Books

Copyright information and guidance is difficult to find and understand. This guidebook is helpful, easy to follow, free, and specifically made for photographers, especially concert photographers. This educational guide’s purpose is to inform photographers about U.S. copyright law pertaining to still, motion, and multimedia projects. The topics cover the basics of copyright to registration and implementing copyright into workflow. Although the book was published five years ago most of the resources linked in the PDF are still usable and the information inside is still relevant and accurate for use today. The information provided in this guidebook is referenced by the United States Copyright Office website and the guide includes advice from Chris Reese, an attorney and former president of ASMP, among others.

This book was originally published as a catalog for the “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” exhibition at FoMu. The book and exhibits’ focus are on music and photography from 1990 to today. It contains 150 color and 50 black and white photographs. There are several essays included on behind-the-scene views from photographers’ perspectives of the music scene. It is a unique coffee table type book, but is inspirational as well. It also contains its own Spotify soundtrack. It is the only bilingual (English and Dutch) material included in this annotated bibliography and is one of two available through UNC Chapel Hill Libraries.

Hess writes from his own experiences as a professional photographer. He provides a wide range of information on how to shoot photos in various venue settings (small dive bars, larger local venues, big stages, and festivals) and takes into account all aspects of each of the challenges listed in the chapters, including wearing comfortable shoes. In each section he also includes something called “pro tips” where he includes a short interview of a professional as they relate to the section topic, these include musicians, publicists, and other photographers. This book is suited for any level photographer interested in concert photography. There are more than 200 concert photographs included in this book.

This guide is meant for beginners but goes in-depth and step by step on how to shoot photos at concerts. The book covers topics from the basic technical aspects of photography to creating your own online portfolio, as well how to navigate communicating with people in the crowd and in the bands. There are missing references for the more technical sections of this book, which is often the case for photography books. Also, because this is a self-published book there are some grammatical errors. Overall, this is a great guide and Matthias Hombauer is included twice as an author of a resource in this annotated bibliography.

Light is one of the biggest challenges in music photography and the focus of this resource is on photography in “available-light” situations. Theatre & Stage Photography focuses more on the technical aspects of low-light photography (the production of photos) rather than any related photography subjects. Each chapter covers different technical aspects of low-light photography and some post-production topics. These specific issues cover more basic functions of the camera, such as white balance and metering to more advanced settings like EV compensation and meter priority. This book is written by William Kenyon who is the Head of the Lighting Design Program at Penn State University's School of Theatre. The resource has a companion website http://stagephoto.org.

This book features images of Rolling Stone magazine. These images are previously published photographs in Rolling Stone as well as some never before published images. The photographs cover decades of photography. The photographers included are Dennis Hopper, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Norman Seeff, and many others. Artists featured include Sid Vicious, Paul McCartney, Courtney Love, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and more. The art book includes 179 images organized by theme (concert photos, backstage photos, portraits, and more). The photographs are free standing, no text. The index includes small photos of each photo, along with the artist photographed, photographer, year, location, and description. This inspirational art book is unique in that it is created by the former art director for Rolling Stone; the magazine was "THE" magazine of its time for musical coverage.

This book was written by J. Dennis Thomas, an award-winning photographer, who has written more than twenty books on Nikon cameras and Nikon equipment. This book covers gear, shooting in different venue settings, how to frame bands in photos, etiquette, marketing, and more. It includes not only regular concert photography advice but information on non-candid photography surrounding music photography. This is a fairly informal, yet comprehensive book. Thomas is writing as if he is speaking directly to the reader. He makes sure to be inclusive and states in his “The Basics” chapter that “This chapter will not only cover the basics as they apply in concert and live music photography, but also as they may sometimes apply in everyday photography.”