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Atlanta based editorial music photographer, Zack Arias. |
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Tue , June 24th, 2008
under Music Photography,News
I was recently interviewed about my music photography career by The Daily Chorus. We talked about how I approach shoots, work with clients, goals I have, music I’m listening to, and advice I give to bands and artists as they go about building their “brand”. It was a really fun interview that will give some insight to photographers wanting to get started out shooting bands. Let me know what you think! Cheers, 7 Responses to “Interview with The Daily Chorus ::”Leave a Reply |
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rad interview. i feel the same way, i love shooting live shows, but getting paid for it would be nice…haha! great insight on the whole band imaging/branding. thanks zack!
matt
good read.. can i shoot the “douche bags”?
Sweetness!
do they still have a site? because i tried going to it and it wouldn’t let me?
DEAD LINK!! any records of this interview anywhere else??
The Daily Chorus is dead! Long Live The Daily Chorus (via the Internet Archive):
http://web.archive.org/web/20080629084528/http://www.thedailychorus.com/inter.php?subaction=showcomments&id=1214327339&archive=&start_from=&ucat=5&
Reposting from the Internet Archive:
Zack Arias Interview….
TDC recently had the chance to interview popular music photographer Zack Arias.
Arias has done a numerous amount of work for both independent and major artists from across a variety of genres, including but not limited to: Cartel (first promo shots), Snowden, Manchester Orchestra, Tokyo Rose, Hawthorne Heights, Mars Ill, Deep Space Five, Big Boi from Outkast, TI, 8 Ball, Edwin McCain, and the Strokes.
We talked with Arias about his career as a photographer, how bands can help build their image and get noticed, his approach to each type of shoot, and some of his favorite shots.
You can check out the full interview in the comments.
The Daily Chorus: Zack – Tell us a little about who you are and what you do.
Zack Arias: Well, I’m a single dad living in Atlanta, GA. I feed my two boys with two Nikons. Most of the work I do is press and promotional photography for bands and solo artists. I shoot quite a bit in the indie rock to singer songwriter to independent hip hop genres. As is the case in all things creative, I do a number of other things as well. I have a studio that concentrates mostly on headshot photography for actors and professional people and I travel around the country once or twice a month teaching lighting techniques to emerging photographers.
TDC: You say you do a lot of promo and press work. Do you shoot concerts as well?
ZA: I love shooting concerts! I mean, that is where the music finally comes out. The issue though is these two boys of mine and the two landlords I have can’t get fed on live photography work so I usually just shoot shows for personal work or when I can shoot bands that I really love. Once you get out of your local venue you have that insane “first three songs only” rule to deal with and I can’t stand that. I mean, what happened to Rock-n-Roll? The best concert images are at the end, usually, and 99% of the time you aren’t allowed to photograph that part of the concert. No thanks. I am very happy doing the press and promo work.
TDC: Who are some of the artists that you have photographed in the past?
ZA: I’ve personally worked with over 350 artists in the past 5 years. Many of whom you will never have heard of! And many of whom it’s just sad that you haven’t heard of them. While I’m not on tour with Coldplay or the like, I have had the opportunity to work with bands like Cartel (I shot their first promo material), Snowden, Manchester Orchestra, Tokyo Rose, Hawthorne Heights, Mars Ill, Deep Space Five, Big Boi from Outkast, TI, 8 Ball, Edwin McCain, and the Strokes.
TDC: With the sale of music down, bands are having to make it a point to build a brand rather than just releasing music, how do you go about helping bands build their brand through your photography?
ZA: I can not stress the importance of brand building enough to artists trying to make it in this crazy market right now. Look at the press kit that you are sending out to people. Divorce yourself from every lyric you have written and every note you have played. Don’t even think about your music. Just look at your press kit from a stranger’s point of view, one who sees dozens of these every single day. Is your logo made in Power Point? Are you using stationary with barbed wire and skulls on it? Are you just another “douchebag” standing on the railroad tracks with a guitar? Are you a four piece hanging out in front of a red brick wall, or a wall of graffiti, or four guys standing in the bathroom? Are you a female singer songwriter using your high school senior portraits as your press kit photo? Is it all soft and pretty and makes you want to hold a puppy?
Those press kits get thrown in the garbage can. Your CD is never listened to. Your web site is never visited.
