I recently got to see upcoming Dublin band,  The Script, who won Best Irish Band in the 2009 Meteor Awards, play in Belfast.  The gig was organised by a local bank interested in raising its profile to a younger target market by running a competition through a local radio station to win free tickets to see the band.

I didn’t want to pass the opportunity of doing more music photography and took my camera along. I painstakingly worked through the surging crowd and made my way to the front of the stage and hadn’t anticipated that when I got there I’d be told to ‘put the camera away official photographers only’ by security.

As I retreated into the crowd I noticed how a third of the crowd were holding up mobile phones and digital compact cameras, yes they too were photographing the band! Why weren’t they told to stop? Well for starters there would have been a riot! And secondly, because it was obvious they were taking photos for their own personal use. However so was I, but I was discriminated against because of the type of gear I use.

If only I was a given a script before going to the gig, I would have known about the different rules for different camera users…