HOW TO BRIEF A PHOTOGRAPHER FOR YOUR BAND PHOTOSHOOT

Most band photos go wrong long before anyone turns up with a camera. They go wrong in the message that says “we’re free Saturday, can you do some shots?” and then stops.

If you want pictures you can still use in eighteen months, on a digipak, a poster, a press email and a streaming banner, you have to brief your photographer properly. This is exactly what goes in that document, and what happens when it’s missing.

I see the results of this every week at CD Unity. Artwork comes in for a card sleeve or a six panel digipak, and the band photo inside is 900 pixels wide, cropped so tight there’s nowhere to place the text, and shot in a pub car park at half four on a grey afternoon. The pictures were fine for Instagram. Nobody ever told anyone they’d need to survive being printed at 300dpi. That’s not bad band photography. That’s a missing brief.

Photographers aren’t mind readers, and the good ones will tell you so. When you brief a photographer with nothing but “something moody, kind of like that band we sent you”, you are asking a stranger to guess at your taste, your budget and your deadline all at once. Some of them guess brilliantly. Most guess averagely, because that’s what guessing gets you.

A photographer who shoots weddings five days a week can absolutely shoot your band, and often shoots them beautifully. But they need to know that a band photo has a different job to a wedding photo. It has to survive being cut into a square, a wide banner and a portrait poster. It has to leave dead space for a logo and a title. It has to still look like you in a year, after the bassist has left.

A proper brief also protects you. If the pictures come back and they’re not what you wanted, a written brief is the difference between a calm conversation about a reshoot and an argument neither of you enjoys. It works the other way round as well. It stops a band moving the goalposts halfway through and blaming the person holding the camera.

And most photographers will hand you back tips and advice the moment they understand the job. They’ll tell you the car park you picked faces the wrong way at 3pm, or that the venue you love is a nightmare without lights. You only get that if you’ve told them enough to react to.

Before you write your brief, work out what you actually want to achieve. Not the vibe. The job. Are these press shots for pitching to a release campaign? Are they going on the inside of a digipak? Are they for a poster campaign around a tour? Those are three different shoots, and pretending otherwise is where the whole thing quietly falls apart.

Once you know what you want the images to do, say it in plain English at the top of the page. Then demonstrate how the photographs will be used, page by page if you have to. Spell out where the photographs are to be used: press releases, socials, the album insert, posters, streaming headers and the rest of your brand collateral. A shot that works as a small square thumbnail is rarely the same shot that works blown up across a gatefold.

Usage also decides framing. If one image has to work as a square Spotify header and a portrait orientation poster, say so on the day, because a photographer framing everything tight leaves you nothing to crop. Ask for room around the subject on at least a few frames. Designers will love you for it, and I say that as one of them.

Then think about tone. What do you want to convey? Serious, warm, ridiculous, cold, cheap in a deliberate way? Write one sentence. If the band can’t agree on that sentence, sort that argument out before you spend anyone’s money, because it will not resolve itself in front of a lens.

Whatever else you cut for length, make sure you include these. This is the core of the document.

Who you are and who you’re talking to

A short paragraph on the band: genre, the record you’re making, where you play, what you sound like when someone describes you in a pub. The point is to help your photographer understand your brand and target audience, because a shoot aimed at a metal audience and a shoot aimed at a folk audience are built differently, from location down to lens choice.

If you have brand guidelines, even a single page with your fonts, your colours and your logo, attach them. Most bands don’t have this. If you don’t, just say what your last release looked like and what you want to keep.

References, including the ones you hate

Include previous photo examples if you’ve got them, and be honest about what worked. A folder with examples of what has worked alongside a few bad examples is worth more than any adjective you could write down. “Not this” is enormously useful information. It saves an hour of polite fumbling.

Reference shots from similar shoots by other bands are fine too, as long as you explain what you like about them. “This one” tells nobody anything. “This one, because the light is hard and nobody is smiling” tells them everything.

Constraints, and where you’ll leave room

List any specific requirements early. One member won’t be shot in profile. The drummer can’t make the morning. The venue won’t allow flash. Nobody wants to be in the river, whatever the mood board says. Get the awkward bits on paper so they don’t become a negotiation on the day.

Then leave room for their creative ideas. A photographer knows things about light, weather and location that you don’t, and the best frames from any shoot are usually the ones nobody planned. Give them the constraints, give them the goal, then let them be creative inside it.

