How To Become A Rockstar Photographer Podcast with Matthias Hombauer

So far the podcast was downloaded more than 100 000 times and from the feedback, I got from you it seems we were successful motivating and inspiring music photographers around the world to live their passion. I wanted to say a personal thank you to everyone who supported this project, listened to my podcast and spread the love with colleagues and friends. I am so grateful for everyone who joined the show as a guest and shared their experiences and life stories.

Todd Owyoung talks about his music photography career, switching from DSLR to mirrorless cameras and how he became a Nikon brand Ambassador.

Josiah Van Dien talks about his work with Shawn Mendes, the challenges and rewards that come with the job of working for a big name.

Deb Kloeden talks about travelling long distances, her experiences as a teacher and how she ended up being a concert photographer.

Matty is the touring photographer for bands such as Thirty Seconds To Mars, Bishop Briggs and Billie Eilish and in this interview, we’ll talk about his specific workflow when on the road.

Brittany Bowman shares her experiences working on tour as a photographer, driver, merch manager and talks about the behind the scenes in the music industry.

Paris Visone shares her experience touring with Blondie and Marilyn Manson, how she got sponsored by Canon and talks about her documentary book.

Dominic Pencz talks about travelling between Germany and LA 6 months of the year, touring the world and work experience with KISS and Halloween.

Ryan Chang talks about moving from Singapore to the UK, what is the difference in the music scene and what it is like to tour worldwide with big band names.

Anna Lee talks about how she got from graphic design to music photography and what is the biggest difference between wedding and music photography.

Steve Thrasher talks about how it is to be a team member of DWP (Danny Wimmer Presents), and how important it is to network and be nice to people.

Kerrie Geier talks about opening a facebook group with female music photographers and how women are celebrated at the Australian Woman Music Award.

In Part 2 of our interview, Ed and Jack will answer questions from the community such as “Can I sell prints of photos to magazines or agencies without the band's approval?”. How many photos is a limited edition?

Edward Greenberg and Jack Reznicki talk about why it is very important to do a copyright registration of your photos and how to write a proper invoice.

After getting viral and published by PetaPixel, Lizzy Davis discusses why she wrote an open letter about the challenges we all face in getting photo passes.

Ville Juurikkala shares what is his approach when shooting intimate portraits of Rockstars and what helped him to connect to his inner-self.

Chase Jarvis talks about the importance of being creative every day, his daily routines and he talks about finding your passion and meaning in life. This upcoming interview is fully packed with tips and tricks from his journeys as a photographer and entrepreneur.

Baron Wolman talks about Woodstock, becoming the magazine's first Chief Photographer and what was his reason for starting his own fashion magazine.

Dana Distortion talks about the music photography industry and how she deals with personal challenges like insecurities and her upcoming film. I interviewed Dana in Episode 5 of my Podcast show and she just killed it. After 81 episodes, her episode is the most listened ones. This was 2,5 years ago. A lot happened in Dana's life and therefore I needed to bring her back.

Walid Azami speaks about why it is good to follow your instincts and explains why it is important to know your camera inside out. Walid is a photographer & director who got his start by working with Madonna + Co to help create a multitude of projects under her brand.

Karen Mason Blair reveals some great stories about working with all the famous grunge bands and talks about publishing her new book.

Jawn Rocha speaks about his journey on becoming a full-time touring photographer and how his hair became his marketing tool.

Working as a concert photographer in Israel and how Guy Prives built a 6000+ members concert photography community on Facebook.

In this interview, Brittany will talk about her journey as a concert photographer and how she is mastering the challenge shooting from a wheelchair.

In this interview, Matt talks about why he hires photographers with weird styles that wouldn't work with most other publications. We talk about his passion for landscape and music photography and how your photos might be published by Pitchfork too.

Today’s guest is California based live music film producer, studio engineer, photographer, and designer Julie Gardner. In her long recording career as a studio engineer Julie have worked with some of the most successful recording artists and bands today, among them Neil Young, Van Morrison, Stephen Stills, Elvis Costello, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Gary Moore, Deep Purple, John Legend, The Cranberries and many more.

If you’re a metal fan, chances are very good that you have already seen some of Esters work on album covers or magazine covers of the most famous heavy, doom death, and black metal bands.  In this interview, we’re talking about her incredible portrait work and how she comes up with inspirations for her photos, the making of her book “Ars Umbra” and why it has its own soundtrack.

Today’s guest is DJ photographer Drew Ressler, better known as RUKES. Rukes is considered the #1 DJ photographer in the world (named #1 in the “Greatest Music Photographers Right Now” by Complex in 2012). All the hard work paid off when he landed his first tour with Deadmau5 in 2009, traveling all over the globe with him. From that point on, Rukes hasn’t slowed down and can now be found jetting around the world on any given day with DJs or music festivals like Ultra!

