1. Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Research of other photographers
work (P1, M1, D1)
Photographer: Adam Melmakias
Photo 1/ A Day To Remember- Leeds Festival 22/08/14

2. Photo 2/ A Day To Remember- Leeds Festival 22/08/14

3. Photo 3/ A Day To Remember- Leeds Festival 22/08/14

4. Photo 4/ A Day To Remember- Leeds Festival 22/08/14

5. Photo 5/ You Me At Six and A Day To Remember- Leeds Festival 22/08/14
Photo 6/ Blink 182- Leeds Festival 22/08/14

6. Photo Analysis
Adam Melmakias, the professional photographer that captured all of these
marvellous pictures. He is a music photographer and in all the photos that I have
chosen above was taken on the August bank-holiday festival, Leeds. As I attended
the festival myself and witnessed all of the acts featured in the pictures perform live I
thought I could obviously be very passionate about describing the pictures. The first 4
pictures feature a band called A Day To Remember. Like I mentioned I watched
them, live and they were amazing. The photos truly express how good it was. The first
one especially, it shows a lot of emotion and feeling. How Jeremy Mckinnon (the lead
singer) has his eyes closed and looks as though he is just embracing the atmosphere.
It’s truly a moment that Adam captured and I love it. This was definitely a strength to
the picture. Buts it’s all about getting the photo at the right time. That one thing I truly
love about music photography is that it is all so in the moment, it isn’t staged, you
literally only get one shot at getting the perfect picture. This image truly expresses
that. I have always loved live photography especially at festivals because its outdoors
therefore it adds more to the image. So with this photo the picture goes so far back,
the field of depth is crazy big! You can tell that the overall focus of the photo is
obviously Jeremy but the crowd adds to that and makes it more as though their
engaging well even though he has his back to the audience. Also I really love the
outcome of using a Fish Eye lens. I think it makes a photo look so much cooler. In fact
photo 1, 2 and 4 of A Day To Remember were all taken with a fish eye lens.
The second and third pictures are very similar, they’re both action shots. Photo 2 is of
Drummer Alex Shelnutt and photo 3 is of Guitarist Kevin Skaff. Like I mentioned above

7. there was fish eye lenses used in some of the photos, the one of the drummer had
one but the one of the guitarist didn’t use one. The one of Kevin Skaff is more a closer
up image, it well focused and it’s as though Kevin purposely looked into the camera
whilst Adam was taking the picture. Its good because it’s in mid riff and its legitimately
caught in the moment. Its the same with photo 2, however Alex was unaware the
photo was being taken. As you can see from the image he is truly strained because
he is so into playing his drums. You can tell it was a moment of the song where there
was even a drop or a climax because there are smoke machines with smoke
emerging from them in the background. It’s clever because just from that it’s
apparent that it was a major part to the song. And like I said you can tell from Alex’
body language. This photo contains a lot more than what the one of Kevin
contained. It features more a background because it isn’t a close up image. I love
how with photo 2 you can see the on stage artwork behind him a lot more. You can
pretty much see it all. Where as in the third one you can only see a little tiny section
because the photo is a close up and zoomed. Photo 3 is good and is quite humorous
however it could’ve included more than it did maybe, like I mentioned with the
photo 1, it looks so much better when the crowd are in the picture. It would have
made it more effective. Photo 2 I don’t think you could’ve improved from that. I think
it’s already good enough.
Photo 4 and 5 are both images of bands but when they’re not performing. These
photos don’t really require much talent but I like how not all the photos are action
shots. Sometimes the pictures taken like this are unaware. So the bands aren’t posing.
However photo 4 is of A Day To Remember and they posed for it. This photo is good
because again it was taken with a fish eye lens and the quality is unbelievable. The
lighting is good because it was taken when the sun was setting so all the lights from
the staging and around was where the light really came from. Its a cool band photo
as though they were stoked and excited. Especially Jeremy he is posed as if to say
“we’re victorious”. He could very well of meant that in the sense that their playing at
Leeds festival and it’s an honour and or that they must have been on the stage
before this photo was taken because like I said it is getting dark. So It could be a sign
as if to say “we did it!” and that their excited about the show they put on. Obviously
the depth is in this photo is big due to you being able to see as far back as to the
sunset in the far distance. You can see the band as the main feature then the staging
sets, the stage, a little of the crowd and tents and then the trees and sunset. It’s crazy!
Then photo 5 is very different. This was taken off the stage completely and around
where all their personal busses and trailers are. This photo features 2 of A Day To
Remembers band members and Max Helyer from You Me At Six. This photo was taken
unexpectedly and didn’t necessarily require any major skill. But I like it because it
shows you more about the band. You expect to see pictures of the band performing
live but when you see pictures like this where it was blatantly taken off stage it means
slightly more. You kind of feel like you know the band more personally when you see
images like this. Also fans like to see bands merge with other bands and they like to
know that maybe 2 of their favourite bands are good friends. Their obviously good
friends as their having a laugh and smiling. It’s cute. The sky on this photo does seem
slightly over exposed, that maybe could be a weakness but if it’s was any more
underexposed it may have made the foreground too dark. It’s quite a distant photo
really it could’ve been better maybe if it was a little more zoomed in and focused.
And when compared to photo 4 the depth isn’t really anything special. But that’s
because their stood in front of a little trailer so that is the background which makes it s
little boring. Apart from them weakness’ it’s a cool photo. Definitely a strength is the
way its captured Max and Kevin enthralled by what Jeremy had to say. They
obviously found it funny whatever he had said. It’s good that you can gather that just

8. from a little image.
Then last of all is a picture of Blink 182 from the evening of Friday 22nd of August 2014.
They played the ending performance and it was something special. From this picture
you can’t really necessarily tell anything crazy went down but it did! This photo
features Mark Hopus (bassist) and Travis Barker (drummer) having a moment. It has a
black and white filter on it and the main focus is good. It’s really clear and because it
is dark the drum kit and that whole are is really well visible. Because it is dark there
isn’t much of a background purely because the flash on the camera would only
have lit up what was closer to the camera. I think its cute how their smiling and
having a great time. It’s really cute. It shows that they had a really fun time playing
that show and that they really appreciate each other!