Marianne Harris

My week so far has included spending a day with the incredible Max Raptor, shooting new press photos with them. The whole day was fab, aside from the rain. We found one of the most stunning locations ever, probably untouched by any other band ever, and generally had a bloody good day. They’re genuinely some of my favourite people I’ve met. 

On Monday I went to London, to work for a band I’ve loved for many years, Skunk Anansie, who played a sold out acoustic show in Sloane Square. The show was just stunning and I had a brilliant time documenting their whole day.

On Friday I’m back in London for the Bleeding Through show at the Underworld. My brief so far is looking pretty intense, a mixture of shoot, interview, and documenting backstage activity. 

Saturday I’m going to Bristol Fleece with Max Raptor who are playing Hit the Deck, Sunday I’m off to the Yeovil leg of the Lower Than Atlantis tour, and next week I’m doing album stuff with We Start Parties.

Then it’s a mad weekend at Groezrock working for Monster Energy and Macbeth, with the Big Deal crew.

My life feels so rock n roll right now. Perhaps I should have left my day job years ago? Let’s hope it keeps up eh.

I saw Bring Me The Horizon last night, for the 29th time, in a tiny venue in Bristol. On a boat actually. Was pretty intense, the crowd were nuts, BMTH were awesome. Was probably the best show I’ve bought tickets to. 

I didn’t take my camera so I can’t show you how good it was. Imagine 400 people in the hull of a boat, and a tiny stage, no barrier, no security, lots of crowdsurfing, people singing so loud it was hard to hear the band. Yeah, you’ve got it. And yeah, you should have been there.

If you’d like to see other pics of BMTH I’ve taken you can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marianneharrisphotography/sets/72157607043094632/

Been thinking about photo comps today. Not the ones that offer some kind of recognition or award for brilliant images, the ones that big international companies set up for the promotional value. You know the ones…send us your best (5) live photo(s), we’ll pick the best 20, get your friends/fans to vote on your photo and the highest voted one will get the chance to take photos of XYZ main stream artist. We’re not really looking for great photographers, we’re looking to see how much traffic we can get going through our websites, how much free promotion from you all posting and pimping for votes, how many new emails we can get on our mailing lists. We won’t own the rights to your photos, but by entering you do give us permission to do whatever the heck we like with them without having to pay you at all. blah de blah.

I got invited to enter one of these a couple months ago. 

I’m vaguely curious to know how many of my contemporaries might have received this email also. And how many of them decided to enter. By contemporaries I’m meaning those photographers who manage to eek a living from what they do, those who regard themselves as ‘pro’ or ‘semi pro’. I’m going to make a wild stab at guessing not many. 

These comps are a bit double edged really, and I’ve never quite properly made up my mind whether I think they’re utterly diabolical or bloody fantastic. If I was a new photographer I’d probably go for it. There’s nothing to lose, great opportunities need to be seized right? As a seasoned photographer I can’t see the appeal. I did all my grabbing years ago. Have pretty much ticked all my ‘must dos’. And I really can’t think of anything worse than entering something like this and then not winning.