Michael Butterworth LRPS – musicians during live performances

Mike Butterworth at Cafe Red

From 18/4/2017 to 24/5/2017
An exhibition by Michael Butterworth LRPS – photographs of musicians taken during live performances.

Café Red exhibition by Michael Butterworth LRPS. Here are a few words from him.


I’ve enjoyed music all my life and, when I went to study in Cardiff, I started to go to gigs and found that live music was so much more. You feel the music, as well as hearing it, and watching the performance just gives the music an extra dimension. I went to many gigs in my early twenties.

In 2006 I got the opportunity to take photographs, from the pit, at The Cornbury Music Festival – I combined two of my favourite things. Through luck and contacts I’ve managed to get access to take photos at festivals and gigs every year since.

What I like about shooting from the pit, and the three song rule, is that you have fifteen minutes to work out the light, what the band might do and who is the most dynamic/photogenic. It’s anticipating what’s going to happen next and trying to capture the essence of that performance in one image.

These images were all shot in Oxfordshire.

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