Sardonyx Battle of the Bands Finals

On Sunday, my friend Craig from The Pittsburgh Scene texted me saying that the Sardonyx high school Battle of the Bands at Diesel needed a photographer ASAP, could I come?  Long story short, I grabbed my camera and went over.  A couple bands had already played but I managed to catch the top three.  I had various lens - the 18-55mm kit lens, a 75-300, and my new 85mm prime f1.4 which I'm crazy about.  I used all of them throughout the night, switching as I ran around from the pit in front to all sides of the balcony to the stairs just offstage.

Shirts vs Skins.  They were pretty cool, had to be to get second place!  Also, hot pink Doc Martens are my dream shoes, so super jealous of the singer's.

M4.   I thought this was a high school battle, but 10-year-olds playing Metallica (and doing it decently) is kind of mind-blowing!

Lovely Crisis.  They got third, and had amazing energy but the most impressive part was how into them the crowd was.

Second Empire.   My personal favorite of the night and the winner of the battle.  I would definitely listen to them in my car.  I HATE when venues use all red light because it completely destroys detail but her eyes in this are phenomenal.

East Enders.  Some of the kids from M4 and some other kids.  They were really impressive - one kid was switching between lead guitar, keyboards and saxophone at age I spent most my time climbing trees and reading fantasy novels.

Band Promos - S.T.D.

So my boyfriend has this metal band called Sick Twisted Debauchery (S.T.D.) and last year my friend Timmy recorded them and this year they want to put out a nice CD with album art and all that fancy stuff.  They're pretty good, actually.  I suggest reading the album review on Amazon because it's hysterical.  I've been telling them they need photos for months and Damien (my boyfriend, the band's singer) finally agreed.  They warned me they aren't photogenic.  They're awkward and unattractive people who don't know what to do in front of a camera.  "It's ok," I insisted.  "Everyone looks good in the right light!"  Little did I know what I was in for.

Last week I went to band practice in Ty the drummer's basement and set up my lights and photographed S.T.D.  It went...interestingly.  They were awkward unphotogenic people who can't behave and don't know what to do in front a camera. We looked over the pictures immediately after and decided to do them again, but with the guys playing so they were more comfortable.  So here are some photos from the second set.  It's all individuals.  One of these days we'll do more (they don't really have a choice) but it was cold and getting late and this was all they need right now.

Kyle

 Dan

 Damien

Ty

And here's a color photo of Damien because I love him and am happy he wears the gloves I got him for Christmas  <3

LIVAN (and Alice Cooper)

On Tuesday, my boyfriend Damien and I went to The Hard Rock Cafe to see a band.  This isn't really unusual, as we met when his band, Sick Twisted Debauchery, played at The Fallout Shelter.  So anyway, Tuesday we go to see this band, LIVAN, that we saw open for Alice Cooper over the summer.  We were both really impressed and when we heard they were coming to Pittsburgh again had to go.  Not gonna lie, slightly disappointed in the turnout - there were MAYBE 30 people there and most came to eat or were groupies of a local opener.  It was still an awesome show though, and I was psyched because I got to try out the lens I'd just gotten the night before - 85mm prime, f1.4, manual focus.  I'm kind of in love with it.

I mean, look at this.  Seriously, click on the picture and make it bigger.  It's freaking sweet and I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to manually focus with that shallow depth of field.  This, by the way, is Livan, who is really cool and nice.  More on that later, first some pictures of his drummer, Seven.  Watching him is the most fun I've ever had watching a drummer and he may be my new favorite (sorry, Rick-O).

I'm quite pleased with the results.  So, after the show, Damien and I go to tell Livan it was a good show and we specifically came out to see him.  Ended up talking to him for....I don't know, I'm terrible with time, probably 20 minutes at least.  We talked about music and I showed him some of these photo on the back of my camera and he seemed fairly impressed.  After a bit someone else came over so we went to the merch stand.  Damien got a shirt, I got a CD, we chatted with Ash the merch guy.  Then Livan comes back over to us, asks how far we are from Erie (about 2 hours) and if we want to come out on Saturday, he's opening for Alice Cooper and will put us on the guest list.  This sounds ridiculously fun so of course we agree and on Saturday drive up to Erie.

Just a quick note - while in Erie, there's this thing called a cocoa cafe that has some the best hot chocolate EVER.  Try it.

