I had my friend Emmy come back up for another shoot, because she is always excellent to work with and hang with.
She came up to hang a bit before shooting, and as we were hanging saturday night, the rumor of Ronnie James Dio's death started to circulate, as I was frantically searching and hoping for it to be false, after a few hours, the news hit that he was in fact, alive, but not doing well. Massive sigh of relief and hope...
The next morning we went to the market, i got some sabbath and rainbow records, and while we were out to eat before shooting, the news of Dio's actual passing, had hit. It was a very awkward and silent meal, at a very noisy restaurant... I was not in any mood to do anything, I was devastated, and she knew it. Around 4 or 5 pm we both did not want to have anything to do with shooting, or anything that involved us leaving the house, but alas, we went in and decided to do a shoot anyway, despite me being pretty lethargic and upset, i WANTED to do this shoot.
We started off on location shooting outdoors, and because light was already fading, I was shooting at ISO400 - 2.8 at a 250th - with the canon mark 2 1ds and the 24-70 2.8 lens
I got a few shots i liked here, but really wasnt feeling it, I wanted to bring out lighting rather then shoot available light, so we moved onto the basement
When we got to the hallway it was a much more even and midtoned light, but much darker so I shot these at ISO1000 at a 30th 2.8 - I dug a few of these, but again, really wanted lighting
So guess what we did next?
WE GOT LIGHTING! yeayyy!!!
I snagged two dynalite uni400s w/ cold tone umbrellas and we hit the same spots again
Here I could really do what I wanted to do that day... So I jumped my ISO to 400 (again the light was almost 100% gone) - i shot at a 4th to bring in any available lighting i could - and at F22 - the lights were set to 40% power - split lighting
we then hit another spot - where the earlier shots were so bad i just wiped them and knew with lighting I could get something I liked that would bring the green out and give a solid color contrast - same settings
We then shot against the sky - and i used the same settings but the sun was essentially GONE so i did jump down to a 3rd, and 2nd to really drag in what light i could - but often it just blurred the treeline so I did what I could to bring in some blues, because I really like the look of lighting with a slightly darker background in a setting sun situation
After that it was time for CORPSE PAINT! - I wanted to shoot this one with just a flash - a speedlite - something simple that I havent done before - and that was often used in black metal photo shoots back in the day
I shot all around the building and outside - flash on camera - no adapter - all at ISO400 - at a 10th - F8-14 (depending on how far away I was) - i really liked the outcome on this one - its something I havent done yet for this - and i know the classic black metal photos were basically done in the same vein, so its a bit of a tribute - but I'll be doing more in this style for sure
After shooting on location a bit we hit the studio and I did two sets with a boomed beauty dish - pointing straight down - these were at ISO100 - F20-22 - at a 160th - I figured I should get some studio shots while we were there anyway
After the shoot, I felt a bit better, It was good to work through that type of situation rather than just sulk and be miserable, but it still stings... I'm glad I won't view the day we lost Dio as a completely miserable day, I got a ton of amazing records, did a good shoot with a good friend, and listened to alot of DIO in his memory... RIP RONNIE, thanks Emmy for putting up with me those few days.
