Is the ‘Three Song Rule’ necessary for a live performance?
As an audience and a current photography student, it has been always struggling for me to shoot or not to shoot during a live concert. And when it comes to the professional band photographers, I can say with confidence that they would also be struggled because of the ‘unclaimed’ Three Songs Rule. Every moment would only happen once so is it possible to apply a particular rule in the concert photography line in order to confine the uses of photography in the category?
Three Song Rule is a rule in the line that photographers are only allowed to photograph band for the first three songs only of a live show. From the article ‘Living by the Three Song Rule as a Band Photographer’ by Fred van Leeuwen on fstoppers.com, it has pointed out the reference of how this rule was formed. “Paul Natkin, one of Chicago’s best concert photographers stated in an interview that the rule started in the 80’s with bands playing in New York. During concerts, the photographers, only having 36 shots available per reel of film became concerned with the lighting and started using flash to light up the artists on stage. Unfortunately, this caused many artists, such as Bruce Springsteen a bit of a headache when fifty or so photographers started flashing him as he walked on stage. The Boss became concerned with this practice and said something needed to be done. According to Paul, someone came up with the idea of just letting the photographers shoot for the first fifteen minutes, or first three songs as the average time per song is around five minutes. It was around this time when MTV appeared on our television sets and artists wanted to look perfect on-stage photos as they did in their music videos.”
In the following I will be discussing on this issue in order to clarify the importance of this rule to be applied in the line.
The most supportive evidence for this rule is avoid distraction for the participants, including both audience and performers. From my perspective, there must be cases of photographers been complained by the audience because of their inconsiderate and distractive behaviour. Photographers who have their pit near the audience cause a huge inconvenience to the audiences’ enjoyment and who paid are definitely not willing to be surrounded by the constant clicking sound of the shutter, mixing with the music on-stage. Photographers’ shuttling position and flashes would also be a problem to both audiences and performers, as it has been mentioned above. This rule works to avoid both sound and visual distraction to the participation; photographing within a time limit could be more respectful to both participants and they would be more focus in their atmosphere.
However, a lot of great photographs would be lost if the rule is applied. Performers nowadays are not only presenting their music, they also emphasizing the intriguing visual outcome, such as doing multiple wardrobe changes or dazzling stage effect which look amazing during the entire set. Following with the progress of the concert, as the performers have warmed up and feeding off their energy, they gradually bring out their engrossment into the music at the middle of the show. This may stand out the best presentation of the band such as the cheerful atmosphere interacting with the audience; leading to the birth of a best photograph. If the rule was applied, it would be a pity that almost everything was missed.
More evidence has supporting that applying the ‘three song rules’ is a protection of the rights and benefits, such as intellectual property and copyright. Let us imagine if a paparazzo captured every moment of the concert and released it before the official ones came out, he might already violate the professional ethics. In order to protect the copyright of the live show, it is needed to have a limit allowance agreed by both the photographers to the performers for respect.
Another point is that applying the rule can protect the image of the artist. Stated from the article ‘Why camera bans at concert aren’t insane, just misguided’ by Stan Horaczek on popphoto.com, points out a real case about the working ‘three song rule’ at a live gig. ‘One evening, I was shooting at Madison Square Garden for a Matisyahu and O.A.R. concert and I got to talking to one of the bouncers before the show started. He was there to enforce the three-song rule and started telling me where it had come from. According to him, it had started decades before when Sting began seeing photos of himself performing. Shots from the early part of the set looked great, but as the night wore on, he got sweatier and more haggard, giving a less-than-ideal picture of himself. From there, according to this seasoned bouncer, he started giving photos three songs, then throwing them out of the pit. Other performers loved the idea and it caught on.’ An unflattering image may be bad for the performer’s business and it is understandable that the rule is needed at some point.
There are also contradicting evidence from the line that the rule is no longer applicable due to the technical evolution of digital cameras. Incredible ISO performance as well as the dynamic range expanding with the release of every new camera, flashes are not much popularly used nowadays compared to the 1980’s.
Cameras nowadays are much more sensitive to the lights and producing a better photo quality to both the performers and the public. It means that distraction caused by the flashes are not likely to happen anymore. Performers are able to get into their songs while photographers are allowed to do what they need to do for the show, so that the rule is now out-of-dated.
From my perspective, the rule should be flexibly applied according to the aspiration from the performers incorporating with the venue and organizer. As a fan of a Hong Kong singer, I have attended to some of her concerts with my camera on hand and I can tell that the official photographs from the whole performance went so much better than mine, as different angles and expression were captured. They recalled my memories from those brilliant atmosphere and scenes; it works like a memento between the fans and the performers. More than that is there are seldom complaint about the audiences being distracted by the shuttling concert photographers and their shutter’s sound. It may due to the adjustment of the camera pit or for example, my idol only allows photographers and paparazzi in one or two of her performance out of all the sessions in order to reach a win-win situation.
Reading the article ‘The Psychology of Decisive Moment’ by John Suler on truecenterpublishing.com, ‘In 1952 Henri Cartier-Bresson, a founder of modern photojournalism, proposed one of the most fascinating and highly debated concepts in the history of photography: “the decisive moment.” This moment occurs when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real-life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation.’,
which I strongly agree that concert photography works like war photography; all live moments are only happening once and so it is important to capture the precious decisive moment from such powerful music vibration.
It is critical to be a concert photographer as it is your liability to record the show, in the meantime being considerate to both the audiences and the performers. The restriction of this rule is inconclusive as it is all depends; both the photographers and organizers have to work together to achieve the same goal which is the most beneficial.