Music For Photographers

By Author: The Music Bed
Total Articles: 4
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Photography captures a moment in time in one of the most honest ways possible. If you are a photographer and want to tell a story with photos, you are typically going to assemble a slide show of some sort.

No matter the length, slide shows require some kind of musical accompaniment. Finding royalty free music for photography differs from finding music for videos in that slide shows tend to be a different pace compared to live video.

When searching for music to license for your photography, there are a few components to consider. You must ask yourself a couple key questions to ensure that the music you license for your photography slide show is a fitting synching option:

What is the overall mood of the shoot?

Is this a fun slide show? Was it a fun photo shoot? Is it supposed to be serious? Were we photographing a family, a couple, kids, babies, pets, landscape? Was it day or night? All of these things will heavily influence the overall mood of the slide show before you even pick music. It's important to make this distinction at the beginning so you don't end up with a mismatched mood between visuals ...
... and your audio.

What am I trying to communicate?

Is there a story you are trying to tell in the slide show? Is there a specific idea that you want your viewer to come away with? If you're showing a slide show depicting a devastating natural disaster or underfed orphans in Africa you're trying to raise support for, you want the viewer to feel that devastation and connect to it. You want them to see how bad things are but you want them to feel a little hope as well, enough to where they feel like what they do can make a difference. So there's a balance there when choosing what audio works best.

What is the energy of the photo story?

Similarly related to the mood of the shoot, what's the energy like in the story? Your mood may be dark or serious but it can still be an energetic. Likewise, you can have a very light and fun shoot - sunshine, kids, etc., - but still want the energy taken down a notch so really focus on the magnitude of the visuals.

That's why music choice is so important and so difficult. It may not always be a direct correlation to the shoot once you take into account everything as a whole. At www.themusicbed.com we believe that evaluating the tone and pace you are trying to achieve with your slide show is crucial, and will then allow you to make an intelligent music licensing choice.

The Music Bed is a music licensing company for Filmmakers & Photographers. They license music for anything from music for photographers, wedding & non-profit films and slideshows, to commercial and independent film projects.