Concert Photography: What You Need to Know Before You Shoot Your First Gig

Concert photography is one of the most challenging and rewarding genres you can get into. Fast light, loud rooms, no second chances. But if you're willing to put in the work, it's also one of the most exciting. This guide, put together by community member Scott Diussa, covers the essentials to get you started.

Gear

You don't need a massive kit to begin. A DSLR or mirrorless body with a decent zoom will get you a long way. A 24-70mm or 24-105mm is your workhorse. Add a 70-200mm when you need reach (drummers, especially), and a wide option for tight spaces or dramatic environmental shots. In terms of aperture, f/2.8 or f/4 as a maximum gives you the best chance in low light, but don't let gear anxiety hold you back. Start with what you have.

Camera Settings

Stage lighting shifts constantly, and if you leave the camera in any kind of auto exposure mode it'll fight the light show rather than work with it. Manual mode is the way to go. Shoot RAW, always. The colour temperature at a gig is rarely flattering by default, and RAW gives you the latitude to fix it properly in post.

A solid starting point: 1/500s shutter speed, widest aperture available, and push the ISO until the exposure looks right. Don't underexpose to keep ISO low. Lifting shadows in Lightroom also lifts noise, and it's far messier than noise from a correctly exposed high-ISO file.

Getting Access

The most common question people ask is how to get into shows with a camera. The answer is straightforward: start small. Local venues, local bands. In most cases you don't need formal permission to photograph a smaller act, and small venues are actually harder to shoot than big ones. Bad light, cramped spaces, limited movement. Master those conditions and the bigger shows feel straightforward by comparison.

For larger shows you'll need a media pass, which means having a publication or media outlet to shoot for. That's a longer game, built on portfolio and relationships. Get the shots right at the small shows first and those conversations open up naturally.

Shooting Each Instrument

Every member of the band presents a different challenge. With singers, timing is everything. The best moments tend to come when they step back slightly from the microphone on a held note, which also naturally avoids the microphone shadow falling across their face. If you can learn the setlist beforehand, do it.

For guitar and bass, try not to cut off the headstock of the instrument. Think of it like cropping a wrist out of a portrait. Angles help a lot here. A lower shooting position or a slight tilt adds energy to what would otherwise be a flat frame.

Drummers are the hardest subject in the genre, full stop. You're usually shooting through cymbals, hardware, and kit stands. A 70-200mm helps you reach through the gaps. Use Eye Detection AF if your camera has it, shoot continuously, and keep that 1/500s shutter speed to freeze stick movement.

Editing and Sharing

You'll come back from a gig with a lot of files. Cull before you edit; go through everything and mark your picks before you touch a single slider. Be ruthless. The instinct is always to keep too many.

In post, focus on two things: face colour and exposure balance. Export full-resolution files for your archive, and 2000px watermarked versions for social.

When you share with the band or a PR contact, send your best 20 images. Not everything you shot. Twenty strong images that make the band look great. Tag the artist when you share on social media too; it builds the relationship and extends the reach of your work at the same time.

Enjoyed this? The full version of Scott's concert photography guide is available inside The Photography Creative Circle on Skool, where community members share knowledge, tips, and guides like this one across every area of photography. It's free to join.

Join The Photography Creative Circle

Getting Started with Street Photography: What You Actually Need to Know

Street photography is one of the most rewarding types of photography you can do, and also one of the most misunderstood. A lot of people assume it requires a big city, a specific camera, or nerves of steel. It doesn't. It mostly requires the right mindset, and that's something you can develop from day one.

Here are the key things that will make a real difference when you head out.

Get your head right first

Before you even think about camera settings, think about how you're going to carry yourself. You have every right to be in a public space with a camera. Move at a normal pace, act like you belong, and don't hover. Most awkward moments in street photography come from how you behave before and after the shot, not from pressing the shutter.

If someone questions you, have a simple honest answer ready. "I loved the contrast of colours," or "I'm working on a project about everyday life" goes a long way. Some photographers carry a small business card. It can turn a wary stranger into a willing subject.

Three ways to work the street

There are really three approaches, and knowing which one you're using keeps you focused:

Hunting means walking and actively looking for moments. Keep your head up and your eyes moving. Start small; a funny sign or someone's reaction to something is often more interesting than a dramatic scene.

Fishing means finding a spot with great light or an interesting background and waiting for life to walk into it. Strong shadows, reflections, colourful walls. Set yourself up and be patient. It's also brilliant if you're shy, because you're not chasing anyone.

Street portraits are a different thing entirely. You approach someone, have a brief chat, then ask. Keep the conversation going while you shoot. People are usually more than happy to help if they can see you're genuinely trying to make a good image.

