A year ago, four Australian photographers - Ruby Boland, Ian Laidlaw, Gabrielle Clement and Jordan Munns - told us what it was like to work as someone who captures gigs around Australia, and how changes in crowds post-pandemic were a challenge.
As younger generations of Aussies entered their gig-going age, capturing the moment became a vital part of the experience - boosting their cultural capital and TikTok numbers.
These four Aussies told us what it was like being a live music photographer in 2023, which ranged from territorial crowd behaviour to not having a secure space to store their gear, rest and hydrate while working festivals and events.
Now a year later, we caught up with the same four creatives - to see what they were up to 12 months on, and if things had changed for them.
The live music scene is a different landscape than it was in 2023. As more festivals take some time off or collapse altogether, the pool of work available to people like photographers shrinks. It forces many to become both flexible and creative with their work while still making sure they're earning a liveable wage.
From taking the shots to calling them
For Ian Laidlaw, he found it was time to make a larger switch, moving into tour management full time and being a lot more selective with his photography work.
"I found myself dipping my toes back into tour managing," he said.
"I've been doing that for eight years for a few artists, and found that the combination of a tour manager and photographer was quite appealing to a few artists I work with. So I found myself quite busy. But then I noticed about six or so months ago I hadn't been shooting a lot and had only been tour managing."
Ian said that like any job in the creative industries, live music photography has ebbs and flows. He's noticed there aren't as many photographers in the photo pit between the crowd and the stage, which says to him that others have transitioned into different areas too.
Stepping more into tour management has allowed Ian to switch roles, where he's now wrangling photographers on tours - something he's found not many other tour managers do.
"It's actually really nice to sort of brief photographers," he said.
"I was touring over in the US and Canada and I would go and talk to the photographers before the show and be like 'Hey here's just a couple of little cheat notes with the show or a couple of key moments that you might want to stick around for'.
"I actually got some really cool feedback from a lot of photographers in the States who were like 'what are you doing? No one's ever told us this kind of information. This is really helpful.'."
"How can we make photographers' lives easier?"
Back on local soil, festivals, venues and management teams' attitudes towards photographers and other media have changed for the better, too.
Sydney's Hordern Pavilion now has a dedicated media space backstage, where photographers and videographers can store their gear, make quick edits, rest between sets and stay hydrated. Other venues offer free cloaking to media teams so they don't have to risk leaving their gear somewhere it could get damaged or stolen.
[HORDERN PAVILION MEDIA ROOM]
"I'd say the biggest difference [since last year] was the Hordern Pavilion," Gabrielle Clement said.
"They really took on the article. Three of us who you interviewed work for them consistently and they actually let us sit in their little production room between sets to edit.
"One week I was really sick, so they gave me a kettle and tea to have between sets, which was so nice.
"Sometimes they leave us cute little notes and heads up about production. That's made it a lot more comfortable to be kind of hanging out in a venue for so long."
Jordan Munns has recognised an increase in inclusivity towards photographers by festivals too, and in the time since we last spoke has been approached by a major music festival to help shape their approach with media teams on site.
"As we were coming up to Laneway this year, I actually had someone from their team reach out," he said.
"They were like 'we know this is a conversation that's been happening, can you give me a little bit of insight into what it's like to be a media photographer on site and how we could help them? How can we make photographers' lives a bit easier?' It was a really nice message.
"It's down to little things like, I know she mentioned having lockers on site for local media to store their gear. But that was really refreshing and nice message to receive and it's like, oh okay there are teams who are thinking about this stuff."
Getting paid — it's all about confidence, baby
This increased respect towards photographers has helped Gabrielle and Ruby Boland value their work more too, giving them the confidence to adjust their rates to reflect that self-worth - and turn down offers that don't value them.
"More often than not, the better I quote, people seem to take me more seriously," Ruby said.
"Or they're like 'oh yeah, that's fine'. There's definitely been a couple of festivals that have offered pretty bad rates and I've just been like... nah."
Meanwhile Gab has felt more confident asking for her needs to be met when she's negotiating a job.
"I've felt more confident voicing my needs," she said.
"Covering travel and accommodation and then giving them a rate I'm very comfortable with - giving and negotiating that rate, and then also stepping back if that's not met.
"I think I've gained a lot more confidence since people saw that article and I saw the feedback in the comments. It's like 'hey, maybe we do actually deserve to be a lot more comfortable'."
But how are the crowds?
When Ian does pick up the camera for a live show, he's noticed the biggest shift has been in the attitudes from crowds. People are kinder, understanding and more respectful towards those officially shooting or filming a gig.
"Sometimes we don't often get the grace to freely move around because people can be a bit territorial over their positioning or whatever it is," Ian said.
"But truthfully, I've found in the last maybe six months or so, every show I've ever been at - whether it's small clubs or big rooms - I actually have noticed that the general population of audiences have been much more... it's not even nice or lenient or forgiving.
"I've just found people being a lot more respectful."
Jordan said he's found people in younger generations who have grown up with visually-dominant platforms like Instagram and TikTok have more awareness and consideration of photographers at shows.
"I think this generation more so understands that it's part of the experience," he said.
"Because they know they're gonna get home from the show in the coming days, or the night after, and see those photos and videos and the things those people were filming.
"I think, at the end of the day, that does affect our experience. The amount of times I was trying to push into the crowd and there's people who are like 'get out of the way, he needs to get the shot'. And then sometimes you'll take your shots and they're looking at your screen and they're like 'looks good!'."
Gabrielle said that using social media to share her work allows her to bring punters into her work, which has changed behaviours at shows.
"We're making like Reels and bringing people into our job so they've got that understanding," she said.
"It's really nice when they ask if you got the photo or if they can help in any way. But I would definitely say that the older crowds - I just don't think that they grasp what our job actually is."
But there's one thing in the crowd that sometimes frustrates photographers: phones.
Not because they want to gatekeep creating content at live gigs and festivals, but because it just doesn't make for a good crowd shot when everyone's holding their phones up.
"I'm so hesitant to say it because it has that kind of 'oh okay boomer' stigma to it," Jordan laughed,
"But a lot of clients want that kind of big barrier crowd shot from in the pit, but it's quite hard to get that raw moment with everyone in the front row. It's gotten to a point where I've had to be like 'hands up!'. I feel like I'm on a TV set."
While there's still improvements to be made to the working conditions of people in the live gig community, we've already come a long way in the last year to bring them out of the peripheries. Hopefully the next 12 months brings even more respect, acceptance and appreciation of these hard-working creatives.