Hi,
James ... the point is ... you have to take an interest in what gets photographed and filmed around you. It's easy to say ... I'm into the music and don't care about that ... but you are your own business these days, and that is another facet into it.
Generally, ALL new bands can not use any professional and you start with your close friends and school folks ... and they learn as much as you. No one taught me to film these or to photo these, except that I worked a photo lab for 9 years phtographing kid's pictures in schools, sports and what not, and then print them - we had our own lab - ... and after a while you should have a pretty good idea of what is good and what is not.
But yeah ... no issue there ... in a situation like this ... as rare as it is for this person, NOT SEEING is worse than seeing it ... and then it comes out like this.
The hard part here is that most Festival ALWAYS have professional photographers and film makers and it is likely that they will concentrate on the better known artists ... and not the lesser ones that always show up at that festival that many people ignore ... but on occasion blow out the audience ... same as Stevie Ray Vaughn, who took a film maker his own initiative to shoot ... when no one was going to, or had been called to shoot!
That would leave it all to a friend or relation to get something ... and they did ... but had no way to get to the front of the stage, without being told get off.
Again, it would have been better for the musician to have foreseen that on a place this big ... but I doubt many do.
Not trying to be rude ... but on this day and age ... 2012 ... it is important that all of you musicians be aware of the impression yo are making and that the camera helps you guys more than it doesn't. This is the age of impressionability and even if you, or I, do not like it, the fact is that it is there ... so help yourself!
It was the same thing then, as I had a friend that did a lot of Janis Joplin, and he was concerned, as was her management, that a lot of cheapie pictures were not helping her enough. She was big enough that it didn't matter was my thought and comment ... and later I ran into the same thing when Porcupine Tree would not allow pictures to be taken even though I was one of the official photographers for the Festival ... but I respected their wishes ... but in the end, they were the ones that separated themselves from the rest of the people in there ... but they were well defined ... so I was ok with it. Several of the other bands have used my pictures from that event!
And I did not charge them for it, btw, because I believed in their music, and in film alone the Festival cost me $130 and prints (one 5x7 set each for the bands and festival promoter, was $240 ... I BELIEVED IN THE MUSIC and the care for these bands. So not seeing, appreciating, the work I have helped with in progressive music, is, to me ... sad ... it means music is not as important to you ... as it is to me! I sincerely doubt that, but you can not see my point and think I am denying you yours.
I only do progressive bands, and had designed a film scenario for the Coffee House that Bapu didn't understand, or didn't like or they didn't "get" ... and it was a tribute of sorts to Creme & Godley I suppose ... but what the heck ... there are other bands that are more interested in the work than bands that are not!
No worries ... I have another band I am working with here in Portland and am planning on filming it with the equipment from the NWFCenter.