Event photography with Australian live music photographers

Date: Sunday, 21 November 
Time: 4pm - 5pm (Sydney AEDT)
Location: Paddington Reservoir Gardens
Cost: Free, donations welcome

View the rest of our online program.

Hear from some of Australia’s best event photographers in this live session at Paddington Reservoir Gardens. They will discuss their experiences and tips for working as an event photographer as well as discuss their exhibition capturing live music in 2019, the year before our lives were put on hold.   

Kevin Bull
Publisher of 'Reverb Street Press' and '2019 – A Year Before Lockdown', Kevin has been photographing live music since 2007 predominately in Sydney, Newcastle, Central Coast and the Hunter Valley, with trips to Byron Bay, Port Macquarie, Blue Mountains and Wollongong for festivals. As of 2020, prior to lockdown, Kevin has photographed over 400 events and 2000 artists

Stuart Bucknell 
Stuart started shooting music in 2011 after landing an opportunity to photograph a festival for an emerging music blog.  Since then he has gone on to shoot live shows for a number of media outlets, at venues around Sydney, as well as at some of the largest music festivals across the country.

Peter Dovgan
I guess you could say my career as a live music photographer started when I snuck a camera into Laneway Festival in 2009.

It was just a Canon 1000D but I was hooked.  Growing up in Sydney during the 80s, I saw a lot of live indie music bands at all the great venues.  As much as I loved being a patron, I was always envious of the photographers in the pit.  For me, it was a natural progression and I haven’t looked back.  Cutting my teeth at smaller venues gave me the confidence to keep going and along the way I had some great mentors generous in sharing their knowledge and craft with me.  By 2011 I started shooting for local music publications AU Review and Faster Louder which gave me even greater access to local and international artists.

Over the last 10 years I’ve also shot for The Music, Tone Deaf and Moshcam covering a wide spectrum of artists from Paul McCartney to Iggy Pop through to the A-Z of Australian music. In 2012 I was a runner up in the NME Music Photography award and got a Highly Commended the following year.  In 2014 I was a finalist in the Pedestrian TV Photography awards.  My photos have been exhibited in the Wide Eyed Live Volume One & Two, Head On Festival in 2014/2015 and currently in the Number One/Michael Gudinski exhibition in Ballarat. 

Alec Smart
I was born in Malaysia and lived there and Singapore until, at the age of 5, my family relocated to England. I then moved to Australia and grew up on Sydney's Upper North Shore and left school aged 15 with no qualifications. I was active in the live music scene and played guitar or sang vocals in a few punk bands before relocating to Canberra for two years, where I put on gigs for two live music venues.

In Feb 1990 I moved to UK and thereafter focused on a career as a photojournalist, taking photos and writing accompanying articles, all of which I gave away free to publications and campaigning organisations.
 
After building up a portfolio of published images and articles (most of them unpaid), in 2002 I gained employment with Britain's largest media publishers, the Trinity Mirror Group, and relocated to Surrey in southern England. 

After 22 years based in the UK, I returned home to Sydney in Nov 2012.
I've continued my passion for photographing live bands and writing features. Currently I'm the group editor and principal writer-photographer for Neighbourhood Media.
 

Please check what COVID-19 restrictions are in place before you visit.

.

Head On Photo Festival sessions are supported by

and