>>2593946(1/2)
there are a couple routes
1. contact the band directly. find their publicist's or manager's email. say "hi i'm a photographer looking to shoot the show in CITY"
sometimes you can contact the venue too depending on how big the band is. usually it's just the venue contacting the band so you look a little better but you have less of a chance if you're just some random person
2. find a local publication to shoot for. depending on how big they are you may need a portfolio. well actually, you definitely need a portfolio. shoot a bunch of bar shows at the beginning. have enough shit to gather so you at least LOOK professional. i hate the word professional because it's so subjective but it's better than "unprofessional"
i got lucky with my first publication, the editor in chief was at a show i was shooting for fun and he approached me. i told him i was just doing it for myself and he was like "hey we were looking for a photographer for this show but couldn't get anyone, can we use your photos?" and it went from there
my second publication was a lot harder, I was at the point where I've shot a number of closed theater shows and had my own website. they were interested but changed their mind because i was too eager with my responses so they called me impatient and unprofessional and stopped replying. three weeks later they email me back apologizing and the rest is history.
full freelance is cool because you can do whatever the hell you want for whatever reason. you could technically try selling licensing to your photos directly but you usually can't do that if you're not big or interesting enough. surprisingly enough, pop punk seems to be the best for that. it's just impossible to be interesting as most shows are smaller venues and everybody uses flash
