PETE MILLSON
PHOTOGRAPHER
MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHY
Since I was a little boy, I’ve lived through records and music. My parents started me off with Radio 2-sanctioned ballads and soft-rock, friends of my parents gave me The Jam and all things new-wave, and then schoolfriends finally lined me up with noisier things. From that day to this I’ve been a record collector. Being exposed to so much cover artwork inevitably lead me to daydreams about the photography thereon: who were these people? How come some photos seem to resonate in the same way the music did; how come some didn’t? Getting into photography, the first thing I looked for was a way to combine my two loves, and that was, of course, music photography.
I set about shooting friends’ bands, learning gig/concert photography (how not to get your flashgun kicked off the camera in the mosh pit), how to catch a moving target in low-light, and how to spot good light and artificially create the same. I also found out that I seemed to know, instinctively, what a good press shot/promo image should look like; how to work with shy and arty (or beery and noisy) people, and photograph them in a way that would reveal their musical and artistic intentions, somehow.
Before I started on my first job working as a professional and freelance contributor to the weekly music paper New Musical Express (NME), I spent a number of years being obsessed with the work of The Douglas Brothers, Dutch photographer Anton Corbin, and the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Three pretty different bodies of work, but they all seemed to be going after dignity and truth. And dignity and truth are things that I found again and again in music and records. I tried to actively rip-off their style. I never got there, of course, but I leaned a lot, and found my own style.
Here’s the thing: bands and artists need to look… well, the word is, inevitably, ‘cool’, but more than this they need to look like the best of who they actually are. And what we all know deep down, is that the guy down the front dancing like an idiot without a care in the world is actually the really cool one. Because he’s ok with being him.
Good music photography needs to showcase ideas, concepts, wiry rock guitars, quiet and languid pianos, bedroom producers time-stretching beats to perfection, and, at the heart of it all, the people themselves who have decided that they have something to say through music. Because music speaks to them.
Like it speaks to me.
(Details on how a shoot works can be found at the bottom of this page)

HOW A SHOOT WORKS
Get in touch and let me know who you are and what you're working on. We can then hatch a plan.
I'm here to help bands or solo artists. And whether you're a seasoned professional who's enjoyed many a shoot or whether you utterly hate the idea of being photographed but know you ought to put your best foot forward, I'll make it easy for you.
Nine times out of ten a promo photoshoot is going to be a mixture of yours and my firm ideas in combination with a very easy-going walk round (and round) the block and just seeing what we see. Or if it's a tight, tidy studio shoot you have in mind then we get a suitable studio hired, too. Location shoots, however, almost always deliver the magic. My superpowers are in reacting to what I see based on my instinct and on my artistic prejudices.
I ask for half the fee upfront (to nail it in the diary) with the balance paid on delivery of the pictures.
We're not aiming for average. These are obviously going to be the best pictures in the world.
It'll be fun.