Todays Shoot - Chris Motionless of Motionless In White

I first noticed MIW because they were wearing my good friend Mick's clothing line "Dethless" aaand their name was close to "Motionless and white" an Eighteen Visions song. Of course being that 18V are good friends, and pretty much my favorite band to work with (RIP), I was interested in working with these guys when they came around.

So the first time they were around this area that we worked together was orchestrated by the mighty Matt Pike. I felt this band should be shot with more of a dark feel, something that really brings out the atmosphere of their look... rather than taking a band that looks really dark, and putting them in random colorful or even bright locations... thats just silly to me. When shooting a band, you always want the environment to not only match the band, but enhance their look, as they enhance the environment around them.

So we did an awesome, very dark shoot... the band loved it, they wanted to use it, the label hated it, and went with brighter, lighter toned images. blah blah - no big deal - happens on rare occasions.. ANYWAY! I remained in contact with Chris, and when I saw they were on the tour I was going to shoot for two days I figured I would do a quick shoot with Chris for the hell of it, and he was down, so why not!? :)

So it was a bit cold out, and due to accidentally leaving my lights at the last show (and thankfully having them brought to the next show via Escape The Fate.. THANKS AGAIN GUYS!) I wanted to shoot this with natural light or simple lighting - maybe a flash.

We went outside and I started shooting him against a fence just outside the Palladium. I was shooting with the Canon 1ds Mark 2 - and the 24-70 2.8 L lens - I was shooting at 2.8 at a 125th - I was at ISO200 as it was a bit dark and overcast out. I was shooting 2.8 so the focus would be extremely selective, you can barely even see the vertical lines of the fence behind him.




































After a couple shots we went across the street against a large metal gate, of which, the other side of that metal gate you can see in my Danny Trejo (Machete) photos. Large reflective areas are GREAT for natural light shots because they are basically giant reflective back lights, depending on the surface, it can reflect alot or a little bit of light, so what I will do is move my subject far enough or close enough to the background so it at least fills in whatever I need it to. These were shot at a 250th at ISO200 F2.8
















































It was windy and cold so we decided to roll inside. I didnt have my light kit as it was somewhere amongst the Escape The Fate gear, as they had graciously brought it from the prior days show, as it was left behind by accident (DOH!) - so we went to the dressing room, and I figured id just pop on a flash... why not? spot lit with diffused lighting could be ok for horizontal images at least, though i strongly prefer using actual lighting, and if I could have I would have.

SO! - I found a spot that a very small sliding metal door, which, back in the day was used for bands to see the stage, i had him sit there, perching, and set up the shot... the wider shots werent that great, but the close ups looked solid, so I stayed with a pretty close crop when I could. These are all ISO100 - F10 - at a 125th. using a speedlite with a lumiquest 80/20 with frost diffusion. The cool thing about the 80/20 is it bounces 80% of the light up for a solid soft fill while 20% hits the subject, and diffused for a nice, even, soft light - which i use for all of my concert shots.
















































All in all it was great to do a quick shoot for "why not". but I really wanna get Chris out here for a FULL all out shoot! - so start telling him to make plans! haha. its just a matter of us both being around at the same time. but im going to try to make it happen. Hes beyond an excellent dude, and its always an honor to photograph someone who has looked up to your photographs in the past... ...actually I'm pretty sure he may be the first on that one... haha.