The show was at the Warner Theater, where we had never been before.  We arrived just as Livan was going on stage and because he had invited us I was able to bring my camera in.  85mm again and MUCH harder to focus from the seating.  I went up closer to the stage for awhile during his set and got some pretty great shots.

You can't see his mic stand too well here, but it's amazing.  Mechanical, with removable parts and goes up and down.  Super impressive and when we saw Livan over summer I think Damien wanted one for Christmas....

So, let's see...I'm really interested in the top photo in this set because it breaks a ton of rules but still works.  Maybe because he's facing out of the frame but the lights on the other side make you look at them too.  I'm fond of it.  Next one down has guitarist, Will, who wrote "Black Cherry" a song of theirs I really like, then Seven, then Anna.

I also took a couple shots of Alice Cooper from my seat, and my favorite is below.

Hi Alice!  You're a legend and 40 years ago the first rock show my dad ever went to was to see you.  (My first concert was Spice Girls.  It was awesome.)

After the show we went and hung out with Livan, Will and a couple other girls from Pittsburgh for a few hours in the tour bus.  We talked about politics, religion, different world views (Livan is from Greece and England), crowd responses at shows, all kinds of things.  It was really interesting because I don't normally have that kind of conversation very often but it was definitely thought provoking.  I'm also really terrible at talking to people for extended periods of time but this conversation was all very natural and relaxed.  It was awesome and can't wait for next time!

Rose and Rev

Yesterday I photographed Rose and Rev, a nice rock and roll couple.  I met them over summer when I went to see Rev's band, Only Flesh, play.  In October, I did a shoot with the band, which was really fun.  Recently they contacted me again - Rev knows some guys who have a tattoo magazine in Mexico and they want to do an article to promote Only Flesh's new album and needed some photos.

We shot down in The Fallout Shelter, nice three light setup (softbox, umbrella, and hair light) with a white background.  When they walked in, one of my co-workers nearly had a heart attack over Rose ("Who is SHE, she's SO beautiful!!"), which was kind of adorable.  Once we got downstairs, Rev explained to me exactly what he wanted, which was great - we had a plan and we stuck to it.  This is one of my favorite shots, though there are variations on pose and camera angle.  Oh, and yeah, the hooks are real.  He's a piercer and Only Flesh does suspension as part of their act, which is really interesting to watch and I absolutely want to do it myself.  We had a discussion on the pain level - he said it's not just size of the needle, but speed.  For example, if you pushed a safety pin thru your skin, but slowly, it's probably a similar amount of pain to him shoving that hook thru quickly.  It was really fascinating!!

While I had them here, I wanted to do some portraits for the tattoo project I've been on/off working on for the last year and a half or so.  My project isn't just "oh, I'm going to photograph tattoos" but "I'm going to make really nice portraits of tattooed/pierced people."  Rose and I discussed how we both love black and white photographs but since they're both highly colorful people (literally and figuratively) that it's hard to convert.  However, I found a couple shots that work well.  Colored photos of both of them are on my Facebook page.

Wrapping up, we took some cute couple pictures of them.  Awwww!!!

Resistance 13 Promos

Resistance 13 is a metal band from Ohio.  I've known them since their formation, and did their original promos awhile back.  Coulda sworn I had a blog on that shoot, but I can't find it.  Since then, they've had a change in line-up.  Over summer, I saw Jeremy and Bryan (the two original members) at Mayhem Fest and we discussed doing photos.  This past weekend, that shoot became reality.

Jeremy and I had thrown around a couple different ideas, but our main one was a pretty large scale project which we would need a lot of extras for.  Hopefully it will eventually happen, but for this shoot we went with option #2 - find a badass location and take sweet pictures.  We drove out to the Aliquippa Industrial Park and if you know anything about Aliquippa, you know it used to be a booming steel town 40 years or so ago.  Nowadays.....not so much.  We drove along until we spotted our badass location, which ended up being a huge pile of rubble.  Slabs of concrete, rusting pipes, the whole deal.  I hadn't really expected to be rock climbing, but luckily boots are my standard form of footwear.  (Doc Martens = LOVE!)

Rock climbing was definitely fun.  After spending awhile in the rubble pile, we got in our cars and went back aways to a run down building with broken windows.  Here we mostly did individual headshots.  They had spotted a building coming in that looked interesting, so we went down that way and determined that the fence wouldn't let us in.  There was, however, a small dirt road leading up a hill into some trees...spur of the moment decision we went up it.  It didn't look too promising, and then we reached the top of the hill.  Train tracks, and directly across them, a rusted out old car.  Score.  I wasn't too interested in the tracks - they're cliche, and still in use.  We tried to find someone to ask if we could shoot with the car, but when no one was there, decided to do it anyway.

