Midlands Rocks Photographer + Reviewer

As a long time fan of rock music and a veteran of thousands of concerts, I like good music and appreciate the importance of good visuals. I like to build relationships with the bands I photograph, to provide images both they and I will be proud to display.

I still have a day job as an IT Business Analyst that pays my bills, but my main passion is photography. Any kind of photography. I do weddings and portraits and I enjoy doing them, although in recent years I’ve been doing more and more concert photography and loving it.

My first experience of concert photography was in 2004 when I managed to blag a photo pass for a show by Soul SirkUS and posted the photos on an internet forum. Lead singer in the band, Jeff Scott Soto, emailed me personally to say how much he enjoyed the photos and that sparked off a desire to do more and an ambition to become one of the best concert photographers around. I have a long way to go but I still have that ambition.

Since then, a lot of my photo opportunities with bands have resulted from that initial occasion. Artists do talk to each other and if you’re good enough and they like you they’ll put in a good word with their colleagues and acquaintances, resulting in more opportunities. Sometimes that opens doors directly, but at worst it at least stops the door being slammed in your face by promoters who don’t know you.

I photograph concerts all over the UK, and sometimes abroad. Being based in the South West of England (Swindon) that usually entails a lot of travel to most gigs. But hey, that’s rock’n’roll, and the buzz I get at the end of the journey is worth it.

I do get commissioned by various magazines now, and of course cover shows in the Midlands for Midlands Rocks, but most of the time I’m working directly with bands, promoters and venues as a freelancer photographer.

I like all kinds of rock music, from Rammstein to Fleetwood Mac, but I suppose my favourite bands fall into the classic rock and melodic rock categories. I’ve worked extensively with artists like Journey, Thunder, Jeff Scott Soto, the Illegal Eagles, Tyketto etc, producing concert images used in programmes, posters, album and DVD covers, and magazine articles, as well as all over the internet. Where possible I try to shoot a whole show and then put slideshows of the resulting images online for viewers to re-experience the show. To date, I have well over a hundred concert slideshows online.

I’ve also been commissioned to carry out many formal photoshoots with bands and individual artists. I’m currently working with new band The Union (including ex-Thunder’s Luke Morley), providing all of their images for all media outlets.

However, like many photographers in the classic and melodic rock genres, I’m not in this for the money. Most gigs actually end up costing me money, for merchandise, travel etc (although I rarely have to pay for tickets any more) but I continue because … a) I love the music of the bands I photograph and … b) I love to take photos. If I wasn’t at the concert taking pictures I’d still be at the concert but I’d be wondering what to do with my hands and getting frustrated about the lost photo opportunities.

Midlands Rocks is an organization I’m pleased to be associated with. Not only does it have many talented photographers and reviewers working for it, but it promotes a lot of the music I like to listen to and demonstrates just how much exciting live entertainment is out there.

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Email: marty@martymoffatt.com
Mob: 07912 357018