From Behind the Scenes to the Mainstage: A spotlight on Utah’s Best Concert Photographers

If you’ve ever attended a concert, music festival or local gig in Salt Lake City, chances are you’ve seen the concert photographs on social media afterwards. Not audience outfit photos or blurry, faraway iPhone shots of a band on stage. We’re talking about high-resolution, up-close, professional photos of the event. They’re the type of photos where you can see the strings on a guitar or the sweat on an artist’s brow – images that help you relive the event again and again, long after the final encore.

On Oct. 16, Women in Music Utah (WIM) and FICE Gallery present “The Pit: Behind the Lens,” a first-of-its-kind gallery exhibition showcasing the finest work from Utah-based, professional concert photographers. Coinciding with Salt Lake Gallery Strolls, the gallery opening will celebrate music, art and community in FICE’s urban gallery/boutique space on 200 South.

“We want to recognize and amplify a skilled, often uncredited craft,” Sindee Savage, Vice Chair of Events for Women in Music Utah, says. It’s a project that hits close to home. Several women on the WIM Utah leadership team are industry photographers themselves, shooting at venues, festivals and other music events around the city throughout their careers.

“The goal is to center and celebrate concert photographers so industry professionals can appreciate their work,”

Concert photography is a demanding and often thankless discipline that involves shooting in loud, large crowds with low light and constantly moving subjects. When final images are handed off for artists’ social media profiles, press coverage or merchandising, the individual concert photographer often doesn’t receive a byline or caption tag. This exhibition aims to flip the usual dynamic, moving photographers from behind the scenes to the main event, framing their craft as an essential part of Utah’s thriving music scene.

“The goal is to center and celebrate concert photographers so industry professionals can appreciate their work,” Savage adds. “[Along with] personally invited experts, gallery-goers who haven’t considered concert photography as fine art and anyone interested in the Utah chapter of Women in Music.”

Women in Music is a global nonprofit that teaches, advances and supports women and gender-expansive people throughout roles across the music industry. The Utah chapter launched in spring of 2025, when Savage and

a group of other women in the music industry came together at Mind The Gap Fest. “There isn’t really an architecture for the music scene in Utah,” Savage says. “There’s a lot of freedom, but people will start to notice where the holes are as they progress [in their careers].”

“We’re here to provide access to workshops, mentorships, shadowing and member spotlights – resources, not just talking heads.”

The organization provides resources and support to individuals across the music industry, from emerging and established artists to concert photographers, event promoters and venue owners. In an industry where it’s imperative to know the right people and make the right connections for success, Savage and the WIM leadership team focus on building relationships or “creating intentional collisions,” as she puts it, while providing access to invaluable industry resources. “Our mindset is community over competition,” she says. “We’re here to provide access to workshops, mentorships, shadowing and member spotlights – resources, not just talking heads.”

If you’re interested in getting involved with the nonprofit, WIM is open to anyone who loves music, not just those working directly in the industry. “Fangirls make the world go round,” Savage says. “If you’re a [local music or concert] participant, you’re already a part of it.”

Register for the opening night of “The Pit: Behind the Lens” on the official WIM website. And if you can’t make the opening, the exhibition will run for two weeks at FICE Gallery, so you’ve got plenty of time to check it out and support the featured photographers.

Read more about Women in Music here: Chelsea Wolfe Is Still Hauntingly Rocking – SLUG Magazine Local Review: Jennifer Brasseur — Jennifer Brasseur – SLUG

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