Maryanne is an award-winning photographer with 30 years of industry expertise spanning 4 continents. Best known for subjects including rock ‘n’ roll musicians, celebrities, and high-end advertising campaigns.

Today's guest is Robert M Knight. Raised in Hawaii and based in Las Vegas, Robert is a long time advertising photographer who also specializes in the rock and roll music industry. His career spans from 1968 to the present constantly working in the music industry for international record companies, publications, and music equipment manufacturers. Robert is best known for his "Guitar Legend" archive, having worked with such artists as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Slash and many more.

Katja Ogrin talks about her beginnings back in Slovenia, music photography business and why she is still hesitant to switch to mirrorless camera systems.

In this interview, Thomas will talk about his touring experiences from his beginnings in a tour bus to exclusively flying and getting upgraded to first class all the time. He will reveal why he is talking to other photographers every day and we'll talk about his dreams doing more full documentaries.

Today’s guest is Jerome Brunet, an award-winning photographer whose work has been published internationally in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Time, Billboard, and The New York Times to name a few publications.  In this interview Jerome will talk about the making of his upcoming book “Into The Light” and how he was able to raise $30 000+ for it on Kickstarter and why it’s a good idea to donate your work for non-profit organizations.

Today’s guest is Greg Gutbezahl and in this interview, it’s all about exhibitions. Greg will give you a step-by-step guide on how to plan, curate and do the marketing for your own exhibition. And he’ll reveal which photo formats work best and we’ll discuss strategies on how to sell your work after your photos show.

Christie Goodwin with a career that spans over 35 years, gives insights into her world and talks about challenges, successes and her dreams. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in art photography, she initially shot fashion assignments but soon got restless and left the fashion world behind her. For a good decade, she shot mainly fine art projects and held regular exhibitions to showcase her work as well she shot political news and editorials. 

Today’s guest is New York-based music photographer Leo Mascaro. Leo was born in Sao Paulo and after finishing his graphic design education, he moved to New York to start his career as a music photographer from scratch.  In this interview, he'll share his best strategies to work with bands.  Leo is also the administrator of the official HTBARP Instagram account where we choose the best concert photos tagged with #htbarp and features the coolest photos three times a week. Leo will give you some tips on how to get featured as well.

Today’s guest is California based music photographer Steve Rose. We’ll talk about how he started his career by taking photos of his cat (and Steve even got published in a cat photography book), how he became one of the tour photographers of the band Journey and how to master the challenge when shooting the same concert every evening on a tour.

It doesn’t matter if you know Adam from his work, being a social media star with 416 000 followers on Instagram or if you ordered one of his camera wristbands. This interview is for you if you want to get a behind the scenes look of being a pro music photographer.  Adam will talk about how he started his career as a tour photographer and he’ll share his best tips and tricks to become one. We’ll discuss how important marketing really is for a photographer and why we both love giving back to the concert photography community.

After finishing my online academy Shooting The Rockstars he got serious about becoming a music photographer and found a unique way how to break into this business.  In this interview, Andy Tatt talks about how he built an awesome team of concert photographers out of the HTBARP community and shares his secrets on how he approaches organizers and promoters of festivals in order to work with them.

Bela Molnar is a director, producer, and photographer specializing in documentaries, music videos and live events filming. He has been nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in New York for a music video he did for Moby and Bela was in charge of 24 film cameras when shooting a performance of Jamiroquai. So this guy knows what he is talking about.

Imagine documenting the beginning Rock N Roll in New York including artists such as Iggy Pop, Blondie, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, KISS, Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Alice Cooper and many more sounds very exciting to me. And I guess for a lot of you who are listening right now a dream would come true if you could have experienced what Bob experienced in his career.    Bob Gruen became close friends with John Lennon & Yoko Ono and his photos are known as the most iconic and most used photos of our time.

Today’s guest is Rock N Roll Photographer Chester Simpson. Chester learned all the secrets of the photography business from legends such as Ansel Adams and Jim Marshall who took him under their wings, Both told him that he should always help other photographers which is an approach I really relate to.    In this interview, we’ll talk about Chesters experiences and stories from his last 38 years. However, the main focus in this episode is the part of our industry where almost everyone is struggling with: the business side of concert photography. Chester will share his approaches when it comes down to sell your photos, work with bands as well as we’ll go deep into specific pricing for band shoots as well.

Today’s guest is New York-based music photographer Coen Rees.  While recording former episodes of my podcast one name was mentioned many times as an inspiration and therefore I needed to get Coen on the show.  As an African French-born Londoner Coen built a huge archive of music photographs taken in England in the mid-nineties and therefore documented the rise of the “Britpop” era. As one of the few black rock photographers back then she moved to Los Angeles and finally settled down in New York.  In this interview, we’re going to talk about her style and why she loves Black & White, how she started with minimal equipment and worked her way up in the music photography industry and Coen will reveal how she was able to shoot portrait from stars like Shirley Manson, Nice Cave, Wayne Coyne, Michael Stipe without any press accreditation or magazine access.   

