Best Concert Photos of 2016 | Montreal Concert Photographer

As the end of the year approaches, it is always a great time to look back at what you have accomplished in the past 12 months. And while doing so, you can also take the time to backup those accomplishments 🙂 . As much as it was a great year for both photography and business (closing off my 4th year in full time photography, company growing, income growing, client list growing), it was a sad year in the music industry with so many legendary loses. Leonard Cohen, Prince, Sharon Jones, Bowie, Lemmy (ok, that was late 2015..) and many others leave a huge hole and their originality, artistry and talent will be missed.

Concert photography isn’t the easiest photo-art form to make a living at. There are loads of people taking clicks during a show, whether professionally or as a hobby. Trying to stick out from the masses (and here in Montreal, there are loads of talented people in the photo pit) is a bit hard at times.

Thankfully, my 2016 had some great highlights not only in the photos I produced, but also both in terms of client recognition and having some photos considered for artistic recognition.

The big moment in 2016 (as in OMG!) was having my photos as part of a temporary exhibit at the McCord Museum here in town. My partnership with Bell Media (CHOM / Virgin Radio) keeps growing, and CHOM decided to host an event for clients/fans/contest winners at the museum and they featured 27 of my prints (all on beautiful canvas!). The museum decided to keep on a selection for a exhibit that lasted the whole month of October! Interviews, being on local news, blogs and having so many people come out to see my work was just…. amazing but yet nerve-racking for someone who doesn’t like being in front of the camera.

(photos of the vernissage by Mr. Jason Hughes)

Professionally, this was the first year that I got the call to be the head photographer for a festival. While I’ve only been covering festivals as an official picture-taker for a few years (and many more as media), having the IleSoniq and Heavy Montreal festivals on the same weekend had the typically hired photo-crew split in two, and the promoter decided to assign me to the main stage of the growing EDM festival. While it is great to cover a main stage all weekend (with a few romps over to the second stages), it comes with an added pressure to deliver as at some times, you are the only photographer allowed to photograph an artist, and often in very limited time (I believe I had 2 minutes to get photos of one artist before I had to leave). It also comes with the responsibility to capture non-show images, deal with last minute requests and so on…. a side I never had experienced before.

Here are some of my fave shots of IleSoniq 2016!

ilesoniq-bestof-1 — What’t the view like for a DJ in front of 25k + fans?

ilesoniq-bestof-8 — Skrillex. No stage access… let’s use the giant screen to get a crowd shot

As mentioned before, my partnership with Bell Media has been a huge treat. I’m officially signed on until 2018 with them (yay, contract renewals!), and this was my second full year covering shows for CHOM and first full year covering for Virgin Radio. Looking forward to expanding that partnership this coming year 😉

Here are some of my fave shots of the year!