How to become a music photographer: Priti's story

Priti:

I think falling into music photography has been a great thing for me because it's a very challenging industry to be a part of. So if you don't have a genuine passion for it, I think you're likely to give up quite quickly. My favourite thing to shoot would be live events and portrait sessions, whether it be studio or location. I love to mix it up because we can really create different things with clients and it depends on obviously the brief that they're going for.

When I was at school, I had no idea what I wanted to do so, although I enjoyed the creative subjects, I didn't know what I was going to go into so even when I got to the college phase of things I was kind of torn between do I go down the route of something that's a bit more stable or do I just keep doing what I enjoy doing?

My advice to anyone wanting to start music photography is literally just going out and doing it. You don't need a qualification to get started and you don't need the latest and greatest camera gear, you just need a camera – that could be on your phone to get started.It was really when I was travelling that I started to learn a lot more about the camera and how to shoot in manual mode. I didn't do any courses or anything like that, it was literally just getting on with it and learning from scratch through videos, YouTube and other online resources.

I think in this day and age with social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, even online marketing for the different areas of it, Spotify, EP artwork and album artworks there is definitely a place for photography even more so. When looking at photography, I feel like 10% of it is actual photography and shooting and, I'd say, 80-90% of it was all the background work.

I was definitely sort of working with clients on the go through avenues like Gumtree and other online work websites. If you're emailing someone about a potential job, there are 10 other people maybe going for that job so if you have that sort of personal relationship with them you're probably more likely to get hired for it.

So I carried on networking and it eventually paid off. There was a lot of rejections or just no responses from editors at magazines but I'm now shooting for Kerrang! magazine and it's starting to pay off.

I would say the music industry is an exciting industry to be a part of. Is it a challenging one? Yes, it is, but it comes down to, again, building a relationship with clients to get the paid work in. Any job that you go for the creative industry is challenging and they'll always be competition but, if you do love it, you'll get far in it.