Each issue, Artist Alert features a different creative and talented aspiring artist or entertainer in the GBS community.

Senior Alana Swaringen is an aspiring professional photographer. Ever since she started using her mother’s camera in middle school, Swaringen says she has found love for being behind the lense. Swaringen’s specialties include portrait photography and live music photography.

What do you like about photography?

“I really like the way you can capture emotions in a second. The whole super lame saying of, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is true. Once you become a photographer, you definitely figure that out. As far as photography goes, I’m into portrait photography, but I’m mostly into live music photography, which is just photographing concerts. [I like] being able to capture the emotion of live music because that’s something that’s super important to me, as well as super special for me because there is a lot of emotion that goes into that connecting the fans to the artists on stage.”

How do you get inspiration for the photos that you take?

“I follow a bunch of different photographers, whether it’s their websites or blogs or Instagram accounts, and they’re all over […] the world […]. My biggest inspiration is a guy named Marcus Haney who has a documentary called No Cameras Allowed, but it’s basically a documentary about him dropping out of college to sneak into music festivals and take pictures, and [he] gains enormous success [from that]. He actually tours with Mumford and Sons now and is hired all the time.”

Do you have a photo that you have taken that is your favorite?

“[My favorite photo is one of] Matty Healy [from] The 1975. I saw them at Firefly Music Festival, and [during] that whole entire music festival, I actually had to sneak in my camera equipment. This was one of the last performers on the last day of the festival, and my camera was dying, so with very limited battery, I [had] to turn my camera on. I [took] three pictures, and then it [died]. I [wasn’t] even be able to focus or know if I was getting a good shot or not. The pictures I took actually ended up being really awesome.” (see image below)

What are your future goals in photography?

“My future goal would be to be a live music photographer. It’s kind of cool to be this young and have such  confidence in what I want to do. Specifically as a live music photographer,  I can work with certain venues in the city, or I can work with publications or magazines, or the dream would be to tour with a band.”