It is legit if you are running an overall profit and really trying to get your start in sports. $5k in wedding profits offset by $500 in sport portfolio expenses will work out, but $5k in sports travel offset by a $500 wedding is a hobby.

I give myself 2 budgets. First is a number of days each year that I’ll shoot stuff I want to learn or make connections in that area. I hope to get some sort of $ out of it, but don’t expect pay that is remotely close to my corporate work.

Second is actual money I’m willing to lose on those shoots. This is a small percentage of my profits for the year. That money can equal travel for those shoots or specialized gear I don’t otherwise need.

There are 3 kinds of concert photographers.

1 working photographers, often for the news, sometimes for other clients. People who shoot a 10 different things this week and one happens to be the concert. They’ve proven themselves around town and everyone understands they are there to work and deliver just like they did yesterday. The venue knows they will behave, and that the pics will be published exactly where they expect. They might like the band but showed up for the paycheck.

2 people who want to shoot concerts, they’ll work for free because they want to see the show. They may or may not be good, they may or may not understand how to act at the show, they may do nothing with the photos. There are hundreds of these people who want in to every show.

3 serious concert photographers. There are extremely few of these. They’ve proven themselves over and over and have built strong relationships with certain bands and venues. Yes, these are gatekeepers. They know that #2 doesn’t belong there and makes their job harder.

I’m a #1, had a manager once who was a #3. He was deadly serious about all of it. He’d done hundreds and hundreds of shows. Toured with major bands. If you wanted to shoot your favorite band he would make you earn it by flawlessly shooting a dozen concerts of bands you hated.

Here’s your advice. The photos are the easy part. Someone else decides what is happening, exactly where you are standing and what the lighting is. You learn through practice how to make the most of that.

Bootleg a hundred shows. Build your portfolio. Shoot whatever crappy little bands and venues you can for a couple years. Get to where you always make the best of the situation. Get to where every security guard and stagehand in town know you and knows you are there to do a job that you take seriously. Go out and do a lot of other work.

Understand the business. What it costs the band for you to be there. Who needs photos and why. Have an end use for the pics. The local garage band might want a free photo but taylor swift doesn’t. The major festival doesn’t. They will let you in because you are on assignment from AP or Le Monde or Reuter’s.

Don’t be a fan. You aren’t there for selfies and autographs. Do everything exactly the same no matter who is performing.

Are there shadows and dark spaces?

Everyone’s answer is always don’t give out those files, the biggest rationale for that is a fear that they are going to edit those pics poorly and that will ruin your reputation. How often that really happens is questionable, but it is an understandable reason.

But… if your wife “recently got into photography” she’s probably still learning. She may have a great eye but not be good at lighting or editing. So her first step should be listen to the complaint and try to rectify it. Give them a new edit. Talk to a more experienced photography whose skills she trusts and ask for help.

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I know we all want to be aggrieved copyright lawyers here. You are right, the band failed his contract because they didn’t enforce the credit.

But my analysis is reality.

OP let the band use his pics for promotion, naively thinking that they would have full control of every use and he would get credit. They don’t have full control. They aren’t the end user. They hand out the pics for promotion and have no control over how or if they are published. The newspaper receives a massive number of hand out pics. They accept them because it is free and convenient. Everyone understands that publishing them is helpful for the person who submitted them. Somebody there may care about trying to give credit. Maybe nobody does. Even if they want to, there are a lot of potential breakdowns.

Probably there is a written policy that by submitting a handout photo you attest that you have full rights and are granting full rights to the paper without credit.

OP can go after the band and burn that bridge. Op can invoice the paper and that will burn bridges with the paper and the band. Or OP can understand the nature of handout photos.

Where do I get my opinion? Some comes from being a photographer who does promotional photos and file photos that should be credited but several times a week are not. Most of it comes from being the guy who received, edited and published the handout photos at several major daily newspapers.

It would be great if they credited you, but in situations like that, it often doesn’t happen. You gave them rights, they transferred rights to the paper. Everyone involved is acting in good faith. It may have passed through 4 or 5 people between you and being published. That’s a lot of chances for someone to miss the credit. Most likely the metadata is intact, but you could easily have someone handling it who doesn’t know to look there.

If you give people pics for promotion this will happen again. You can either not do it or be happy that like your pics and hope that they remember you when they need to hire someone or when someone asks them about the photog who did those great pics.