About the project
About Practical Photo Notes
Practical Photo Notes publishes practical guides and browser tools for people who photograph live music, request access to shows, or need to understand how image licensing works.
What this site publishes
The site is a reading and reference resource. Its current material covers five areas, in the order a show happens:
- Access: how photo passes are requested, what a pass does and does not guarantee, and how the three-song window usually works.
- Capture: how to work with difficult stage light and photograph red-lit performances.
- Edit: how to edit red-lit frames without faking the colour, and how to choose and order a portfolio.
- Delivery: how to prepare, caption, and hand off a finished set.
- Licensing: how published per-image rates are structured, with an estimator that applies the base fee you enter using user-entered arithmetic.
Guides link the sources behind factual claims where a source exists. Tools run in the browser and do not upload the values you enter.
How guides are researched and updated
Practical Photo Notes is a desk-research project. New and substantively revised guides are written from publicly available manufacturer documentation, published venue and tour policies, and the third-party sources linked on the page. Where a topic depends on a venue, tour, or product policy, the guide says so and points to the source to check.
For a new or substantively revised guide, the check covers the model, software, venue or territory named on the page, and a primary source where one is relevant. Each page separates documentary facts, illustrative examples, and any actual observations. The first publication date is preserved when a guide is updated.
Sources are checked during substantive revisions. The source links on each page are the way to verify current terms. Tool output is arithmetic from the values you enter; it is not a measurement, a market rate, or a quote.
How sources and estimates are handled
When a page cites a published rate card, policy, or reference, the source is named and linked so you can check the current version yourself.
The image licensing fee estimator uses a base fee you enter and applies the stated arithmetic for the number of images and the chosen one-time or annual term. Its output is an illustrative calculation, not a quote or a licence. Permission to use a photograph comes from the rights holder.