{"id":5473,"date":"2013-10-24T20:52:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T00:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexz.net\/?p=5473"},"modified":"2013-10-24T20:52:01","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T00:52:01","slug":"personal-work-that-lands-assignments-jessica-earnshaw-pdn-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alexz.net\/?p=5473","title":{"rendered":"Personal Work That Lands Assignments: Jessica Earnshaw — PDN Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is an article PDN Online<\/a> did with Jessica Earnshaw about her time documenting the Skipping Stone Tour. If anyone saw that tour you usually saw Jessica moving out and about with her camera \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n

When photographer Jessica Earnshaw made a handshake deal with musician Alexz Johnson to document the singer\/songwriter\u2019s Skipping Stone Tour last year, one of her motivations was adventure. \u201cI\u2019d never gone on tour before,\u201d she says. But her other motivation was to expand beyond her niche documenting families and kids for health and social service clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic is a huge influence on kids, and I was trying to break into music photography, but it was really hard when I was showing work that had nothing to do with that,\u201d Earnshaw says. \u201cI had to have something to show people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s 18-show tour offered Earnshaw an opportunity to build a music portfolio. Close friends for a decade, Earnshaw and Johnson had worked together on a TV show in Toronto before relocating to New York City independently to establish careers in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Earnshaw didn\u2019t get a fee to cover the tour, but all of her expenses were covered. (Johnson raised $70,000 on Kickstarter to fund the tour.) Earnshaw anticipated low-lighting conditions at the concerts, but wanted to avoid using flash in order to better capture the atmosphere of the venues. That would require fast lenses, and Earnshaw already had several prime lenses\u201435mm, 50mm and 85 mm\u2014that she ended up using, plus a 17-40mm lens \u201cfor when I had more light because it wasn\u2019t fast.\u201d She bought a Canon EOS 5D Mark III body for its low-light and video capabilities. To capture sound, she used the built-in microphones of both her camera and a Zoom H4N digital recorder, which she set up near the band\u2019s soundboard at every concert.<\/p>\n

The first show was on June 25, 2012, in New York City, then the tour began in earnest a month later with a show in Toronto, followed by 16 other shows over the next month in cities across the U.S. Earnshaw quickly realized, \u201cI was more interested in the story than the one-off concert shots,\u201d she says. \u201cI loved the back-end of it, the dream [and] expectation in touring, the quiet moments, the pressure, the craziness, the fans who paid to see her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnshaw spent long days shooting behind the scenes, then shooting the concerts. While traveling between shows in the band\u2019s Wi-Fi-equipped van, she edited her take and posted selected images and video clips on Johnson\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had such a great response from the tour blog. Her fans were coming up to me to say how much they loved it,\u201d Earnshaw says.<\/p>\n

Back in New York City, Earnshaw spent several weeks editing her video footage into a 25-minute documentary of the tour for Johnson\u2019s website. Earnshaw also decided at the end of the tour that she had the audience, a narrative story (as opposed to just a collection of concert photos) and the creative inspiration to self-publish a limited-edition book.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d seen a book on Patti Smith, and the work Annie Leibovitz photographed for Rolling Stone. I loved those behind-the-scenes photographs,\u201d Earnshaw says. \u201cI thought it would be cool to have a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll tour book at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

She asked photographer Sylvia Plachy for help editing and sequencing for the book. \u201cSylvia I know through a workshop she taught at the International Center of Photography and we got along great,\u201d Earnshaw says.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had previously edited some other work I had done and I loved the way she edited.\u201d (In exchange for her help, Earnshaw is now helping Plachy build a website.)
\nEarnshaw considered a Web-based print-on-demand service for printing her book. \u201cI wasn\u2019t hearing great things [from other photographers], and it was expensive\u201d for a print run of 100, she says. On a recommendation from her lab in New York City, she ended up contracting with El Sereno Graphics in Los Angeles for the printing. The cost was $26.25 per copy, plus $600 she paid a designer to help lay out the book.<\/p>\n

Earnshaw presold the books to ensure that she didn\u2019t lose money on them. Johnson helped her by promoting the book to all the fans who contributed to the Kickstarter campaign that funded the tour. Books signed by Johnson were priced at $75. Unsigned books were $50. Earnshaw earned about $2,400 on the book sales after expenses.<\/p>\n

It was a modest profit, considering all the work Earnshaw put into it. The real payoff has been the exposure of the project through various channels, and the foothold that it has given Earnshaw in the music photography business.<\/p>\n

Besides the exposure on Johnson\u2019s blog, Earnshaw\u2019s images went out to Johnson\u2019s 100,000 Facebook followers and 43,000 Twitter followers. Johnson distributed the images as publicity photos for various magazines. Mashable and Resource Magazine both ran stories featuring photo galleries with Earnshaw\u2019s images from the tour.<\/p>\n

Earnshaw has also landed assignments as a result of her Skipping Stone Tour work. Island Def Jam hired her to cover the label\u2019s acts at the South By Southwest Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas, last spring. Ebony magazine hired her to shoot pictures for a series about fathers and sons, while Newsday hired her to shoot One Direction fans outside the Jones Beach Theater on New York\u2019s Long Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore and after Alexz\u2019s tour I had very different ideas of where I wanted to go with music and why I was reaching out to editors. Now it\u2019s to develop relationships with them in order to pitch stories,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Earnshaw directed, shot and edited Johnson\u2019s \u201cNothin\u2019 On Me\u201d music video, which was featured on the MTV Buzzworthy blog. It was another self-promotion coup for Earnshaw, who credits her success with the video to all she learned about photographing and filming music performances during the Skipping Stone Tour.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is an article PDN Online did with Jessica Earnshaw about her time documenting the Skipping Stone Tour. If anyone saw that tour you usually saw Jessica moving out and about with her camera \ud83d\ude42 Source When photographer Jessica Earnshaw made a handshake deal with musician Alexz Johnson to document the singer\/songwriter\u2019s Skipping Stone Tour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[314,762,763],"class_list":["post-5473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-jessica-earnshaw","tag-pdnonline","tag-photography"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t