Light and composition

Find the light before you find the subject. Shafts of sunlight, deep shadows, silhouettes; light shapes everything. Once you've found good light, think about the whole frame: what's in the background, what's at the edges, what's pulling the eye away from where you want it to go.

One tip worth remembering: give yourself a theme for the day. Hats. Dogs. Reflections. The colour red. It sharpens your eye dramatically.

Gear and settings

Any camera works, including your phone. What matters is being ready. Most experienced street photographers use aperture priority or manual with auto ISO so they're not constantly adjusting. A starting point that works well: 1/500s shutter speed, f/5.6 to f/8, auto ISO. Push the shutter to 1/1000s if there's faster movement. Don't be afraid of grain; it often suits street photography well.

Keep your camera out and ready, not buried in a bag. By the time you've got it out, the moment's gone. A silent shutter, if your camera has one, makes a big difference too.

You don't need a big city

This one catches a lot of people out. Street photography isn't only for London or New York. Market squares, bus stops, seafronts, quiet high streets; interesting moments happen everywhere. If you're nervous about photographing faces, start with people from behind, silhouettes, or detail shots: hands, shadows, dogs, bags. You're still telling a story.

The best thing you can do is head out and start. Everything else comes with time.

This post is drawn from The Community Guide to Street Photography, a full beginner's resource put together by members of The Photography Creative Circle on Skool. It covers everything in much more depth, including camera setups, focusing techniques, how to handle conversations on the street, and practical exercises to push your skills forward.

If you want to read the full guide and be part of the conversations that created it, come and join us over at the community …

Join The FREE Photography Creative Circle

A Community Guide to Bird Photography

Bird photography is one of those genres that quietly takes over. It's challenging, unpredictable, sometimes maddening – and completely addictive when it all comes together. You need patience, good fieldcraft, solid camera technique and the ability to make quick decisions, all at the same time.

This post pulls together some of the core ideas from a full guide I've put together for members of my Photography Community on Skool.

Think of this as a taster of what's waiting in the classroom ( LINK )

It's Not About the Gear (Not Really)

One of the strongest themes that comes up again and again is simple: bird photography is less about kit and more about understanding birds. Long lenses help, of course, but timing, fieldcraft, and awareness are what actually make the photograph.

Work with the gear you already have and learn to use it well. Focus on reading behaviour, light, and opportunities rather than chasing the "perfect" setup. And be realistic about what you can comfortably carry for a full outing – staying fresh and present matters more than hauling the biggest lens available.

Your Behaviour Matters More Than You Think

How you move and behave around birds will make or break your images. Rush in, move suddenly, or push too close and the bird will tell you it's uncomfortable long before it flies. Stay calm, move slowly, and respect its space and everything changes.

Learn to recognise a bird's comfort zone and stay on the right side of it. Sit and watch first – you'll start to see patterns in perches, feeding routines, and pre-flight behaviour. Patience isn't passive; it's an active technique that gives you better light, cleaner backgrounds, and more meaningful moments.

Start Close to Home

You don't need an exotic destination to make strong bird photographs. Your garden, local park, or the green space at the end of the road are perfect training grounds.

Regular access to familiar birds beats occasional trips to impressive locations. Repetition sharpens your reactions, improves camera handling, and helps you truly learn both the species and the location. Familiar spots let you predict where birds will appear, how the light falls, and when something is likely to happen – and that groundwork pays off when you do travel further afield.

The One Setting to Protect First

If there's a single technical priority in bird photography, it's shutter speed. Birds rarely stay still, long lenses magnify every movement, and softness from motion blur can't be rescued later.

A simple working approach: aim for around 1/1600 sec as a starting point, higher for small, fast birds or birds in flight. Let ISO rise to protect that shutter speed rather than sacrificing sharpness, and use your widest useful aperture to support both speed and subject separation from the background.

Autofocus, Flight, and the Hard Stuff

Birds in flight can feel like a different discipline altogether – and in many ways, they are. Fast shutter speeds, accurate tracking, and clean framing all need to come together in fractions of a second.

Use continuous AF and subject tracking, and take the time to learn how your specific system actually behaves. Start with larger, slower, more predictable birds to build confidence before tackling the fast, erratic ones. And use burst mode thoughtfully – fire it when something is actually happening, rather than spraying at everything that moves.

Light, Background, and Story

Good bird photographs aren't just about the bird – they're about light, background, and what's actually happening in the frame.