I'd say it was a good choice.  Oh, and that train track?  Definitely still in use.

We hit up a place called the Joseph Building as well, using the faded ads on the brick as a backdrop.  There's a picture of the guys goofing off in front of it on my Facebook page, check it out!  It's my old hangout - when I was about 5 my dad's pizza shop was next door.  Now it's a water tower, but visiting the spot was cool because I used to play around there all the time as a kid.

Creeps and Cars

A couple weeks ago, I photographed horrorpunk band Blitzkid.  Yesterday, I photographed a pretty girl with a sexy car.  Let's review!!

Blitzkid played at The Fallout Shelter, where I bartend.  It's fun when they come through - they bring a big crowd and are pretty cool dudes.  This time around was singer/guitarist TB Monstronsity's last show, which was a huge deal and kind of depressing.  I got to take some portraits of the rest of the band.

It was the first time I got to use the gigantically long black backdrop Trix gave to me (aside from test shots with her earlier in the day), so I was excited.  Plus two light setups are still kind of new and shiny.

So yeah, there's that.


Yesterday, I did a super-gorgeous shoot with a model named Shannon and an Audi R8.  This translates into:  I hung out at and got to shoot in the Audi dealership.  COOL!  They even gave me tea.

And yes, I know that girl-with-car shoots are amazingly cliche.  But this one.....this car.....well, see for yourself.

River Runs Scarlet - Zosia West's shoot

A couple times over the past week, my friend Zosia West of River Runs Scarlet has come by to do a three-part photoshoot.  If you know anything about my photography, you probably know that RRS is a band I photograph quite frequently, even going to California with them in July to document them recording their EP.  Anyway, Zosia's in this magazine thing (not sure if I'm allowed to give details!) and needed three looks, two of which had to be a girl-next-door kinda look and a sexy look.

The first shoot happened on Thursday and Zosia brought a male model friend, Joe Costa, along with her.  We're both huge TrueBlood fans so wanted to do a vampire theme, with poor, clean-cut Joe as her victim.  He's such a good sport.  Didn't even have any problems with me applying coats of liquid latex to his neck - speaking of, I'm really proud of my skin tone matching on that!  I also did a LOT of post on the first image, as the fangs Zosia ordered managed to not be in yet.  Had a good time (really!) in PhotoShop copying and rotating bits of teeth of create a fang for her.

I had work Thursday night though, so we finished up the more "normal" parts of the shoot on Saturday. Not that vampires aren't normal, they certainly are for us!  First we did a cute, girl-next-door kinda thing.  Jeans and tank top.  The black and whites are my favorite, but I wanted to show you guys a color one too.

Aww, ain't she adorable and totally metal?  Of course, as all girls-next-door do, she gotta have a sexy side!  We tried a couple different things, but my favorite is probably the hair metal picture.  You'll see.

I wanted to keep consistent with the black background, but all the black in her outfit kept getting lost, so we switched to white to make her pop.  It looks super dark on the blogspot thing, the background isn't AS gray in the actual image.  Maybe it could be a little brighter, but geeze this looks dark!  Huh.  So yeah, anyway, hair metal picture = WIN.  Which do you guys like?

Adventures in California with River Runs Scarlet

On Monday morning, I flew back into Pittsburgh after 10 days in Southern California.  I arrived the previous Friday, July 9th, to stay with and photograph the band River Runs Scarlet as they recorded their 5 song EP at Omen Room Studios in Garden Grove, CA, in Orange County, outside of Los Angeles.  This is the story of our trip, but first, the cast:

Your narrator and River Runs Scarlet's official photographer:  elena dee (photo by McDade)

The drummer: Brian McDade

The bassist: DoRn aka Brad

The lead guitarist: Floyd Karma, Jr. aka John

The lead singer: Zosia West

The rhythm guitarist and screamer: Aaron Pepe

And the producer: Bill Urban

Now you've been introduced to the main players of the trip, let me say the 10 days felt like a month.  This isn't a bad thing and it feels a little weird to not be around the RRS crew 24/7 now that we're all back in Pittsburgh.  But this story isn't about Pittsburgh, it's about our journey to California to record an album (and do a few extra things as well).

