My first music magazine cover

[kmb]

http://www.miasma-mag.net/html/images/Miasma_5_2006_iso.jpg

This was actually ordered as a cover shoot. Next time I don't want to know if my pictures are hoped to be used on cover, I restrict myself way too much, and the probabilities of getting a proper cover image don't seem to be any larger.

The band is Mokoma. The magazine is rather small underground type thing, but the paper and quality of the content is really nice, and I'm sure it has an audience who truly appreciates good concert photography.

[Zeineth]

Congrats on the first time publish. Looks like a great shot. I am still waiting for that day to come for me.

[narlus]

nice one KMB, congrats and it looks great.

i'm curious as to what self-imposed restrictions you made as you knew this would land on a cover?

[johnstoy]

Looks like a hot selling magazine...Great cover shot...It would jump off the shelves here in the states...

John

[kmb]

i'm curious as to what self-imposed restrictions you made as you knew this would land on a cover?

- Shoot portrait-orineted pictures mostly (and guess what, that cover shot is a crop of a landscape-oriented picture)
- Shoot directly from the front or so the performer looks to the right (looking to the left - away from the side from which the magazine opens - looks like the person's looking away from the content of the magazine, as if he had turned his back to the magazine).
- Shoot the interesting looking guys.
- One preformer shots only (or tight multi-person shots, but there's not much opportuinty to that)
- Re-al-ly make sure you get the shot (rather than push the envelope and try something interesting) *
- Leave space for the texts (especially magazine's name)

I think I spent too much time worrying about whether I was abiding to those "rules", when what I should've been doing is to think creatively and use my intuition. On the other hand I really like that shot which was used (but I don't like the pictures I got from that gig as a whole, and do feel a bit lucky that there was that one that is for me really nice - looks better bigger, I'm sure, since there are interesting details).

EDIT: *) "shooting something interesting" is basically how I try to differentiate myself from the competition. I try to take pictures that really stand out as something you (or even the music magazines' ADs) haven't seen before (of course, that's very hard most of the time).

[narlus]

good, valid points. probably stuff i wouldn't have considered (like which way the guy's face is in, direction-wise).

fwiw, i almost always find yr stuff very interesting, so keep up the good work.

[René Damkot]

Congrats!

[livewire-photography.com]

Awsome Shot, well done.

[taygull]

Congrats on the cover. You pretty much answered the "cover shot" thought process.

I've had to learn to think this way as well. I spend most of my time shooting portrait now instead of landscape. Everything else was pretty much spot on.

Depending on the publication you must allow for text lower right and for an address bar as well. Those things really change the way you "see" a shot.

[DwightMcCann]

Excellent! I hope it pays more than the boxing magazines! :-)