So you want to shoot a band?

Step 1: Buy a camera. Probably a shitty one with a crappy slow zoom the size of my dick that the salesman at Walmart convinced your mom to pay twice the street price for.

Step 2: Make yourself a Facebook business page for your photography business. You're gonna need a big, ugly watermark and some badly composed photos of your friends/cats/coffee/otherwise-privileged-lifestyle. Go ahead and crank those clarity sliders up you fucking whore. Ooo, saturation. You dirty bitch I bet you like that.

Step 3. Try to bring your shit camera to the concert and have security deny you entry because it (as well as the Key Ice you tried to sneak in too). Unsuccessfully try to argue with security using the timelessly articulate line of 'aww brooooooo cmon brah'.

Step 4: Take some shitty 'street' photos and try to bait cops into violating your rights. Become bitter when the local police aren't dicks.

Step 5: Buy a shitty 50 and discover bokeh. Realize you are a great photographer.

Step 6: Gain credentials. For some reason the tour manager asks for a 'portfolio'. Tell him you forget it and that you'll get back to him. Panic and tell your friends that you 'got invited to shoot them'. Desperately email shittier and shittier publications until the second-tier student newspaper music opinion blog agrees to credential you. Drink to you success and once again congratulate yourself on being a top notch photographer and businessman.

Step 7: Arrive 5 minutes before the main set and act stunned when there is a line.

Step 8: Discover the power of the VIP entrance and feel important.

Step 9: Hang out with security by the pit and talk to the other photographers. Feel intimidated by their obviously superior gear and pretend to be far more important than you are. Tell people you've been shooting for years. Realize you'll never get paid. See some dude with a point and shoot wander by, further cementing your badass photographer status. Fuck that guy.

Step 10: Realize you actually have to shoot the band. Realize this is pretty hard. Shoot the band until security tells you to leave. Be shocked to to discover you only get 3 songs 'and no flash'. Wonder why anyone would want flash.

Step 11: Chimp photos on back of camera and feel once gain satisfied with your abilities.

Step 12: Get home and upload all 452 JPGs to Facebook. Bask in the glory of your 5 likes and a 'good job!' comment from your mother.

Congratulations! You are now a concert photographer!

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