Day 1: Friday, July 09, 2010

The band flew into LA a couple hours before I did, and then my plane was delayed due to lightning, so I got in 2 hours later than expected.  Planes scare me a bit, but I calmed myself by taking pictures out the window.  Very therapeutic.

Lovely, isn't it?  Finally I landed and was picked up by McDade and Dorn in the Cadillac Escalade they were renting for the trip.  Big car.  Nice nice.  You'll see pictures of that later.  We went straight to Omen Room Studios, where the band was in preproduction.

John and Aaron were drinking in celebration of their arrival and because they didn't have to record for a couple days, so along with photos of the actual preproduction, I captured a few frames of what I like to call "River Runs Scarlet, brought to you by Jack Daniels."

Day 2: Saturday, July 10, 2010

On the flight in, McDade's kick drum rim was broken, which he was understandably upset about.  John and Dorn made light of the situation by backseat driving with said rim on our way to IHOP for breakfast.  At IHOP we were luckily seated away from people because boys are ridiculous and play Frisbee with the specials menu.

After breakfast, we went to the studio to continue preproduction.  There was a lot of setting up and sitting around, but we made the best of it.  The below images are all taken in the live room, where a lot of the recording (mostly McDade's drums and Zoe's vocals) is done.  There's also a dead room, where a second vocal microphone (for Aaron's screams) was set up.  The bass and guitars were directly recorded through wires into the computer, as far as I could tell.

Finally, preproduction was finished and I took a picture of the drums all mic-ed up with my beloved fisheye lens. Sweet!!

Day 3: Sunday, July 11, 2010

McDade recorded drums all day and while John and Dorn were allowed to be there, Aaron and Zoe and I ended up spending the day checking out Huntington Beach (the area we were staying in) and watching TV in our hotel rooms.  Sunday meant True Blood, which Zoe and I were excited about.  We'd informed the guys earlier that if we WERE at the studio that day, we were going back to the hotel just to watch our show.  Once everyone else got back, I went with John and Aaron to inspect the Lingerie Bar a couple blocks down from our hotel.  Sadly, it was last call when we arrived, so we walked around a bit and randomly discovered a purple and seafoam green shopping cart, which we had to play with.

Day 4: Monday, July 12, 2010

Monday was guitars, and still not much hanging around the studio.  Before that we hung around the hotel a bit and then went to a tobacco shop (which in Cali doesn't mean just tobacco, which is weird to me) so the smokers could buy cigarettes in bulk.  They were very excited about this.

Because there wasn't much to do in the studio, I ended up taking pictures using the Escalade's headlights and, later, my slave flash.  The slave flash will trigger if any other flash goes off in it's visible range, so there was a lot of fun playing with that, as well as slow shutter speeds and having my "model" trigger the flash manually.  It kept us occupied and I got some pretty cool portraits.

Day 5: Tuesday, July 13, 2010

We started the day going to Backline to rent equipment for the show on Thursday at the famous Whiskey A-Go-Go.  RRS was psyched to play there, and I was psyched to shoot.  I mean, it's the Fuskin' Woot!!  Errr...Whiskey!  All sorts of big names have played there, taking pictures there would be about as awesome as shooting at the CBGB or Fillmore East.  But before we could have a show, we needed to rent equipment, because transporting guitar cabs across the country would have been kinda tough.

After that, Floyd Karma went back to Omen Room to record and the rest of us, still in Whiskey mode, went downtown to Los Angeles to scout out the area.  Zoe and McDade have both lived around there before - he played the Whiskey once with his old band and she lived in one of those fancy Hollywood neighborhoods, so they gave us the grand tour.

Dorn felt very "Entourage" with the group of us getting out of our Escalade and walking around downtown L.A., but eventually we went back to the studio to hang out.  Here's everyone.

While upstairs in the studio's lounge, Dorn and McDade discovered my fisheye lens, which of course had to be played with.  That's where Dorn's picture from the introduction comes from.  He's good at being ridiculous, so when we went back to the hotel he inspired "jumping on the bed" pictures of a surprising amount of band members.  Everyone landed safely and went to sleep.

Day 6: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Wednesday began vocals, which was exciting.  Guitars weren't entirely finished yet, but they had the tracks completely down for two songs and wanted to get the vox for them and finish guitars on Thursday before the show at the Whiskey.

I also took an adorable picture of John and his mom, Debi, who is awesome, as well as some shots of palm trees near the beach while we were picking up Zoe's mom, sister, and best friend.  How cool is it that they're all so supportive that they'll fly across the country for a big show?  Actually...I guess I count for that too.

