It’s Guest Blog Wednesday featuring Andy Barron!

i am admittedly the least technical and gear-minded photographer i know, so to be featured on this blog is a pretty humbling experience, so first off, thanks.


Photo by Ashtin Paige

my name is andy barron and i live in LA. most of the stuff i shoot is music related, and more specifically tour related. my mindset of capturing images has always been to be a person first and a photographer second, so that combined with my love of music and travel has helped me get to doing what i am now. i love just being in a situation and observing, being a fly on the wall and just documenting what happens. some people might balk at this, but i love having limitations put on me when i’m shooting. whether that may be a dark backstage, a small tour bus, a tv show that doesn’t allow professional cameras; anything like that just makes me try and figure out solutions within these so-called “problems,” and that’s where i love living and shooting.

for the nerds out there, here’s what i travel with: canon 5d mark2, 24-70 f/2.8, 15mm f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8, canon g12, fuji instax. that’s it. i’ve had the same setup for years now and i love my gear. i’ve tried new lenses, prime lenses, different cameras, but always come back to this setup which i can easily throw in a backpack and go at a moment’s notice.

currently i am on tour with the band foster the people, and i could not ask for a better group of guys to tour with. they are my brothers and i am so thankful for the role they have played in my life. i also run their instagram, so while we’re on tour, a lot of my shots go up there. here’s one from this year’s coachella.

for this post i figured i’ll just show some of my favorite shots over the last few weeks of tour. sweet.

a few years ago i took a shot backstage at the roseland theater in portland during a 20 second photo shoot sitting on this couch. that photo ended up being their promo shot for a long time and i believe is still the image that comes up for them on iTunes. we were back at the same venue years later, and the couch was still there, so we had some fun recreating the shot (well, almost).

there are so many surreal moments on tour with a band that make you question what you do for a job in the best way possible. the day we went to NASA and were led on a tour by an astronaut was definitely one of them. a couple instax shots from that day (including the original apollo 13 desk, crazy.)

being able to travel a lot is a definite upside to touring (i only have two more states to go, maine and alaska i’m coming for you) and hands down one of the most gorgeous venues in america is the gorge in eastern washington. we were there the other day for sasquatch festival, and i snapped a couple photos of the guys on this back porch with a fairly decent backdrop.

later that night the guys played to about 20,000 people and then we got to watch outkast before hopping on a bus to seattle. definitely a fun night.

speaking of fun, we definitely have a lot of that out on tour. we play a lot of mariokart on n64 and we even have a few crazy carts out on the road with us. our drummer mark did some drifting at cain’s ballroom in tulsa before soundcheck. this was shot with my g12 and sometimes i just love how a point and shoot looks.

i also end up using a point and shoot a lot whenever bands i am working with play tv shows. a lot of studios have restrictions about SLRs in their space, so i usually lay back and try and get what i can with whatever i can. a few weeks ago the guys played letterman along with a children’s choir and i took this after their performance.

natural light has always been my favorite and even when doing a proper shoot for people i tend to shy away from any strobes or external light. some of my favorite natural light i have seen in a long time was a few months ago at the ryman in nashville, tn. such a historic and beautiful room.

speaking of beautiful rooms, during every show i at least try and get a nice wide shot of the room to showcase the actual venue, and the fillmore in detroit was definitely worthy of a good showcase.

to end, here’s a few of my favorite live shots from this last run. i love shooting the same show over and over trying to perfect and improve on shots i’ve taken from previous shows.

see you on tour. cheers.

to find andy and keep up with his photos, his travels, and his thoughts on this season of the bachelorette, head over to andybarron.com, his instagram, foster the people’s instagram, and his twitter.

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8 comments
  1. I really love andy’s photo, color, light, angle and so on..!! To see his photoshoot makes me get excited, so I really want to be the one who is in FTPs concert right now. So awesome and dynamic photo. Andy, thank you for sharing your awesome photo.

  2. You would think that the opportunity to post on a reputable blog would take the time to use grammar and punctuation properly? This is one of the more inexperienced guest blogs we’ve seen. The photos are decent, but the presentation knocks them down by 50%. Let’s not go here again, please.

    1. You would think that the opportunity to comment on a guest post would take the time to be polite and take into consideration that people are allowed to have different writing styles. You must really not like e.e. cummings.

  3. Great Post Andy. I just shared the photo pit with you in San Diego during the 91X-Fest show. It was fun watching the fans recognize and talk to you before Foster The People took the stage. Great work

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