Todays Shoot - Black Metal Sean

This shoot has been in the works for literally a year or two... We've been talking about a shoot forever, but he was waiting for his new drum kit and for things to be right to do the shoot.

SO! finally the day has arrived.

I hit the road to Meriden, CT to meet up at his practice space, and load in gear.

The ceilings are VERY slow and the massive drum set takes up most of the room, so i knew lighting for this would be a bit tricky.

While he did his corpse paint, I set boomed a dish outside, then brought it in (as the ceilings were too low for me to do that in the space) and used a rim to the back left of the camera to fill in the rest

his kit is insane, soooo epic - i needed more room and more lighting to make it look perfect so I sort of had to improvise and work with what i could.

I basically used the dish to light the top of the kit - as well as Sean, then the rim would fill in the drum heads, the shells, etc.












The highest the boomed dish would go is juuuuust above the cymbals, as you can see in the set up shot above.. so shooting was fairly tricky, had to rearrange a bunch and i was basically on top of the drum set getting the shots. I left the lights where they were and moved around the kit a bunch to get different types of lighting and shots, as it was easier for me to move, than to move the lights - I was shooting at ISO100 at a 160th - and at F18 when sean was near the cymbals - and at F20 when he was sitting. - shot with the 24-70 which is perfect for these shots because I had to cut out environment to make these shots work, but also didnt want to be in too tight where you wouldnt see the kit.

































































After shooting at the space, we were going to go to a public park to shoot some outdoor stuff... upon arriving, the place was overflowing with zero parking and about 50 full families, so we decided to move along to an alternate spot for to not get a crowd.

My first "go-to" outdoor location for a place i dont know is behind a major strip mall or super market because its usually empty - no one will bother you shooting on location there, and its usually got some large walls, singular color, generally loaded with midtones... anyway, it just tends to work well - so we went behind a stop and shop or walmart, i forget which, and started shooting.






































































It was starting to get dark out so i jumped up to ISO200 shot at 2.8 at a 200th - then when he put the helmet on i had to jump to ISO400 as the sun was quickly going.





















































All in all im pretty pumped on these shots, they came out awesome, Sean did a great job being wicked black metal, and we will be shooting again in the near future. One thing to keep in mind when shooting anyone wearing alot of white makeup is that it reflects light and over exposes easily so always try to shoot just one step down when you take the shot so the face isnt completely blown out with whites.

Todays Shoot - Chelsea Grin

Today I get to shoot my good friends/road brothers in Chelsea Grin. I just spent a month with these dudes on the ghostbustour so getting to see these dudes again just two weeks after the tour ended was pretty awesome.

They were about to hit the studio to record a new record, so they were ready for some new promos to use for the next cycle.

It was nice enough outside where we were able to shoot outdoors, even though it was extremely windy.

The first set we did was against the sky, I purposefully shot at a higher speed (200th) so the sky would go darker and closer to grey rather than a bright blue. I shot this with a boomed dish pointed slightly angled toward the band with a bare parabolic pointed down toward me to create some leading lines for the full body shots. - I tend to use the 24-70 now as my main on location lens - its the perfect middle of the road lens, not too wide, not too telephoto, its perfect, probably the best zoom 2.8 portrait lens out there for shooting outside of a studio. I shot these at F14


























































We also did a full crew shot here with Rico and Mike in the same spot












After shooting that spot we moved to a little corner where you could see alot of the studio building behind them, and did just a couple shots with the dish pointed straight at them shot at a 10th to really bleed in the fading natural light behind them with out blurring out the shot with movement.
























the next set we did was in front of a large metal garage door - I started the shoot with a dish boomed above them but angled to their right (my left) to go for a VERY dark, very contrasty shot, but again i put a bare parabolic behind them pointed down for full shot leading lines... now the reason i do that, is so their legs dont turn into a blob of darkness, it cuts up the photo a bit and makes it more interesting, and not only that, but it separates the horizontal from the vertical images - making them look different. These were shot at F14 at a 200th ISO100































































With out even moving the band I turned the lights off and did a few shots at F2.8 using natural light to give it a different look entirely, you cant even tell its the same spot, and shooting at 24 wide, it gives a great natural vignette, which i love in these shots.
























Last group shot we did was against a grated metal panel wall that seems to go up forEVER which is great for headspace in horizontal shots. These were also shot natural light at 2.8 - I wanted to do something brighter for this shot, while giving them ample headroom for logo/text room.


































The next shot I did was for David, who needed an endorsement shot for fender. It took me about 3 tries to get this lighting balanced the way i wanted it to be, I brought a dish up high, slightly camera right - and used a main parabolic set high to put a halo of light around the cab/head - then I shot these at a 30th to bleed in the natural light, and get the sky in there.














































next we hit the studio - they were all thirsty - so i let them all grab a Monster, as the great people at Monster are kind enough to supply my studio with enough energy for the bands to get though any shoot in any weather :)












For the studio shots, I shot on white paper, and used a dish boomed pointed more toward the band rather than down, and then shot at F16 for the last few shots.
























All in all it was an excellent shoot, we got a bunch of different stuff to use, with different looks, for all sorts of different outlets. if you check their facebook, website, twitter, etc. all now have different images from this shoot.

Excellent working with these guys, and hopefully we will get to work together again in the near future.

