Todays Shoot - Tony Laureano (sick drummer cover)

I got an email asking for me to get some live shots of Tony for Sick Drummer Magazine, which I quickly offered a shoot, which turned into being the magazines cover.

Tony was out with skeletonwitch, previously he had been with Dimmu Borgir, All That Remains, 1349, Nile and a slew of others, but thats where I had previously worked with or photographed him in the past.

SO! between shooting live and a hectic slew of photo shoots both before and after this one, I found a good time to shoot a few sets before having to run in for the next band while setting up for the next shoot. HECTIC DAY!

because it was on the verge of raining all day - it was pretty dismal, cold, windy, and basically crappy out. Theres so many vans, buses, cars, people - all walking around because its metalfest - so not only is there a limited area to shoot in, but its also difficult to cut out the background - so what I did was I went with strong directional lighting - I used a boomed dish boomed up as high as it could go - then used a bare parabolic pointed to the ground behind him then to enhance that even more, I shot at a 250th at F16 - ISO100 - using the 24-70. i was using the high speed to cut out light bleed, but still have the atmosphere bleed in just enough to create a solid image.

























































Next, to give it a different look and to do some vic Firth shots, I simply turned the dish from straight down - to more angled toward him then moved the bare parabolic camera right - brought it over our heads about 7 feet up - and pointed it downward and in so it would skim across his shoulder and give some glare lighting

here is the unedited shot with the light still in it (i cropped it for the final)













Next I found a big white box truck parked next to a bar with a similar colored white wall and I figured it would make a cool scene if shot wide angle - so I kept this one closer to the 24 range of the 24-70 - these are all 2.8 at a 250th - and are my favorite shots of the set - being a photographer you always want to look for cool environments to shoot in - and any other day - this one wont exist because that box truck wont be there.







































And here is the cover! - it was awesome getting to work with tony again, and shoot my first cover - hopefully more in the future - for this drum magazine.