"My band did a gig last Saturday, and a friend took a load of informal digi pictures, and sent them to me next day.
Most were rubbish, but a couple were very funny!!
No problem with that at all, just more inserts for the scrapbook."

Thanks for the crit Ralphie! Rubbish, eh? Be very careful - the blackmail material may even yet see the light of day [grins] As you know they were never intended to be works of art - just snaps. But yes, there were a couple of funny ones there - trying to work out whether one of those was the young 15 year olds in cowboy hats, hot pants and boots with the riding crops ,or not!! :-)

Joining in the scrum here, I think the difference with those photos was that they were taken quite openly, at the request of one of the band, and that any of the band that wants them - or possibly even if they don't! - will probably end up with copies (tidied up digitally). They're never going to see the light of any professional publication (unless one of the band commits mass murder, or suffers an ignoble end ) and are purely mementoes of an occasion.

I have taken photos elsewhere, and am still not sure whether I am 100% comfortable about doing it or not. To a large degree I've stopped taking them at concerts, as I personally now find that others doing so distract me (even without flash the lit up screens etc can be distracting), and additionally I've become aware that I'm concentrating on the shots rather than the singing. So on the whole the pix are usually taken before or after someone has performed rather than during. I've also got shots of sessions that I was taking part in - of the friends and others who were also there - but that's a sort of holiday scrap book - since other performers were doing likewise during the same sessions I don't feel quite the discomfort I might have done ... I even have a photo of Jim McFarland taking a photo at a late night session in Whitby this year... and come to that one of Ralphie taking a photo of someone taking a photo at Sidmouth ... so I'm not alone!!

A difficult call nevertheless. However, where the rules and regs say no photography or sound recording allowed I would most CERTAINLY desist!