1. Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Research of other
photographers work

2. Photographer: Todd Owyoung
• Todd Owyoung is a portrait
photographer specializing in live
music and lifestyle photography.
• His work commonly appears in
many music magazines such as
Rolling Stone, The New York Times,
entertainment weekly and many
other popular magazines. He also
has his own website where his
pictures are displayed and sold.
• He claims to photograph roughly 5-6
bands a week.

3. Examples of photographs

4. Choose an image…. Describe it
• This photograph was taken at a live
show played by the band Kiss. The
intent of the photograph was to
promote the band, promote the live
show and presumably make a good
cover photograph to be sold to a
magazine.
• The picture cleverly includes the artist
mid act surrounded by fireworks in a
freeze frame jam packed with action.
The cameras low angle makes the
artist look more impressive working
well for a magazine or website
image, this makes the picture more
likely to be used, therefore helping
the photographer a lot.

5. Composition
• The photographer is using a wide angle lens on this picture, this works
well because it captures the whole stage and gives the picture depth.
The artist in the picture is shown in the middle and the rule of thirds is
clearly present in the photographers mind while the picture was taken.
The photograph was clearly taken professionally because the position it
is taken from would normally be extremely hard to get to.
• The fact that the artist appears to be alone on stage makes the picture
look a lot more dramatic, there is a lot of scenery around the artist yet he
appears to be isolated making the pause of the live action look even
more impressive. The photographer may have edited the photo later for
this to be the case.

6. Techniques used
• Some of the main techniques used in
this photo are simple but extremely
effective. The photo uses a fast
shutter speed making it appear
extremely clear and steady. The
photographer used the cameras
focus extremely well to capture the
artist in full focus in the foreground.
along with an out of focus crowd in
the background. Again the
photographer uses the rule of thirds
very well to capture a lively picture
with as much action as could be fit in.
The brightness and exposure settings
work very well also because the
picture has a warm glow from the
fireworks but not so much that it
overpowers the image completely.

7. Strengths &Weaknesses
• Overall Todd Owyoung is a very
talented and professional
photographer with a large range
of interests and styles. Some of
the most inspirational types of
images he produces are live
shows creating an atmosphere
and displaying the artist in full
form, I would take ideas like this
for my own work as capturing the
atmosphere in a photograph is
an impressive ability. However
my least favorite of the styles are
the more boring images showing
the artist such as the one shown
on the right. The image does
have a lot of good qualities the
style just doesn’t appeal to me.