Sweaty, a bit drunk, and surrounded by people who look about twice my height and half my age, I’ve got a headache and my ears are buzzing. My shoes squeak every time I try to unstick them from the floor. I can just about make out the features of the lead singer but the drummer blends into the shadows. With a clammy and unstable motion, I take as many photos as I hope will help me remember the night. It’s all a blur… literally. Of the spam of pictures in my camera roll that I flick through the day after, most are out of focus; the rest are either under- or over-exposed, and one is of the inside of my pocket. I’ve probably taken about six ‘good’ photos of music events in my lifetime; Seren Stevens and Kelsey Frost have taken enough to each have an entire Instagram page dedicated to their work (@seren_says_smile and @kfrostphotog).
It’s no secret that local music events have always been a huge part of the Dunedin student experience. With growing concerns about dwindling attendance, disappearing venues, and a lack of new bands, it’s clear that music needs to be made visible now more than ever. Seren and Kelsey are the people with the often-underrated skills to make it happen, there to capture the essence of the Dunedin music scene through the art of photography. In doing so, they don’t just document the moment – they help keep it alive.
In her third year of a BA majoring in Film and Geography, Seren began studying photography in high school (though admittedly with an art teacher who told the class she “hated photography, so just do your own thing.”) But the journey to gig photography has been a fairly spontaneous and self-taught one. Seren’s RA in first-year spotted the camera she’d brought with her to halls and invited her to come photograph a couple gigs. He was in a band himself and did a little bit of photography. “He was like, ‘You should just come to some gigs and take some photos,’” Seren recalls. “It kind of just snowballed from there.”
Kelsey – now a full-time events coordinator, photographer, and occasional DJ – was similarly encouraged to pick up the camera while at uni. Studying at the Dunedin School of Art, one of her tutors encouraged her to work in the often difficult lowlight environments of music venues. “I was hooked from there. I loved the challenge of photographing in near blackness, the changing lights.” There’s nowhere that better encapsulates that dark, challenging environment quite like U-Bar. It reigns supreme as the king of consistency, with Wednesday Pint Nights providing the most opportunities to photograph gigs.
Despite what some might say about the subtropical temperatures and alleged pint-flation, “the atmosphere in UBar is really cool,” Seren praises. “U-Bar always has a really fun bunch of people in the crowd.” The first time she was at U-Bar, it was to take photos – a classier first-time than most in a bar known for tactical voms and on the sly vapes. When asked if it’s her favourite location to shoot, she responds, “Technically it’s kind of the worst, because the lighting is not ideal at all. I’m allowed to say that because I’ve talked to Samuel, the sound and lighting guy, [who] is very aware of that!” Seren laughs. “So other places are a lot easier to shoot, to an extent, but U-Bar definitely feels the nicest and safest.”
Kelsey prefers the outdoors –far less claustrophobic, far more fresh air. She’s regularly snapped pics at Baseline, among other staple Dunedin festivals. “Festivals have to be my all time favourite to shoot,” she says, “any location that’s been built from nothing into this amazing new environment.” This kind of location also allows her to “roam”, to take pictures of the crowd as well as the artist, though she notes that she “much prefer[s] capturing an audience’s genuine response to the music [rather] than having them stop to pose for me.” Seren shares a similar sentiment: “If there’s fun people in the crowd, it does just make the photos so much more fun.” Part of that fun is a hawk-eyed edit to delete any photos depicting wardrobe malfunctions or tabs on tongues.
Musicians need audiences to create their energy; like Seren says, “It’s a bit of a feedback loop.” Both her and Kelsey shared that energy is the main thing they’re trying to capture in their photos. Kelsey explains it as ‘dynamic movement’: “Musicians, and gigs in general, are such an energy force that you then have to snap into a single frame.” The fluidity and unpredictability of live music has always been a big part of its appeal. It doesn’t stand still or wait for anyone. While those flashes of motion make for great photos, Seren adds that sometimes it’s not always about trying to capture the biggest energy in the room. “There’s a lot to be said for taking photos of someone like Becca Caffyn,” she says, an artist whose music draws a lot more on folk and indie influences than rock and roll. “[She] isn’t out there doing this outrageous, crazy, high-energy performance, but it’s still such a beautiful, just charming performance that you want to be able to capture that kind of energy, too.”
Seren explains that, in her opinion, a good photo is one that seems 3D, one where “it feels like there’s a moment happening […] there’s actually something coming out of the photo.” You can look at a photo that technically looks great – “the lighting’s good, the focus is good” – but if there’s nothing happening, then it’s hard to feel excited about it.“I think my favourite part is when musicians will interact with myself or the camera,” she muses. “When they’re projecting energy that way, it’s quite cool.”
What Seren says really resonates. It was the photos I saw on social media in my first year of uni that made the Dunedin music scene look so exciting, so alive. Every image I saw made everything – the artists, the venues, the crowd – look so unbelievably cool. And they are, really. I wanted to write this article for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to chat to people I had admired, to achieve some kind of coolness by extension. Their work, and every photo of Dunedin musicians that are vastly better than anything I’ve ever taken on my phone, really invited me in. As Kelsey says, “Photography [...] is just a wonderful creative tool to capture something to share with others.” It was her and Seren’s photos and videos that had made music more appealing and more accessible.