Of course you are saying to yourself, “Well, we know better than to do the train track picture or the brick wall picture.” That’s good. Those are the stereotypical shots of course. But if your image doesn’t make a person stop in their tracks and take you seriously, you are wasting your time, your money, and your music. I’m not just talking about the press kit photo. I’m talking about the entire image package. Don’t be so indie rock to think that image doesn’t matter and don’t think that I’m talking about how you look per se. I’m talking about how seriously do you take your music and your craft? The more serious you take it the more people will pay attention to you.
What sucks is you’ll have to spend more time and money developing your image from your photos, to your fonts, to your web site, etc as you move along in your career. You have to stand out in the crown these days. Get yourself a photographer, a graphic designer, and a web designer who knows what they are doing to help you get there. As a photographer I have had to do the same thing. As my work grows I spend more time and money on my branding and my marketing. I’ve had to bring in other people to do things I’m not good at doing. Don’t ask me to make a logo. I can’t do it to save my life, but I know people who do.
You really need to spend some time in the “Hall Of Douchebags” over at Rock And Roll Confidential to see what I’m talking about. ( http://www.rockandrollconfidential.com/ )
How I help artists work on this is making images that make people stop. My goal as a photographer is to give my clients images that look as though they are tear sheets from a magazine. I also give direction as to what was going on in my head for the final print. Things like “I shot this image with a lot of negative space so that you could use it for posters and place artwork here, here, and here. This image is great for a square crop for CD artwork. This image can go horizontal or vertical for web banners. Etc, etc, etc.”
TDC: If you had to pick just one photo you’ve shot of an artist to be remembered by for eternity (no pressure here
) What photo would it be?
ZA: No pressure. Right. Honestly, I haven’t shot that image yet.
I do have “benchmark” photos as I call them. I have a few of those. They are images that are personally important to me. I would have to say one of them would be a photo I took of Big Boi chair surfing at the dentist office. I was there to shoot promotional photos for the dental spa he uses. I do mean “spa”. This isn’t your normal dentist office. I always shoot the images that are needed for the job but I am constantly on the look out for other images even when the job is done. Big Boi was fantastic to work with and I was able to quickly build a relationship of trust with him. He allowed me to follow him into his cleaning session for a minute and as the dentist was getting her tools together, he was just playing around and I shot one of my favorite images of my career there.
I have this other image of Kele Okereke of Bloc Party coming after me and my camera that had the two of us getting separated before we took each other’s “Blocs” off. He had had a few too many drinks at an after party and without any provocation from me, he decided to try to get my camera out of my hands. As he was coming after me and my camera, I was firing the shutter. I had only one Newcastle at that point and I outweigh him by just a few pounds (just a few, like 80.) and he was going after the thing I use to live my life. It wasn’t going to end well. His manager broke us up. THAT was rock-n-roll! The whole thing actually made me a Bloc Party fan!
TDC: What makes artists easier/harder to work with during a photo shoot?
ZA: Many people I work with find the process of going through with a photo shoot very difficult. Most of my clients are walking into my studio for the first time since their family portraits at Olan Mills. They are graduating up a notch from their friends with a “real nice” digital camera to a guy with softboxes the size of a tent and it can be intimidating. You also have to think about the fact that musicians usually “come alive” on stage doing their thing. It is hard to get to that point on a Wednesday at 2 in the afternoon. I use the first hour of my shoots as a baseball pitcher uses the bull pen. I give my clients plenty of time to warm up to the process. The last 10 photos will always be better than the first 10 photos but we have to get through the first 10 to get to the final images.
Artists who walk in the door with a good selection of clothes and some basic ideas of what they are trying to communicate make things easier for the shoot.
As far as making things difficult? I would say artists who are trying WAY too hard to be something or convey something through poses and wardrobe make things difficult. I’ve had some clients who are trying so damn hard to do it perfectly that we have to back things off a few notches to get them to just be themselves. Genuine people always win. Always. If you are trying too hard people can read that like a book.
TDC: How much input do you have in the wardrobe the artists ware in your photo shoots?
ZA: I give a good bit of direction for wardrobe choices. The first thing I want to see is A LOT of clothes. If we plan 5 looks, bring enough clothes for 10 or 12 looks. I’ve had bands empty their entire closet on my studio floor. I want to see options. On the other hand, I have had some folks walk in with 10 different black tshirts. That isn’t really going to give the options we need when shooting. I match clothes up to contrast the colors or environments I’m shooting a lot of the time. So if I know I’m shooting against a blue sky I want to have some reds, oranges, browns, or greens to work with because that will really pop off of the blue background in the photo. Jackets, sweaters, and the like also give me the ability to quickly change the look of a photograph without having the artist do a complete change of clothes.