This is the part bands skip, and it’s the part that decides whether you come home with what you needed. Write down the specific shots required as a simple list. Full band wide. Full band tight. Individual portraits, one each. Two or three detail shots of hands, pedals, cases, whatever suits you. One deliberately daft one, because you will want it later.

Give your photographer a rough order and a rough time against each one. Not to boss them about, but so everyone can see that fourteen setups will not fit into ninety minutes of decent light. Seeing it written down does the arguing for you.

If one shot matters more than everything else, let the photographer know which one it is at the start. Maybe it’s the frame that becomes the digipak inner panel, the one thing the whole release hangs off. Space, patience and light are what the photographer will need to make that particular frame work, and they’ll happily give it if they know it’s the priority. If they find out afterwards, it’s too late.

Be realistic about the number. Six good setups in an afternoon is a solid day. Twenty is a fantasy that ends with a tired band and a photographer chasing daylight.

Put a simple timetable in the brief. Meet at 13:00. First setup 13:30. Move to location two at 15:00. Wrapped by 17:00. Build in half an hour of slack in case of unforeseen delays, because somebody always turns up late, and it is always the person with the van.

Send that timetable to everyone involved, not just the two people in the band who reply to messages. Half the disasters I hear about are one member arriving with the wrong clothes because the plan lived in a group chat they muted in March.

List the equipment required from your side: instruments, amps, cases, cables, spare clothes, anything that has to appear in frame. If you’re shooting outside, name a wet weather alternative in the brief and make the call the night before, not at 9am while five people stand in a car park getting soaked.

If the location is anything other than a field or a friend’s flat, check the boring official stuff. A working venue, a warehouse or a rail arch may have health and safety rules, may require safety equipment for anyone on a raised platform, and may need site passes arranged days in advance. Ask the owner. Get it in writing. It costs you one email and saves the entire day.

These are the logistical details that quietly decide whether you get a great set of images or a rushed forty minutes at the end. And do ask the photographer for a few helpful tips before the day: what to wear, what patterns fall apart on camera, whether to bring a second outfit. Most will happily tell you.

Ask what the photographer’s fee covers before you book. Shooting time, editing time, and how many edited frames you get back are three separate things, and they’re the three that cause the most bad feeling later. A day rate that sounds cheap and delivers eight retouched frames isn’t cheap.

Agree the file format up front. You want high resolution TIFF or JPG files for anything going to print, plus a set of web resolution versions for socials so you’re not uploading 40MB files to Instagram. If the pictures are heading for a CD or vinyl sleeve, say so, and check them against our artwork templates before the design work starts. Agree file delivery too: how you’ll get them, by when, and how long the download link stays live.

Sort the rights properly. In the UK the photographer normally owns the copyright unless you’ve agreed otherwise in writing, and what you’re buying is a licence to use the images. Ask what that licence covers, how long it lasts, whether it includes merch and advertising, and whether you’re paying for exclusivity. If anyone outside the band appears in shot, get a model release signed on the day. Bodies like the Association of Photographers publish standard terms if you want to see what normal looks like.

One last thing, and it’s the one I care about most from where I sit. Ask to see the photographer’s edit before it’s locked. Not to fiddle with it, but because the final image that ends up on your sleeve has to work with type, colour and trim, and a designer spotting an issue at that stage saves a reprint. If you’re using our design service, send us the shortlist early and we’ll tell you which frame will actually lay out well.

Professional photography is an investment, and a written page is what makes it pay. Do this and you’ll ensure you get the best out of the day, the budget and the person you hired. Honestly, the best photography I see come through CD Unity almost always comes from bands who wrote something down first. When you write a photography brief for your next photoshoot, all of the above fits comfortably on one side of A4.

That’s really the hidden benefit of all this. A written brief doesn’t just get better pictures from the right photographer, it helps you spot them in the first place, because the photographers who aren’t right for the job will read it and tell you honestly.

Josh McKenzie

Hello, I’m Josh, and I’ve been honing my graphic design skills for almost 15 years now, catering to the needs of bands and businesses alike. What really fascinates me is the business aspect of the music industry. In addition to my design work, I also happen to play the Hammond organ, and I strive to share my knowledge through helpful articles that I write exclusively for you all!