With Christmas out of the way, the tours are coming thick and fast. It’s not all about the musicians, though. Pro-photographer Daniel Hill is gearing up for a tour of North America this year. The bigger the band the larger the setup is true, but everyone has to climb that ladder. Talking to Daniel, you soon learn that he has a can-do attitude that has helped him on his journey. We can’t divulge who the tour is with, as it has not been announced, but this type of thing is what most photographers dream about.
Since starting out as a drummer in Monasteries, Daniel Hill has always had an interest in film. “I always wanted to record myself playing,” he told MetalTalk. “I remember watching videos by Troy Wright who makes these really good compilations. He was using a Nikon D3300, and that was my first introduction to it.”
Daniel, opting for the cheapest version, chose a grey import. “It took forever to arrive,” Daniel laughs, “so I decided to watch loads of YouTube videos and see what I would be able to do whilst I wait for it.”
Having always been fascinated by space, Daniel’s first foray into photography was in a field at night. “I stood there in the freezing cold and pointed the camera at the sky,” he said. “I thought at the time I had a really good photo of Orion’s Belt. Incredibly out of focus and oversaturated, but that was my first intro to it.”

Monasteries played a tour with I Declare War, Aegaeon and A Night In Texas in 2016. “By that time, I had already switched to a Nikon D7200,” Daniel says. Armed with a standard 35 mm f1.8, as well as a Tokina 11-16, f2.8, “because I’d just gotten really into landscape,” Daniel took these on tour.
“I hadn’t done much in the way of band photography,” he says. “I thought I’m just gonna shoot some of the bands whilst I’m here. We were playing a few festivals around Europe as well. I’ve got AAA [Access All Area Pass], so I may as well take my camera if I’m not in anyone’s way. I went head over heels from there. I absolutely fell in love with it.”
If you think about learning, that must be one of the best ways. On tour with a band, there is often a lot of downtime, which gives you time to analyse and think. Then, you can often get into the pit after the third song with an AAA pass.
I tell Daniel that my foundation of reading Kerrang throughout the ’80s has left band imagery ingrained in my brain. For him, does being a musician help with knowing when to click?
“For me, more than anything, something I’ve always done with the bands that I work with is I always ask if they have any set points where they do something cool or anything different. For instance, I was on tour with The Last Ten Seconds Of Life, and they were happy for me to photograph them. They didn’t say they did anything special. But there was always one section where the vocalist always jumped. I thought, right, I’m gonna make it my mission the entire time to capture that moment. Can I get that moment perfect?
“One of the main things I’ve always tried to do because I was a drummer for many years is to try and get as many drummers as I can because I know half the time it’s so difficult, and they get missed out more than anyone.”

Photographers at MetalTalk will usually cover one show of a tour, so you miss that chance to gain knowledge of the set. It is down to fortuitous YouTube if you want to do research. “I was recently out with Brand Of Sacrifice in the US,” Daniel says. “They had a guitarist who was like a rocket on stage. He was always moving from back to front, doing high kicks and jumping. It was almost like we had a fun game of me trying to catch him doing that.” This was when Brand Of Sacrifice were a co-headliner of the 2024 Summer Slaughter Tour, an annual Extreme Metal Tour.
Daniel marks tours with Go Go Penguin and Brand Of Sacrifice as the first two points where he felt he had broken into the rank of pro-photography. “I became Brand Of Sacrifice’s go-to guy from touring with them as a driver. Then, they wanted to take me in as their photographer slash drum tech. It was the same with Go Go Penguin. I also worked with them as a driver slash merch person. I had my camera with me, and they were like, yeah, we want to bring you on tour. I think it was November 2023.”
When you’re on tour, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a band member, driver, photographer, or caterer, it needs to be a family. You’ve all got to get on as you are all living in very close proximity to everyone. Is that a skill you need to pick up as well?
“Definitely,” Daniel says. “Personality goes a long way. The main thing is be as nice and friendly as you can with everyone. What’s the nicest way of saying it or the best way? Not being an arsehole is a very good thing to be.”
One female MetalTalk photographer was refused a tour with a band, as the band was all male. I asked if it was right that they would not take her because she was a girl and everyone else in the group was a lad.
“That’s not on,” Daniel says. “I don’t feel like that’s good at all. You can accommodate things like that. It’s very easy, within budget, to have separate spaces. Not on a bus, obviously, but, you know, I don’t think that’s on at all.”

Talking with Daniel, it is clear that he has a passion for photography. We did go on a great tangent around Fuji cameras, as we both enjoy those. Daniel spoke of a recent photo of Bound In Fear, photographed with a CineStill 800T film emulation. “I’d like to do more portraits,” Daniel says. “I’ve never ventured much into band stills, either. Shooting bands live has always been my thing.”
Daniel talks of touring with Senses Fail and how some of his favourite photos are from this tour. Luck can still play a part, though. He had not done it all tour, but one night, the singer climbed the bass stack. “I was like, oh shit, here we go,” Daniel smiles. “Here’s a good moment coming up. I didn’t expect him to get so much air. I was absolutely ready.
“It’s like right, I need to get this composed. It was good because they had a really good build-up, so I could stand there for a change and compose this. Like I said before, he’s the sort of person who runs about on stage. He’s doing cartwheels and rolling all over the stage. I was just constantly following him. But that moment was really good timing.”

The photos was taken in Stuttgart. “There was this nice amount of haze, which doesn’t usually sound right,” Daniel says. “But it was just enough, and then the lights had shone like this amber-yellow. It just came out perfectly. I barely had to edit it. I was so happy with it.”
For budding photographers, Daniel says don’t worry about trying to get the most expensive glass you can. When Daniel first started out he almost won a Viewbug competition using a Nikon D3300 “with the kit lens from somewhere deep in the crowd.”
“Don’t worry about ISO,” he says, “because the majority of people are gonna view it on their phone. For the most part, you don’t have to worry about having the highest pixel count. If anything, imperfections are great. You’re looking more to capture the actual moment as opposed to making it completely perfect.
“Once you’ve got the camera, if you know any bands, just send them a message and ask for a photo pass saying I’ll send you some photos for free. If you wanna do that just to get started, then use that as experience. And YouTube is one of the best resources that you’ll ever find.”

As for family life, Daniel says he has a “lovely girlfriend at home who puts up with me being away quite a lot.” As a freelancer, it is all about the next job, which must be hard as well.
“I do miss my girlfriend quite a lot whilst I’m away,” Daniel says. “Also the real issue with self-employment is always a case of trying to find security more than anything else. Funnily enough, the bands that I’m with currently were chatting in a van ride, and they were talking about how the crew are constantly out on the road. Some of them were talking about wanting to get as much money as possible. But we were just saying, well, no, really. It’s a security thing more than anything.
“Because the thing with this especially is you don’t always have contracts. It can be a case of ‘do you wanna do this run?’ That’s the only contract there is a lot of the time. Or if you’re known as that person’s photographer, then you can maybe expect something.
“An email confirmation, that could be it. But then, you know, things happen, like tours get cancelled so easily, and then you have to find something at the last minute.”
I suggest it’s the ultimate zero-hour contract.
“Absolutely, yeah,” Daniel says. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
You can find out more about Daniel Hill on his website or Instagram and at Bee Touring.
