John Shearer is
an entertainment, music and backstage photographer from Nashville and Los
Angeles, USA who has worked with famous bands and musicians such as Bob Dylan,
Katy Perry and Taylor Swift as well as popular events, record labels and
publications such as The Grammys and The Oscars. The photographic work of John
Shearer focuses on documenting scenes of emotion, movement, performance, and
lighting to emphasize the atmosphere he captures within his photographs, often
focusing the angles of his compositions as though looking at the venue and
performances from the perspective of the audience, performers, and backstage
crew through mainly wide shots.
As someone with
an interest in the specialism of music, performance, and concert photography, I
decided that looking at and researching the work of John Shearer would be best
for learning a lot more information about this area of photography which will
then be developed further in later interviews with music industry, concert, and
performance photographers. By researching and analysing the work of John
Shearer, I discovered that his style of photographing the performers, audience
and venues relies a lot upon the formal elements of tones, and shapes to
emphasize the atmosphere and mood captured through the lighting, stage setup
and designs and motion that is going on around him within the concert venues
onstage and in with the audience.
Many of John
Shearer’s photographs are kept central using the rules of thirds and leading
lines of focus, ranging his compositions from mid-shots to wide shots to
document the performer, the audience, stage setups, and the venue around the
stage to show how these factors have been deliberately arranged and structured
prior to the concert to have a major impact on the atmosphere of the show and
venue as well as the emotions of the audience and performers, which is often made
obvious through photographs focused on their faces or on capturing their
movements around the stage. Since John Shearer documents his photographic works
from the perspective of the backstage crew, looking out over the stage,
audience and the venue – sometimes even using fish-eye lenses to emphasize the
large space of the venue – focusing on how the space in filled with the
audience and the performance on the stage, he creates a variation of emotions
focusing on elation and oy and high energy as well as the intimacy of the
emotions and motions shared through the audience and the performers on stage.
John Shearer’s
photographs are focused on the formal elements of tones and shadows created
through the artificial lighting and stage designs around the venue which are
captured within his photographic imagery of the live performances and concerts.
The photographer uses the intense monochromatic tones within his photographs to
create a stark and intense contrast within his photographs which in turn draws
attention to the audience and the performer and emphasizes their emotions of
joy and high energy. By also creating these contrasts the photographs can also seem
more serious and intimate in comparison to the photographs of other music and
concert photographers who prefer to document these scenes focusing on the
bright coloured lighting and stage designs.
The way that John
Shearer documents the formal elements of tone and lighting within his work to
portray intense emotions of joy, elation and high energy which is shared between
the audience and the performers on the stage from the perspective of the
backstage crew working with the performers onstage, looking out over the
performers, the audience and the venue, which is something that I find
interesting and would like to experiment with portraying further within my own
work as I have always had an interest in the experimentation of showing
emotions and emphasizing specific atmospheres and moods within my own
photographic work and how that can often change for my sitters both in public
and privately. I plan to gain further information into this specialism through
further artist analysis and interviews with professionals within this area of
the industry regarding their own experiences and photographic works.
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