Todays Shoot - Last Chance To Reason

So about a week ago my buddy Jason, formally of Heavy Hitter, now of Strong Management hit me up to shoot his most recent signing - Last Chance to Reason - who recently signed to Prosthetic Records.

I had a photo shoot earlier in the day with Trumpet The Harlot - but I dont mind doing back to back shoots as long as its do-able. The TTH shoot was an all out full shoot, and this LCTR shoot was to be a small in studio shoot.

SO! - instead of shooting AFTER their show, we decided to shoot real quick between their load in and stage time.

We went with something simple, we shot three sets of group shots and one set of solos.

The images that got chosen were a set shot with a large beauty dish boomed at about a 70 degree angle camera right toward the band - I wanted the lighting to have a SLIGHT direction on it - which is why i didnt have it straight down, and i also had to to the right of me. I shot this on a WHITE background but what I did was brought the band about 6-8 feet away from the background so it would go dark, give them a small halo of light behind them, while casting non-harsh shadows on it. These were shot at F16 ISO100 at a 160th with the Canon 1DS Mark 2 and a 70-200 2.8 L IS lens.




































For the solo shots I wanted a more direct look - so i boomed a smaller dish up but again didnt point it straight down - I pointed it more toward them to only have a smaller harsh shadow below their chin. I shot these with the same settings - F16 ISO100 160th












































































































Even though this shoot was literally 20-30 minutes at the most, we got alot of great shots - and i really like the lighting here everything is crisp, and clean, which is what you want in a shoot like this.

After the shoot we went back to the show, I checked out the band, and holy shit! you gotta hear these guys! amazing prog/power metal - and putting together some awesome surprises to come with their record when it comes out. GET READY!

Todays Shoot - Cheri Rose (NSFW!)

I had the opportunity to work with the amazing Cheri Rose again (see previous shoot here: http://jeremysaffer.blogspot.com/2010/03/todays-shoot-cheri-rose-nsfw.html ) - and again - it was too cold to shoot outdoors, so we shot more of the same as the last shoot

If you read this blog diligently - youre probably thinking - wow - alot of these model shoots looks alike.. yea. welllll thats the point when youre shooting a collection or project - to try to match lighting so you have a collection of work that flows together. SO! - thats why youll see alot of similarities in there :)

SO! We started with split lighting - two 3x4 soft boxes on profoto compact 300s - shooting at F 16 - a 125th ISO 100 - I thought the first two sets were about a stop off so i dropped down to F14 for the last few sets on this
















































































































































For the next set I wanted to do some more traditional focused spot lighting, but I didnt want it to be TOO harsh - so I set the dish way back - about 8 feet from the model (i took a set up shot for this one so you can peep that) - So I did a set or two on this at F22








































































Next it was time for corpse paint - so we shot with the same lighting and settings... at some point i moved the dish a bit then dropped the power down so I could shoot at F16
















































For the last set I kept the dish as is but moved it a bit closer - then turned on two rim bare parabolics - shooting at F18 - both on white and black paper


























































































Its always awesome getting to work with Cheri who is an incredibly talented model - hopefully we will be doing another shoot in the near future and finally get outside!

Todays Shoot - Stone Sour

I had previously worked with Slipknot a bunch of times, and when the opportunity to work with Stone Sour came up (as I was asked to do solo shots of Corey, but figured a band shoot would be better for more outlets) I jumped at the opportunity.

I had done many photo shoots in the storage area of Tsongas Arena, so I pretty much knew what I was going to be working with, but being that its also a hockey arena, the equpt is never in the same place and things get moved around constantly.

This time though... I was going to make a VERY huge mistake...

and yes - im not a photographer who doesnt admit when they make really dumb mistakes - I mention them so we can ALL learn from them - pretending everything you do is perfect and you never make any mistakes is just... ridiculous and unrealistic sooo - read on... and you will see what i did wrong.

I found a big open area - which had a really cool "under the bleachers" look, and did a bunch of test shots because I had a very specific look I wanted to get... the final set up was a bare parabolic pointed somewhat upward toward the concrete behind them - because the area was so large, I HAD to light it to make it look that way - then a second light boomed above them for more of a darker look.

I shot these at F14 at a 160th ISO100 with the 24-70 2.8 lens. I did two quick group sets here - I really liked the leading lines in the first set - but the second set was a bit off... no worries cause I already got the solid "keeper" shots anyway.






















































For the next set we went across the way to an area where i had previously shot - my chemical romance, the used, suicide silence, etc.. but the spot we shot in has NEVER been clear before - So i set a bare parabolic and pointed it down to get some leading lines in the vertical shots and even in some of the horizontal shots, I used a beauty dish pointed a bit above them but not directly pointed down like in the last set - I wanted this to be brighter.

I shot these at F11 at a 160th - and we did some serious shots then some fun shots.










































After shooting the group shots I had Corey hang for solos while everyone else took off to do their thing... I used the same light set up for the first set with Corey.. after two shots it hit me... I done FUCKED UP BAD!!!!!!!

can you figure out what I did wrong? I look at my camera, look closely at the lens... and sometime while it was in the bag - the auto focus switch had been turn to manual focus... ...fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I basically said fuck about 375 times in my head while i switched over the auto focus - and started shooting again. I couldnt ask the band to come back - I just had to persevere and hope the images were salvageable. (conclusion of that at the bottom of the blog).






















































SO! I finished shooting the first set with Corey - then moved to the first location and to mimic the first set we did in group photos - these were at F14 - 160th - iso 100 - boomed dish pointed straight down - then a parabolic pointed toward the concrete.










































After doing that - he saw i was wearing a michael jackson off the wall shirt - he commented "that shirt is awesome, i have that on me". I didnt know what he ment til he lifted up his shirt and tadaaa - he had the off the wall print tattooed on his back! so cool!

so! for the last set i pointed the dish at him and used the parabolic as a rim - and finished up with the same setting - at F14.














































































He took off to go do what he had to do before playing - then i furiously checked the images in back of camera zooming in all the way in every set - and alas... the images were sharp... but!!! I wanted to check on my comp, which i couldnt do til i got home..

SO! I got home and loaded the raw images - and most of them - id say 95% were TACK SHARP! I dont know if it was pure luck - or second nature - but the images were sharp and totally usable. - I didnt even have to sharpen them in PS - they just worked! - SO AWESOME! - that could have been a ruined shoot easily - and its the most amateur mistake that can be made!!!! - and yes - we all make mistakes - today I made a BIG ONE! but luckily it wasnt a bad one.

Working with Stone Sour was awesome - great dudes - always fun to see Corey - who is honestly one of the best dudes in this industry. He is always beyond nice, super easy to work with, and just an all around great dude with a billion mutual friends, which is why I will always opt to work with anything hes doing.