Early and late light give softer contrast, warmer tones, and better feather detail, often when birds are most active too. Your shooting position has a huge impact on how connected the final image feels – getting down to eye level with the bird changes everything. And clean, sympathetic backgrounds combined with considered use of habitat can turn a simple record shot into a photograph with real story and mood.

Where to Begin: A Simple Starting Plan

If you're getting serious about bird photography, here's a straightforward framework to work from:

Start in your garden or local park and visit often. Spend time watching before you shoot – look for perches, patterns, and pre-flight behaviour. Work with the gear you already own, using as much focal length as is comfortable. Keep shutter speed high, let ISO do its job, and begin at a wide aperture. Use continuous AF and subject tracking if your camera supports it. Pay attention to the bird's comfort, the quality of light, your background, and your shooting angle. And wait for behaviour and gesture – not just a "bird on a stick" confirmation shot.

Want the Full Guide?

This post just scratches the surface of what's inside A Community Guide to Bird Photography, which lives in the classroom inside my Photography Community on Skool.

In there you'll find the complete written guide laid out step by step, diagrams and example images with breakdowns from real shoots, and practical starting setups, checklists, and exercises you can take straight into the field.

If you'd like to dive deeper and join a group of photographers actively working on this together, come and join us.

The Photoshop Zoom Setting You NEED to Change ✅

Whether you are just starting out with Photoshop or you have been using it for years, there is one specific setting that can occasionally make it feel like the software is behaving rather strangely. I wanted to share a quick tip about the Zoom tool that might just save you a bit of frustration.

The Mystery of the Shifting Zoom

Have you ever tried to zoom in on a specific detail, only for that area to suddenly jump to the middle of your screen? Usually, when you click with the Zoom tool, you expect the image to get larger exactly where your cursor is sitting. However, there is a setting that changes this behaviour entirely.

If your image keeps repositioning itself every time you click to magnify, it is likely because of a single tick box in your preferences.

How to Fix It

Depending on whether you are using a Mac or Windows, the menu location is slightly different, but the setting itself is the same:

• On Mac: Go to the Photoshop menu, then Settings, and select Tools.

• On Windows: Go to the Edit menu, then Preferences, and select Tools.

Look for the option labelled Zoom Clicked Point to Centre.

If this is ticked, Photoshop will take the exact point you clicked and move it to the very centre of your workspace as it zooms in. If you find this distracting, simply uncheck the box. Once you do that, your zoom will behave in the traditional way, staying put exactly where you click.

Why Would You Use It?

You might wonder why this setting even exists if it feels so counter-intuitive at first. It actually comes in quite handy when you are working on very large, high-resolution images or wide landscapes.

If you are trying to inspect a small mark or a bit of sensor dust right in the far corner of a photo, a standard zoom might actually push that detail off the edge of the screen as the image expands. By having "Zoom Clicked Point to Centre" turned on, Photoshop pulls that corner detail right into your main field of view, making it much easier to work on without having to scroll around.

It really comes down to personal preference. Some people love the control of keeping the image static, while others prefer the software to "hand" them the detail they are looking for by placing it in the middle.

What Are Those Mystery * and # Symbols in Photoshop??? 🤔

If you spend any amount of time in Adobe Photoshop, you become very familiar with the document tab at the top of your workspace. It tells you the filename and the current zoom level.

But sometimes, little cryptic symbols appear next to that information. Have you ever looked up and wondered, "Why is there a random hashtag next to my image name?" or "What does that little star mean?"

Nothing is broken. These symbols are just Photoshop's way of giving you a quick status update on your file and its colour management, without you needing to dig through menus.

What These Symbols Tell You

The symbols represent:

• The save state of your document

• Whether it has a colour profile attached

• Whether the document's profile differs from your working space

Here is a quick guide to decoding those little tab hieroglyphics.

1. The Asterisk After the Filename ("Save Me!" Star)

What it looks like: … (RGB/8) *

What it means: An asterisk hanging right off the end of your actual filename means you have unsaved changes.

When it appears: Photoshop is hypersensitive here. The star will appear if you:

• Move a layer one pixel

• Brush a single dot onto a mask

• Simply toggle a layer's visibility

• Do pretty much anything

It's a gentle reminder that the version on screen is different from the version saved on your hard drive. If the computer crashed right now, you would lose that work.

The fix: Press Cmd+S (Mac) or Ctrl+S (Windows). The moment you successfully save the file, that little star will disappear because Photoshop now considers the document "clean" again.

2. The Asterisk ("Profile Difference" Star)

What it looks like: … (RGB/8*)

What it means: This is a different symbol in a different spot. If the star is tucked inside the parentheses next to the bit depth (the 8 or 16), it's no longer talking about unsaved work but about colour management.

