“It Only Takes One Yes”: Casea Warn on Building a Concert Photography Career Out of 50 Cold Emails a Month

Fifty emails a month. That is the number Casea Warn gives when asked what the job actually looks like from the inside — fifty pitches sent to artists, musicians and other creatives in a single month, and, most months, very few replies.

She is eight years into a career in live music photography. She has stood in the pit for Incubus, Gwen Stefani, Charli xcx, Troye Sivan, Lil Wayne, Paris Jackson and The Story So Far. She was recently hired to shoot both photo and video for Miguel. And she still sends fifty emails a month into the silence, because that is where all of it came from.

“Rejection hasn’t necessarily become less common,” she says. “I’ve just become less afraid of it.”

At a glance

• Who: Casea Warn, concert and portrait photographer
• Based: Phoenix, Arizona — born in Southern California, works regularly in Los Angeles
• Shooting live music since: Late 2018; first concert was Phantogram
• Selected credits: Incubus, Gwen Stefani, Charli xcx, Troye Sivan, Lil Wayne, Paris Jackson, The Story So Far
• Most recent job: Photo and video for Miguel — her first major paid hire of that scale
• Influences: Annie Leibovitz, Tim Burton, and the Tumblr-era grunge-chic of Sky Ferreira
• What’s next: Conceptual, editorial portraiture built around musicians. Coachella is still on the list.

It started on Tumblr, in a bedroom with the lights off

Warn’s relationship with photography began around 2011 or 2012, in the thick of the Tumblr era — a teenager pulled in by grunge-chic: Sky Ferreira, dramatic flash, dark tones, images that felt a little imperfect and a little strange. She always had some kind of digital camera. At first she used it the way most teenagers do, on her friends and whatever happened to be in front of her.

At sixteen or seventeen, a close friend named Emily got interested in modelling, and the two of them started photographing each other. That is where it turned deliberate. They killed the lights in Warn’s bedroom and shot with direct flash. They went to a park and photographed each other lying in the grass. “Everything was very dramatic and serious, of course,” she says. It was also her introduction to editing — “shoutout to PicMonkey!”

The camera started going everywhere with her. A walk through the woods in Southern California with her cousins would become a shoot. Portraiture caught her almost immediately, and it has never really let go.

Music was the other constant, and it was structural rather than incidental. She grew up in a music-heavy household: something playing from the time she woke up until she went to bed, six CDs on permanent rotation in her dad’s car on the drive to school, her mom blasting music through the house every Saturday while she cleaned. Her dad had played in a ’90s grunge band called Gingerbread Nightmare. She was the kid trying to get away with wearing headphones in class.

2018: two kinds of medicine, combined

So when Warn hit a difficult stretch in 2018, she reached for the two things she already trusted. “I naturally gravitated toward the two forms of medicine I knew best: photography and music,” she says. “I decided to combine them.”

The practical version of that decision is worth spelling out, because it is unglamorous and it is the part aspiring photographers usually skip. She did not buy gear and wait for access. She started photographing shows on her phone, purely to build enough of a portfolio to have something to show. Only then did she buy a budget Nikon kit with a zoom lens.

Her first proper concert was Phantogram, in late 2018 — a detail she finds funny now, since they remain one of her biggest musical and visual influences. From there she started shooting for a local promoter in Arizona, which is the unromantic engine room of every music photography career: small rooms, repeatable access, reps.

The rest she learned in motion — how access actually works, who to contact, the written and unwritten rules of the photo pit, how to network, and all the small operational things, as she puts it, that nobody teaches you when you start.

The two credits that meant the most

Eight years on, the list is long enough that some of it still catches her off guard. Photographing Charli xcx during the Brat tour, she says, was one of her “holy cow, how am I actually here?” moments.

Incubus lands differently, because that one is personal — they have been one of her favourite bands and biggest influences for years. She is explicit about who opened that door: “I owe a huge thank-you to Joe Lilak for being incredibly kind and giving me some major opportunities with them.”

That kind of credit-sharing is not incidental to how she describes the industry. Access in live music photography is granted, not earned in the abstract. Somebody decides you are allowed in the room.

The Miguel job, and what a paid yes actually buys

Most recently, Warn was hired to photograph and shoot video for Miguel. She describes the money as surreal after years of working toward it — but that is not the part she leads with.

What mattered more was the trust. She was given real access and handed a significant job to execute creatively, on her own judgment. “Moments like that remind me why all of the unanswered emails and rejection have been worth pushing through,” she says.

It is a useful distinction for anyone trying to read a career like this from the outside. The milestone is not the fee. It is the moment somebody hands you the room and does not stand over your shoulder.

The math of rejection

“And there are a lot of unanswered emails.”

Warn is unusually direct about the ratio, and the honesty is the most useful thing in this interview. Eight years in, she can send fifty emails in a month pitching portrait work and get very few responses. Concert access is the same shape: dozens of emails, silence far more common than a yes.

What changed was not the response rate. It was her.

“I think rejection has taught me to become fearless about asking,” she says. She has adopted what she calls a “what could possibly go wrong?” mentality — and, more bluntly: “You miss every shot you don’t take.” Some of the opportunities she is most grateful for exist for exactly one reason, which is that she sent the email anyway.

