1. Marianne Harris
The angle of view is of a band
performing live, it includes all
the members of the band
(singing, playing guitar and
other instruments.) The
photographer’s camera angle
is straight forward but
Marianne has stood off the
stage below and on the right
of the band to take the
photography slightly upwards.
The background in the image
is also natural it shows the
instruments, speakers, drinks, lights, etc… It also shows a man stood in the background of the
photograph, look at how he’s stood/staring he looks like he’d be in charge of the stage for the night
or even might be the bands manager. The photograph is music photography, looking at it the
photograph looks like their genre would be rock/punk.
It looks like it’s been naturally taken. Marianne has taken the photograph as one of the band
members have jumped up into the air playing guitar. It could be used for a magazine or even for a
poster. She wouldn’t have used a tripod as a lot of music photographers, when taking photographs at
concerts/festivals, mainly do natural handheld shots. The purpose of the photograph could be for a
variety of reasons for example; album booklet photograph, posters, she could also be selling
photographs to certain magazines for example; Kerrang. This style of work reminds me of some of
Ami Barwell’s photography because she takes a lot of dark shots and there is a lot of shadow in this
photograph. Ami also takes a lot of natural live performance photographs.
When I look at this photograph my eyes are directed straight to the middle of the photograph,
there’s a lot going on it though so I don’t think every viewer eyes are directed to the same part of the
photograph. Marianne would have used quite a fast shutter speed to catch this shot because even
though the band members are moving on the stage the photograph doesn’t have a pronounced
motion blur effect. The stage in the photograph is lit, there is only modern stage lighting and no
other stage special effects are included in this photograph. There is also no negative space used in
the photograph it’s quite a busy photograph.
Unlike Jim Marshall and other historical photographers Marianne would be able to use certain
software to edit and change the overall look of her photograph. She can capture hundreds of
photographs and it wouldn’t matter because of the digital camera she has whereas if she has an old
film based camera she’d have to be sure of the angle and other things when taking the photograph.
I like this photograph because she’s taken it on a great angle and I especially like how she’s naturally
got the band member jumping in the air playing the guitar while they were performing. The stage
light makes the guitarist jumping look better but it is a bit too bright. The photograph would make a
good ‘live performing poster’ or in a music magazine as a small paper poser or even just showing the
2. band performing if they’re getting written about in the magazine. But I think the photograph could
have been improved by cropping it in certain places and the lighting could have been improved by
Marianne. But a lot of her images do have this look, which obviously she wanted to keep.