Todays Shoot - Dimmu Borgir

what can top shooting Enslaved for the first time?

Shooting DIMMU BORGIR! for the 5TH TIME!

now as with most of the times I have shot them I knew I was going to have about 1 minute with them, directly before they walk on stage - as is the norm for many black metal bands, or bands that wear outfits, make up, stage stuff (like gwar, slipknot, etc)

So I've shot them in the parking lot, ive shot them outside the backstage door, ive shot them in the dressing room, and ive shot them by the load out doors... whats left to use directly before stage?

oh! an area you could literally fit one king size bed into - at the MOST and there were suitcases, stage clothes, and a large case that held the stage clothes in there already... aaaand if a light was set up there - it would be in the way of getting from the stage to... anywhere else.

well, ok, im ready for the challenge. I set up and boom a dish as high as the ceiling - which was pretty low... and i knew unlike the photo shoots ive done with dimmu borgir in the past, this shoot would only be with three dudes as the rest of the band is now considered... not in the band. which makes life much easier trying to work with 3 dudes rather than 6

So i set up - took a test shot of my assistant to make sure we were good, and basically waited for the band to come in - they came in - and i immediately got them as close as possible with out looking lame - to cut out the cases around them - I basically wanted darkness - and them - nothing more - so I made sure we could make that happen. I was shooting atF20 at an 80th ISO100 1ds mark 2 - 24-70 lens.





























I did the group shots first - and literally after about 12 shots, I had to move on to the solos in order to have time for them. I know they have to get ready and set up, so I sort of let them go in the order of whats most important to them. One at a time I shot them all slightly differently in terms of pose and where the rim of the dish would be hitting them. I purposely made sure Galders' face was more in shadow because I knew his make up and head would reflect alot of light, and I wanted to get the three images to match the best as possible. SUCCESS! - after three shots per person - they were out and before i broke my light down - the first song was happening. and thats how shoots with black metal bands generally go.




































































The settings were the same for the solos by the way

I really liked how the make up and new attire already had a very greyscale look to them, very little, if any color at all, which is perfect, because I was going for simplicity.

I was so pumped to get the chance to work with Dimmu yet again! - and look forward to working with them again in the future - great people!

Todays Shoot - Enslaved

So for those who arent painfully aware, for whatever reason... my roots are deep in Black Metal! - so when the opportunity to photograph Enslaved AND Dimmu Borgir the same day AND! the first day of the tour. I was pretty much ready to put on corpse paint and set fire to something, I was so pumped.

First up was Enslaved, who I havent worked with before, but I was really pumped to get a chance to photograph because I have been listening to them since I was a teenrager haha.

So it was a bit chilly out, I took them across the street from the palladium into an open lot and did the first shot against an uneven concrete wall. I was hoping to get a similar feel as I did with the Vamps, but alas, these dudes are SO tall - it was difficult getting light both on them, and behind them with a single dish, in the same way I have in the past. SO! I took a few shots there and moved on. I didnt really work with any of those shots but heres one for an example...












anyway, since I wasnt digging that I went natural light, which seems to be how they are normally photographed on the mountains and cliff sides of Norway... this time.. the parking lot... of... worcester... ya. well I really liked what i got here I was shooting at 2.8 with the 70-200 at ISO 100 - really trying to kick that selective focus - then i tilted the axis a bit so the shot wouldnt be a boring straight on shot and it brings your eyes STRAIGHT to the singer... SEE!












Next shot I did was with lighting - i used a bare with parabolic behind them, but instead of pointing it down as ive been doing i angled it more toward their back so the leading lines wouldnt be so overpowering and the shadows would be less harsh. then i boomed a large beauty dish above them and raised it up as high as it could possibly go - because norwegians are apparently like 300 feet tall each. - i shot these at an 80th (to bleed in the sky) at F16 ISO100





























aaand that was the end of that shoot, which I loved the outcome because we have three very different images to work with, the dudes were pumped on the raw images i showed them back of camera, so thats always a plus!

on to DIMMU BORGIR!

Why do YOU hate Iwrestedabearonce? - VIDEO

During the last day of the IWABO tour - i had an idea to go and get video of everyone - catching them off guard - asking "why do you HATE Iwrestledabearonce"

here are the results...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaJQxTaZod8

The Ghostbustour - 32 days of AWESOME

Rather than individually posting all the blogs here

www.theghostbustoursite.com

thats what i did all month (aside from rock and shock)

it was an incredible tour - and i did daily photo blogs there

sooooooooo check it out if you wanna :)

tons of iwrestledabearonce, eyes set to kill, chelsea grin, the chariot and vanna!

now that im back from tour... get ready! - posts a many are about to happen!

Todays Shoot - IWRESTLEDABEARONCE (San Antonio, TX)

Today we are at a club called White Rabbit which has awesome artwork through out it, even a Black Dahlia Murder piece!

I found a spot where there would be alot of color but not overwhelming detail in the art (for to not take away from the band) - and we shot the meet and greet and then did a quick band shoot

For this i just used one boomed dish. I ended up shooting these at F11 to over expose them by mayyyybe a half a stop at the most, I really wanted these shots to be bright and for the artwork to come out a bit in the exposure as well. I was at ISO100 at a 160th