It would be impossible for me to mention all of my favourite pictures of musicians and music photographers in one post; this is to be a multi-part series in the long run. For now I’d like to highlight a certain modern photographer and his pictures that has greatly affected my outlook on photography and taking pictures myself. Onward!

As many pictures of the musicians I admire that have long been getting saved on my computer, it was Mr. Kendall that made me consider not only what great photos of musicians should look like, but the music photographers themselves. I think I remember spotting some of his photos of The Libertines in late 2004 at The Killers Network in several users’ forum avatars and signatures. Though I had not heard The Libertines’ music at the time…I knew I just had to. I was hooked from 30-second RealPlayer snippets I found, and subsequently went out and bought Up the Bracket (still my #1 album) and The Libertines.

The best photography in the music realm is not just about having interesting, obscure, or popular (and beautiful, in the case of Pete and Carl…but I digress) subjects to capture, and further still, it is more than having some fancy equipment. There is the prime importance of capturing those truly musical moments, that ability to encapsulate the atmosphere of the performance and to show a flash in time that might have been lost to others; hard to explain, easy to see!

Andrew Kendall on Flickr | Official Andrew Kendall Website

(pictures licensed and re-posted under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License)