Tom McDonald

Based in Chicago, Tom is an award winning professional live music, event and aerial photographer in addition to his day job as an investment banker. His aerial photography has been featured in numerous online/print travel and tourist publications and his work can be found in collections across the country. He started writing concert reviews and photographing live music as a journalist at the “Michigan Daily,” the student newspaper at the University of Michigan in the early 1980’s, and dreamed about being a writer/photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. But he switched to a business degree, and after a 30 year career in the finance world, is thrilled to be back in the game shooting and writing about live music. Tom grew up in Detroit on the music of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, and Motown, and has a deep appreciation for hip hop, R&B, jazz, blues and rock. He sees and photographs dozens of live concerts and shows a year at venues all over the Chicagoland area. He looks forward to sharing his work with Digital Beat Magazine readers. He can be found on Instagram at @tmcd.chi