Todays guest is New York based photographer and the deputy photo editor at Rolling Stone, Sacha Lecca.  In this interview Sacha will reveal his best tips on how to get your work published in one of the most prestigious music magazines and we will talk about the future of our industry. Find Sachas work, his favorite camera equipment and much more on his show notes page at htbarp.com/sachalecca

Today’s guest is A.F. Cortes, a multidisciplinary artist in the fields of screenwriting, directing, design and photography. In this interview we’re going to talk about the underground music scene in Brooklyn, about Andres job as a filmmaker and how it differs from his photography work and Andres will talk about his newest music documentary REHEARSAL SPACE, that explores the creative process of iconic musicians. Find Andres work, his favorite camera equipment and much more on his show notes page at htbarp.com/andrescortes

Recently Alex left a comment on Instagram saying “Can you get David Fearn aka shit show Dave on the podcast? it would be great to see the other side of concert photography, the guys who shoot shows that rarely have a pit and can shoot the whole show. And how it is to deal with crazy crowds!” Sure. I can Alex! Today’s guest is Los Angeles based music photographer Dave “Shitshow” Fearn, Dave committed to documenting the dark underground punk/rock scene instead of Hollywood celebrities and shooting big stadium shows. In this interview, we’ll talk about his personal journey from being a pro sports photographer who was never touched by his own work, why he is giving it all for the local music community and Dave will explain why he started to publish his own magazine.

Today we’re going to discuss an important topic which every concert photographer should be aware of: ear protection and I am super excited that Ryan Parry, CEO of eargasm joined me for this interview. Recently I wrote an extensive earplugs review which you can find on my homepage and Ryans eargasm earplugs went straight to nr.1. We’re going to talk about why earplugs are so important, the 2 key factors you should look for when buying earplugs and how Ryan came up with this unique name. By the way. Ryan was so kind to give my followers a great offer. Go to htbarp.com/eargasm and use the coupon code HTBARPEAR when checkout to get a -10% discount on your order. 

Today's guest is California based music photographer and entrepreneur Matthew Belter. Matthew joined my HTBARP community right from the beginning and he will talk about how this event transformed this life to become a successful music photographer. He will also share what he learned when building his own family business and why he is working out hard with his kettlebells every day.

Today’s guest is Glasgow based music photographer Alexandros Costa who has a similar story than myself. He studied architecture, but decided to follow his heart instead and is now living his dream life. Alexandros will reveal his hard-working ethic, how he became a finalist at the Heavy Music Awards “Young Photographer Of The Year” and we’ll talk about how important Instagram is to promote his work. With more than 50 000 followers he is absolutely rocking the platform and we’ll talk about his best strategy to build your brand on Instagram. During my short podcast break, I was busy working on my own Instagram video course for concert photographers called “Rock Instagram”. In this course, I am going to show you how to get more like more followers and build an awesome brand on the most important social media channel for photographers. If you want to learn more about Rock Instagram visit: htbarp.com/rockinstagram

Before my short podcast break in April I promised in the words of my Austrian fellow, Arnold Schwarzenegger “I’ll be back”, And here I am. After 50 episodes interviewing the most inspiring music photographers on this planet I am prepared and ready for another 50! As I already mentioned a couple of times before my aim is to interview 100 of the most successful music photographers and then writing a book about my key findings which should help you to learn all the shortcuts and strategies that work when becoming a concert photographer. I am super excited about today's episode because I know that this topic is one of the most misunderstood but at the same time the most important one for every concert photographer. Today, I am going to discuss with my colleague Naomi Dryden-Smith, a. Concert photographer and Copyright lawyer the nuts and bolts of copyright law. I got a lot of questions such as am I able to sell my photos I took of concerts, are foreign contracts of bands legal when I sign them, what should I do when a band uses my photos without permission and am I screwed as concert photographer when the new GDPR law is coming on May 25th. We all know the fights about copyright between bands and photographers on the internet and with this interview, I wanted to know exactly what we, as photographers are allowed to do with our photos. Please be aware that the copyright law is very complex and specific legal issues should always be discussed in detail with a lawyer in your country. Naomi tried to be as general as possible. Since our community is built of people from all around the world and certain aspects discussed in this interview might not be applicable in your country.

Today’s guest is Mississippi based music photographer Jennifer Devereaux. We’ll talk about how she manages her concert photography job with three kids and venues more than 2 hours away from her hometown. Jenn will explain how she balances her music and wedding work on social media and what challenges she has as a woman in the photo pit.