a reasonable right to privacy. So he can take pictures if he wants and no one can stop him except the club owner (if they're even interested).

With that in mind, getting others to share pictures with the band would be nice, but you can't really enforce it. Perhaps during a break you could buy them a beer and sweet talk them into sending you a copy.

[boobtube21]

Yeah, it's not something you can really enforce...but it would be nice if people just automatically did that.

The band camera is a good idea, I'm going to try and bring that one up. The more pictures the better, since most of them are rarely usable unless you and your wife/gf knows good photo composition.

Actually, I've got video footage from Fresno of the other bands we played with, and I've never sent it to them like I even SAID I WOULD. Now that's not cool. It's crap footage though!

[Mesotech]

Even if it's crap, I'm sure they would still appreciate it. While it may not be useful for promotional purposes, it could still be quite valuable on an educational level. We always try to get any video footage taken of us, even if it's bad. There's so much we learn about our performances (good and bad) from any snippet we can get. That can range from audience reaction and parcipitation to certain songs, to what was our stage presence and attire like? We trashed an entire 3 hour's worth of otherwise excellent video simply because the lead singer didn't like the way his new $100 shirt looked on him. He said it made him look like Meatloaf (hey, it is what it is... right?) and caused him to go on a healthy diet and excercise campaign. He didn't like the bald spot he is developing either, so now he wears a hat a lot. Honestly, there's a wealth of information to be gleaned from every performance, if you have thick skin and can take constructive criticism.

I would try to make every effort to get them the video, no matter how good or bad it is. I'm sure they would appreciate it.

[boobtube21]

You know, you're right Meso. I'll try to compile it into a file I can email and contact those guys. It's only right if I'm gonna bitch in this thread about stills...