Nowhere is that more important than a music scene dominated by students who, as Seren describes, “have to manage and market themselves.” Putting images out online, or even on physical posters, helps bring in new crowds, without which the scene could become “quite a stagnant sort of closed-off group,” in Seren’s view. In the digital age we live in, videos and photos are the main way that information spreads. Sure, a lot of the time that’s TikTok brain rot and trends that last a week at best, but there’s chances for the good stuff to shine through, too. I first learnt about IVY after one of their covers popped up on my For You page (yep, I’m flexing that I’ve been a fan from nearly the start). Having the chance to use content as promotional material, or for branding purposes, makes a huge difference to artists just starting out and finding their feet.
It’s the reaction and gratitude from artists that makes it all worth it for both Seren and Kelsey. Part of what makes her work so rewarding for Kelsey is when artists share her work on their own socials, allowing her to see what images they resonated with. Seren has a pretty identical response: “Everyone’s just really, really sweet and really grateful for the photos.” A lot of bands will send really cute messages, too. "That’s really sweet,” she reiterates.
It’s a bit of a no-brainer that music photos are some of the most iconic visuals of all time. Think Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, or the Clash’s London Calling – a photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass at a 1979 New York gig that would later become the band’s album cover. While Seren hasn’t photographed instruments being destroyed, she’s still captured the manic energy of some bands. “The first band that I shot was The Beatniks,” she reminisced. (For your first gig as a photographer, that seems as good a place to start as any.) It’s hard to pin the band down to just one genre. It’s hard to pin them down at all – they’ve earned a reputation for the explosive energy of their gigs. “They’re obviously such a cool band and it’s just so fun to watch them perform live. They’re all really sweet people but on stage they’re just absolutely mental […] every second there’s someone doing something absolutely outrageous, like someone’s jumping off an amp or someone’s leaping into the audience – there’s so much going on all the time.”
Despite all the perks (getting to attend a gig for free is one of the main ones), there can be a downside. For Seren, it’s money. “When you’re advocating for yourself, it’s quite hard putting a price on your work,” she says. As well as that, knowing she’s shooting student bands means she’s hesitant about asking for too much. “I’ve talked with heaps of them about how much they get paid and how much money is coming into the band and it’s like, ‘Oh, if I were to charge what any other photographer would charge, I’d just be taking their bank account entirely out.’”
As well as the financial side of things, photographing gigs often means there’s going to be very drunk people involved. “Never in U-Bar but a few other gigs in town or in different music venues, [I’ve had] the odd ponytail pull and shit like that. And it’s like, ‘Okay, I am actually working.’” She praises the security staff who are often pretty good at stepping in “the second that you raise an eyebrow at them” but there can still be some disrespect. Kelsey has had similar experiences and focuses on the need for more non-males in the industry. “Some of the most disappointing experiences I’ve had have involved the heavily male dominated scene,” she says. “In one experience, I was the only female in a team of all males, and they ignored me the whole festival [and] made digs about the gear I was using.” Just as we need diversity on the stage, so too is it necessary behind the scenes. Everyone in a live music space should feel respected and safe, not just the artists performing.
These days, there’s no mention of the Dunedin Sound without also lamenting the demise of music venues. With so few spaces for live music to flourish, there’s real fears that the longevity of live music is at risk – and it’s not just bands that are suffering. Kelsey explains, “The lack of venues not only affects Dunedin musicians [...] but affects event coordinators, touring artists, sound techs, lighting techs, videographers, photographers, hospo staff…” The list goes on.
The Dunedin music scene is tinged with nostalgia. There’s a certain longing for the way things were, for the golden age of the ‘80s when bands like The Chills were kicking about. How do we deal with the fact that everything, including music, is becoming more and more technology driven? Seren admits, “To be honest, the iPhones now scare me, because they match [the] quality [of cameras] pretty well.” As high quality becomes more accessible, there’s a strange kind of romanticism in going the other way. “Cheap digicams are so trendy right now,” Seren says. “There’s something more unique about having a low-quality camera.” Those pictures that are reminiscent of the footage captured on the camcorder your dad would whip out every Christmas; they’re images that are perhaps closer to memory than media.
Music is so integral to the Dunedin student experience. As I chat to Seren outside in the sunshine on a Monday morning, the acoustic sound of One + One duo playing on Union Lawn serves as a reminder of just how present music is in this city, and just how much it soundtracks our time at uni. While it’s easy, and a bit expected, to talk about the decline of the Dunedin Sound, as long as there’s students there will (hopefully) be student musicians. The scene will keep reinventing itself, but only if you show up for it. Go to gigs, start a band, take photos – because that’s how to capture something so vital, and ensure it’s cemented in history rather than lost to it.