Artifact:0004

While early promotional magazines were popular for a time, they were largely used by more popular bands and musicians and wouldn’t be accessible to newer artists starting out. Thus, the 8×10” promotional photo came about. This allowed the record labels to mail press kits straight to music journalists containing what became the industry standard 8×10 promotional photographs. This opened the doors for the record companies to easily promote their artists without constant communication with the media to organise individual photoshoots and interviews and without curating promotional magazines for every artist in their roster.

These shots are sent on a bromide print, a type of paper containing silver bromide that is sufficiently sensitive to light to be used for resizing the shots. This allowed journalists to scale images easily for the various publications they were writing for. 

Due to the popularity of these promotional kits, many journalists have accumulated huge collections of these shots in their archives. Ritchie Yorke’s collection of these shots is at an approximate 5000 photographs. This staggering amount shows the frequency that these press kits were circulated amongst members of the music press.

Nowadays much of music promotion has moved into the social media realm and bands are able to market themselves in a much stronger way through it’s usage. However, record labels are still commonly sending out 8×10 promotional photos and press kits, though this is largely for more popular bands whereas previously they would be used by almost all musicians. There are still numerous companies that offer to shoot 8×10 shots for musicians and record labels, and many of the labels recommend having both physical and digital 8×10 shots.