For anyone doing the same arithmetic at the start of their own career, that is the actual method. Not a lens, not a body, not a workshop. A tolerance for being ignored, applied consistently, for years.

Why she still calls herself a portrait photographer

Through all of it, Warn never stopped shooting portraits, and she is clear that portraiture is probably still her favourite form of the medium. Her reasoning is a small manifesto:

“I never want to put someone into a world that feels disconnected from them,” she says. Instead she builds the concept out of the person — noticing their personality, style, darkness, softness, weirdness, whatever makes them specifically themselves, and then constructing a visual world that amplifies it.

Her influences map neatly onto that: Annie Leibovitz and Tim Burton, and the space between them. Light and dark. Fantasy and rawness. Cinematic, but still human. Dark tones and nostalgia run through the work.

She has a precise target for how a viewer should feel: “I want someone looking at one of my photographs to feel the way the worlds Tim Burton creates have always made me feel — like you’ve briefly stepped somewhere familiar and strange at the same time.” The subject should feel seen; the viewer should get a world to step into.

What’s next: musicians, out of the pit

The evolution she is chasing is the intersection of those two halves of her work — musicians and conceptual editorial portraiture. Not documenting a performance, but building a visual world around who an artist actually is. She also loves fashion, and how completely the right styling can transform an image or an entire concept.

That ambition is a familiar one among artists who have mastered the documentary version of their craft and want the authored version next — the same instinct composer Yuxuan Liu describes when he argues for writing from experience rather than formula, or that artxxnas is chasing in building an entire pop universe rather than releasing singles. The LA Note has covered photographers making that turn before.

Geographically, the plan is Los Angeles. Warn was born in Southern California, lives in Phoenix, and frequents LA with every intention of expanding her work there. Coachella, she notes, is still sitting very high on the bucket list.

A five-year-old on set

There is one more thing shaping the work, and she volunteers it without prompting: she is a mother to a five-year-old boy.

Becoming his mom, she says, changed how she looks at both creativity and what she wants to leave behind — it made the idea of creating something lasting much more important. Bringing him along on shoots occasionally, letting him watch her create and work and pursue something she cares deeply about, means everything to her.

It closes a loop that started with a dad in a grunge band and six CDs on the drive to school. The kid in the back seat with the headphones is now the one in the pit, and there is a five-year-old watching her do it.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Casea Warn?

Casea Warn is a concert and portrait photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona, who also works regularly in Los Angeles. Born in Southern California, she began photographing live music in late 2018 and has since photographed artists including Incubus, Gwen Stefani, Charli xcx, Troye Sivan, Lil Wayne, Paris Jackson and The Story So Far. She was most recently hired to shoot photo and video for Miguel.

Which artists has Casea Warn photographed?

By her own account, Warn has photographed Incubus, Gwen Stefani, Charli xcx, Troye Sivan, Lil Wayne, Paris Jackson and The Story So Far, among others. Her first concert shoot was Phantogram in late 2018, and her most recent major job was photographing and shooting video for Miguel.

How did Casea Warn get started in concert photography?

She started with a phone. In 2018, going through a difficult period, Warn decided to combine the two things that had always steadied her — photography and music — and shot her first shows on her phone purely to assemble enough of a portfolio to be taken seriously. She then bought a budget Nikon kit with a zoom lens, photographed Phantogram in late 2018, and began shooting for a local promoter in Arizona before working her way up to larger venues and festivals.

How do you become a concert photographer?

Warn’s route was to build a portfolio with whatever camera she already had, buy an entry-level body and zoom lens once she had images to show, then shoot for a local promoter to get repeatable access before pitching bigger venues and festivals. The rest of the job, she says, is learning things nobody formally teaches you: how photo-pass access actually works, who to contact, the written and unwritten rules of the photo pit, and how to network. The single biggest requirement is a tolerance for being ignored — she still emails constantly and hears back rarely.

How often do concert photographers get rejected?

Constantly, and it does not stop with experience. Eight years in, Warn says she can easily send 50 emails in a month pitching portrait work to artists, musicians and other creatives and receive very few responses, and that pitching for concert access works the same way — dozens of emails, with silence far more common than a yes. Her framing is that rejection has not become rarer, she has just become less afraid of it.

What kind of photography does Casea Warn do besides concerts?

Portraiture, which she calls her favourite form of photography. Her approach is to build a concept around who the subject already is rather than placing them into a world that feels disconnected from them — noticing a person’s personality, style, darkness, softness or weirdness and building a visual world that amplifies it. Her stated ambition is to merge that conceptual portrait and editorial work with her music photography.

Where is Casea Warn based, and does she work in Los Angeles?

Warn is based in Phoenix, Arizona. She was born in Southern California, frequents Los Angeles and intends to keep expanding her work there. Coachella remains high on her list of festivals she has not yet shot.

Warn’s own summary of eight years is four words long, and she means it as instruction rather than consolation: “It really only takes one yes.” One yes gets you into the first venue. Another puts one of your favourite bands in front of your camera. Another hands you the kind of trust and access you used to hope you might have someday.

“So I’ll keep sending the emails,” she says. “I’m still waiting for the next yes.”

See more of Casea Warn’s work on Instagram at @cwarnphoto.