By 60 Second Music Marketing on 27/04/2017

Top Tips For Band Press Photos

Imagery has always been important for musicians but with online media and social media the need for photos has never been greater.

Chris Cooke at the CMU Insights blog recently gave some great tips for better press photos. Let’s have a look at them:

Have Plenty Available

Don’t just have the one photo, have a range of photos that you possibly release over time. These will be hand for use on social media if nothing else.

Think Backgrounds

Your background will say a lot about what you ‘stand for’ A white backdrop in a studio can be useful for a publication to either put text on, or to remove in Photoshop and to add another background later

Formats

Have landscape, portrait and square versions of your best shots

Get Close Up

Make sure there are some photos with good ‘headshots’ rather than all being at a distance.

Don’t Go Too Whacky

Keep it simple, some publications will want straightforward ‘band shots’.

Colour Is Key

Don’t go exclusively black and white and arty. Make sure a good number of them are colour

Make Sure People Can Find Them

Make sure they’re in the ‘press’ section of your website and on your Facebook page too.

Label Them

Labelling them ‘Press Photos’ means they have no copyright issues and publications will be more inclined to include them.

Make Them High Res

300+ dpi photos are essential.

Don’t Attach Them

High res photos can be large in size and some companies don’t accept large attachments on email. Link to large photos from a Dropbox etc.