Buyers Guide to Music Photography
In recent years, music photography has become a popular and lucrative new collecting category. It encompasses concert photographs, musician portraits and band promotional photos for merchandise and album artwork, as well as editorial photographs to accompany magazine articles.
Some music photographs may fall into more than one of the above sub-categories. These images have become more and more collectible and sought-after in today’s celebrity-obsessed world, with auction prices soaring for portraits of top musical artists by big name photographers.
However, compared to paintings by big name artists, prices are still relatively low for music photography, making this emerging category particularly attractive.
Famous music photography collectors include Tom Hanks, who seeks out Beatles photographs, and the late Steve Jobs, who reputedly collected Bob Dylan images.
British music photographer Kevin Cummins – who is known for his photographs of photographs of rock bands and musicians including Mick Jagger, Patti Smith, Joy Division and David Bowie, among others – believes musicians make stronger subjects than other celebrities. “Musicians are themselves, whereas film stars are pretending to be someone else,” he says. “You can’t just turn up to a film set and do backstage shots, which you can with music. So there is more of an art to music photography because of the access and intimacy.”
However, as prices creep up, collectors need to make informed decisions. Therefore, whether you’re buying music photography as an investment, for pleasure or both, here are some things to keep in mind to avoid spending more than necessary.