TDC: Do you or the artists usually come up with the concepts for your shoots?
ZA: I usually have to come up with the ideas for concepts and locations. My clients usually don’t have the budgets to bring an entire creative team in to brainstorm the entire project. What my clients are looking for are images that make them “pop”. That make people stop and look at them and want to give their CD a spin. My style is very editorial in nature. Meaning, I do a lot of magazine work and that is the kind of image I shoot. I’m very good at the technical side of what I do and I struggle with the concepts so when artists can bring concepts, wardrobe, and props to the shoot, it makes my job a lot easier.
TDC: Do you approach shoots differently based on what style of music the artist that you are photographing perform?
ZA: I sure do. I love contrast and juxtaposition in my work and I run as fast away as I can from the trite and predictable. For instance, I will never shoot a hip hop artist in front of graffiti. Just won’t do it. Why? It’s been done a million times. Now, give me some sort of soft, brooding, Iron & Wine type of client and I would consider shooting them in front of graffiti simply because it would be such a stark contrast.
When asking for creative cues from my clients my first question about locations are “Do you want more of an urban, city street feel or more of a natural grass and trees feel?” This gives me clues as to who they are and what they want to convey. Then I have to go out and find just the right locations for them. If they want trees and grass that can go many ways. You can find manicured parks and botanical gardens or you can find deserted lots in the ghetto with overgrown shrubs and dead trees. Each are a natural setting but are vastly different in mood and feel. I’ll pick one over the other based on what I feel from their music.
TDC: Do you work with artists at all stages of their careers and with various budgets?
ZA: I typically work with emerging independent artists. When I started shooting bands 5 years ago I would work with anybody. I mean anybody. For just about any price. I shot Cartel’s first promo work for $125! It was such a fun time of my career but then you wake up one day and realize that while you love what you do, you are actually losing money. I’ve had to learn that while I love this, this is a business and to compete and continue to keep doing it, I had to price myself in a way to feed my kids. All that said, I’m still the best bargain in the south. I regularly have bands come in from around the Southeast to shoot with me. I get a number of folks who stop in while on tour as well to work with me for half a day. If a band is just dirt poor but needs some really solid images, my studio manager, Erik Dixon, steps up to the plate to handle those jobs. Not that I don’t want to! I just have kids to feed. Erik just has to keep his Basset Hound happy!
TDC: What are some of your goals for your photography?
ZA: Well, as with every other music photographer out there who has not shot a cover of Rolling Stone… I want to shoot a cover of Rolling Stone. The other thing I really, really, really want is to have full access to a large national tour. Documentary photography is my heart of hearts. I want to bring back those images that bands used to have before everyone at the label was so damned concerned with exactly what type of images were allowed to be seen or not seen. A complete free pass from the bus, to the stage, and back. No limits. I really want to document a large tour with a band like Radiohead, Coldplay, Sigur Ros, Arcade Fire, BRMC and the like. Hell, I would love to go out with Bloc Party for a few weeks! I know they would give me something to photograph all the time!
TDC: To bring it back to music, who are you listening to right now?
ZA: My super awesome BFF girlfriend, Meghan Coffee ( http://www.meghancoffee.com ) has just released a new album and that is in heavy rotation right now. It was released the same day as Coldplay’s new album which is also getting a lot of play in the studio despite my studio manager making fun of me for liking Coldplay. He keeps quoting the “40 Year Old Virgin” line about Coldplay.
Since I just got my first pair of new Doc Marten’s in 10 years, I have gone back to some of my roots by adding some old Cure, pre Rattle And Hum U2, The Sisters Of Mercy, and Nitzer Ebb to my current playlist.
TDC: Where online can folks go to check out some of your photography?
ZA: My music photography is located at http://www.ZackArias.com. I post recent work and photography tutorials on my blog at http://www.zarias.com. From my blog you can find all my other stuff too like my workshop, clips from my forthcoming lighting DVD for photographers, my flickr stream and all of the social whoring, I mean, networking that I do on myspace, facebook, and twitter. Have I mentioned that I’m completely addicted to twitter right now? Like, OMG LOL!
TDC: If one of our artists wanted to get in touch with you about doing a photo shoot, how should they do it?
ZA: The best thing to do is get in touch with my rep, Michael Weeman. ( http://www.weeman.us ). He knows my schedule better than I do.