It has been a while since I have put words to screen, mostly due to family commitments and a seemingly accelerated workload due to an impending month long January exhibition......oh and not forgetting the hard to miss Christmas period. The lull sat between Christmas and New Year has allowed me some time to put some words down, and I wanted to discuss 'Creative Chances', something that is close to my heart and highlighted in a recent
pre-seasonal photography shoot.
No matter at what level you work at, there will be times in your career where you will hopefully be given a creative chance, this maybe in the form of someone giving you the opportunity to prove yourself in your chosen genre or maybe something totally different, just a show of faith in your creative vision, a gallery willing to give you space to put on an unproven exhibition....it arrives in many forms!
This show of faith extends across all personal creative outlets and platforms, whether that is art, photography, music or the written word, we all sometimes need that 'leg up' to help us along the way to finding our own creative vision and outlet.
I can relate to this directly as I was given the opportunity towards the end of December to do my first ever gig photography shoot. Coming from a background of Landscape & Street Photography, shooting live music presents itself as a totally different challenge entirely, despite this being of particular interest as a genre to me. This 'Creative Chance' was given by the very well regarded singer / songwriter Doris Brendel, someone who has worked and toured at all levels of the music industry in a career that has spanned decades.
Having become friends across social media, it was discussed early on that if ever the chance should arise during a tour, that I would love to dip my toe in the unfamiliar waters of live music photography, that chance arrived about a year later. Upon the aforementioned tours arrival in Newcastle upon Tyne, Doris was kind enough to invite me as a guest and to allow me the creative freedom to shoot the gig as I saw fit, after all we all have our own creative stance on any given subject matter!
There were many ways that I could have approached this 'having a go' at live music photography, which for most people would have amounted to photographing local bands in pubs to learn the difficult craft. Thankfully I was given the opportunity by such a well established and respected artist, a fellow creative, allowing me to learn on a far bigger stage than imagined for my first foray into this genre. It is people like this that are willing to extend a hand that really helps to foster creative growth not only in their own artistic field, but across the artistic boundaries.
Littered throughout this post are just a few of the images captured during a wonderful evening of live music, and proof that creative chances are out there, and would hope that when the shoe is on the other foot that I would extend the same creative respect that Doris Brendel showed me.
Please do take time to follow the links below, find out a bit more, and check out some of the music created by this wonderful artist.
As Always,
Scott
www.dorisbrendel.com
www.facebook.com/dorisbrendelmusic/