In current Photoshop versions, an asterisk here generally means the file's colour profile situation does not match your working RGB setup. For example, you're working in sRGB as your default, but the image you opened is tagged with Adobe RGB (1998). In other words, the document is "speaking" a slightly different colour language than your default workspace.

Should you worry?

• Usually, no. As long as you keep the embedded profile and your Colour Settings are sensible, Photoshop can still display the colours accurately even if the document profile and working space are different.

• It's worth paying attention, though, if you're planning to combine several images into one document. You'll want a consistent profile for predictable colour when you paste, convert or export.

3. The Hash Symbol # ("Untagged" Image)

What it looks like: … (RGB/8#)

What it means: If you see the hash/pound/hashtag symbol inside the parentheses, it means the image is Untagged RGB. There's no embedded colour profile at all, so Photoshop has no explicit instructions telling it how those RGB numbers are supposed to be interpreted.

Why this happens: This is very common with:

• Screenshots

• Many web images

• Older files where metadata was stripped out

When Photoshop opens an untagged image, it has to assume a profile based on your Colour Settings (typically your RGB working space, often sRGB by default), which may or may not match how the file was originally created.

Should you worry?

• If colour accuracy is critical (printing, branding, matching other assets), yes, you should pay attention to that #. Different assumptions about the profile can easily lead to differences in appearance between systems.

• You can fix this by going to Edit > Assign Profile and choosing the correct profile. For many web-style images, assigning sRGB is a sensible starting point, but be aware that assigning the wrong profile will change how the image looks, so use it when you have a good idea of the original intent.

Summary Cheat Sheet

(RGB/8) *

• This document has unsaved changes

• Save the file and the star will disappear

(RGB/8*)

• There's a colour-profile difference or related colour-management status

• Typically means the document's profile is not the same as your current working RGB space

(RGB/8#)

• The image is Untagged RGB, with no embedded colour profile

• Photoshop has to assume a profile based on your settings

How to LEARN LIGHTROOM by Copying ... WITH Permission❗️

Available for ALL Lightroom users (Lightroom, Classic, Mobile and Web) is the Lightroom Community - a FREE Space where users share their edits from Start to Finish showing ALL of the sliders and settings used to create the final look. Also download Presets for FREE. The Lightroom Community is a GREAT resource to learn Lightroom.

📷 PHOTOGRAPHERS - A.I. Moodboards WILL TRANSFORM your Photography 💥

In this video I show you how creating a moodboard using Adobe's Firefly AI technology (or others) for a photo shoot can make a BIG difference to the final image and make the person you are photographing as excited about the process as you are!

FIXED 💥 BenQ Display CALIBRATION SETTINGS + Hot Key Puk

If you’ve a BenQ Display with a Hot Key Puk, when calibrating the display using either the Palette Master Ultimate and Palette Master Element software you can assign different calibrations into 3 different presets namely calibration 1, calibration 2 or calibration 3.

Each of these can then be quickly and easily junmped between using the corresponding 1, 2 and 3 keys on the Hot Key Puk.

However, if when pressing 1, 2 or 3 the display doesn not change to the corresponding calibration setting, here’s the VERY simple fix …

Note:

As a BenQ Ambassador I am able to help out with a discount on anty of the SW and PD range of displays.

If you’d like to know more, just drop me a message using the CONTACT page

Calibrating my iPad Pro for Photography

One thing I always do when taking portraits is shoot tethered and that always used to be with my camera connected to my MacBook Pro or laptop BUT that has now changed to being my iPad because its way more portable and convenient.

I use the CaptureOne app for the tethering which works so incredibly well .. literally just open the app, plug in your camera (you can also use it wirelessly) and you’re up and running. You can even use it to tether to your iPhone … if you have one.

The only problem i find is that the screen on the iPad out of the box is too contrasty … its set up so that it gives the richest colours and the deepest blacks for when using apps, watching movies, playing games, looking at pictures which is great but not ideal for when using it when tethering.

However I have the 6th generation 12.9” iPad Pro running iOS 17.3.1 and this has Reference mode and this we can use to kind of calibrate the screen to something more suitable for photography.

NOTE:
Reference mode is actually available on 12” iPad Pro 5th generation or later and requires iOS 16 or later.

PHOTOSHOP Zoom GONE CRAZY ??? TRY THIS QUICK FIX

Sometimes, just sometimes when we get an update to Photoshop you MIGHT notice a few things behave little different; one of those things might be the zooming in and zooming out.

On that note, I recently received this email …

So this is the fix …