Day 7: Thursday, July 15, 2010

FUSKIN' WOOT!!!  WHISKEY A GO GO!!!  But before that, Backline for equipment.

The second picture, by the way, the stage Zoe is sitting on, is used in a Korn music video.  Don't ask me which, because I have no idea, but she was really excited about it.  Anyway, we piled equipment to the U-Haul and then people into the Escalade, and went on our way to Los Angeles, where we met more people, including Zoe's lovely actress friend Marya.  I want to do headshots for her so badly, she has the biggest eyes!

And then!!  THE SHOW!

River Runs Scarlet rocked it.  They were amazing and did not disappoint those who came to see them.

After RRS, the headliner, Evolove came on.  They're currently finalists to be the new freecreditscore.com band, and their commercial totally rocks, so I recommend checking them out.  However, a warning: their songs WILL get stuck in your head.

Zoe and I met up with Lucy after the show, I gave her my card and they talked about the music business.  We three blondes took a pic together because we're all so awesome and adorable.  I, of course, look ridiculous with my phone hanging off my dress, but oh well.  Zoe and Lucy save the image.

Day 8: Friday, July 16, 2010

On Friday, I woke up early (and made McDade do the same) which was kind of miserable because we'd all been out partying after the show the night before, but exciting because I was going to assist for photographer Alan Weissman.  Alan is a master of lighting, so I thrilled to get a chance to work with him.  He had a headshot shoot that day - headshots are his specialty.  Not really my thing, but I learned SO much about the nuances of lighting from him.  He's very particular about everything and I did a lot of adjusting lights just so and angling the reflector into the eyes, which took me a bit to get a hang of.   I learned quickly though and even got to teach him a couple things later on in the day about LightRoom and Photoshop, which was pretty awesome.  After shooting, we talked a bit and he ordered pizza for me, him, and his other assistants.  Domino's, we learned, is having a contest where you photograph the pizza you ordered after delivery.  So, we did.  Alan was interested in my fisheye, so I let him try it out and took some images myself as well.  This is my favorite, what do you think?

The entourage picked me up after getting stuck in traffic and I went window shopping on Melrose in L.A. with Zoe's friend Brittany.  We had a grand ol' time and tasted the delights of Pinkberry, which you will hear more about soon.

Day 9: Saturday, July 17, 2010

Vox, cont.  Hung out at the studio, where I finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and took some pictures of everyone working, goofing off, and listening to the recordings so far (and dancing to them).

Once night fell, I got to do what I had been wanting to since we experimented with light in the dark on Monday.  Remember those?  Yeahhh....River Runs Scarlet + elena dee photography = badass promo pic.  Zoe is on top of the Escalade, silhouetted by a light in the parking lot.  The guys (L to R: Dorn, McDade, Aaron, Floyd Karma) are silhouetted by the car's headlights.  It may not be the most original image, yeah, but I freaking love it.

Day 10: Sunday, July 18, 2010

Our last day in California!  It felt like we'd been there for a month to everyone but Dorn, who said it only felt like three days.  Seeing as it was our last chance to do so, John and I hit the hot tub.

We also got In and Out Burger, which without fail makes me think of A Clockwork Orange, and is delicious, and Pinkberry, which is frozen yogurt and OMG AMAZING.  McDade and Dorn and I had driven around for half an hour the night before trying to find the one in Huntington Beach.

Finally, everything was recorded.  It was very exciting when Bill crossed off the last of the Xs on the RRS progress chart and I took a picture of everyone with said chart, as well as some of them just chilling in front of Omen Room Studios for the last time.

We did some fun little interviews as well, continuations of an earlier video of Bill being interviewed as McDade and McDade being interviewed as Bill.  Aaron was John, John was Dorn and Dorn was Aaron.  Zoe and I were each other.  It was ridiculous and so SO much fun.  But eventually it was time to leave for the airport and we piled us and all of our stuff into the Escalade and drove off.  Bill called us 20 minutes later to say he missed us already.  Aaawww.  Zoe and McDade had to take the car back to the rental place, so Dorn, Aaron and I chilled at the airport waiting for them.  John napped.

Then they got on their plane and I got on mine and the next day it felt kind of strange, because I got so used to having the River Runs Scarlet entourage around 24/7.  I also had gotten used to their music, so "Sinister Love" occasionally will run through my head and I get annoyed that the EP still needs edited and mastered.  Did it ever get named...?