1. Music Photography
Tom Barnes
The Midnight Beast Young Guns
Quick and the Dead
These photographs were taken by Tom Barnes. A photographer who is known
for his dark and dingy style. He has worked with a lot of artists and done well
to show their look within the photograph. The photograph of The Midnight
Beast is different to his usual photograph look. He used a clear white
background and used really bright colours. This was to show the personality of
the band. However, with the camera angle facing down, you can still see
Tom Barnes style within the composition.
The other two photos show Tom’s style a lot clearer. The monochrome help
show the sharp contrast, which is his signature style, the grain in photographs.
The Bottom composition of Quick and the Dead is the photograph I want to
discuss the most. This photo shows everything Tom Barnes is. The matte
around the picture makes it look dingy and dark, and doing this it
complements the flooring he has used. The dark wood really adds to the
definition this picture has.
The dark clothing the band is wearing is a clear indication of detail Tom
Barnes adds to his work. Tom’s usual camera angles are from above. He does
do different styles of angles. This makes the photograph a lot more interesting;
and again gives him his signature style. The composition is cropped so that
the band is clearly the main focus of the picture. The matte around the photo
also does this, bringing the attention to the band.

2. Music Photography
Tom Barnes
Even though this is a dark photo, the lighting used is front lighting. You can’t
see much shadow behind the band; you can only see it around the band.
This again gives the band the main focus of the photograph, which is what
Tom Barnes wants because he has taken this picture to show who this band is.
The effect of the dark contrast shows the style of music the band is too. This
can help the viewer of the photograph an idea of what genre this band is.
There isn’t much to the composition, it is more about the effects added to the
photograph and I think that this can make a picture a lot more interesting.
I think that this picture represents the more of the band than anything else. It
is a promotional photograph. I like this style of photography because of its
different angles, it does add to the composition. For example, if the band
was looking down at the camera, surrounding it, it could make the band look
intimidating. I have used this style before when taking pictures of a band. I
used it because that was the look the band wanted.
Here is a link to Tom Barnes website, where you can see all the bands he has
worked with and you can see the common style he has used for all the
pictures: http://tombarnesphoto.com/