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

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.

Only Flesh Promos

Yes, this IS my third post today.  I've been busy!!  And don't want a repeat of last month, where I didn't update at all and then did a lame "here's what's been happening" post where I didn't get to spend as much time as I would like discussing my shoots.  So deal with the insane updating.

Anyway, on Sunday (after work and the first half of Drew's senior portrait shoot), I drove out to Greensburg to a venue called 42nd St to do promo shoots for the band Only Flesh.  Because (once again), the weather was miserable, we had to change our strategy.  Rev, the lead singer, had originally wanted to shoot out in the alley by the dumpster for dirty, gritty photos.  This wasn't going to happen.  It was pouring.  We ended up setting up in the backstage area and taking photos in a booth.  I brought in two of my three lights and set up one with an umbrella.  The guys had requested I bring my fisheye lens, which I was all about, so I grabbed a chair and did some shots of them in the booth, shooting down with the fisheye.  Because I had lean down so far to get the shot I wanted, there was some falling off of the chair.....

I also used my regular 18-55mm lens for some cool shots.  The two on the ends are the newest members of the band - that night was their first live set.  Damien (lighting a cigarette) and Rev (with the spikes) I had sit up higher to get a nice triangular kind of pose.

They also wanted some group headshots.  After the first couple shots, I grabbed my second light and put it behind them to give a little separation between their hair and the wall.  The whole thing was quite an amusing experience and reminded me why I love photographing bands so much.  Seniors and weddings, I really do like them.  They're fun.  But bands....they're an entirely different breed.  And Only Flesh is unique among them.
 

Promo shoot - Starving Hysterical Naked

erich, my ex-boyfriend but still good friend, called me last week asking if we could do a shoot for his new dj/producer persona - Starving Hysterical Naked.  I personally prefer the old name (dj birthday!) to shn, but ok.  I got some ideas at 5:30 on Saturday morning as I was going to bed, texted him, and because he has crazy sleeping habits too, he texted back.  We discussed ideas for half an hour and he came over Saturday afternoon to make some of them come to life.

The best course of action for this shoot seemed obvious - make a play on the name.  He's a DJ/producer, which means he doesn't just mix other people's stuff, he makes and plays his own electronic music as well.  I wanted him to have a fork and knife, eating his iPod or some records.  Naked would make sense, but he's going to use these online and such so shirtless works just as well.  He thought it would be funny to have plates set up like record mixer and draw a mixing board on a napkin between them.  We tried both.

We also did some portraits with (and without) this panda bear hat/scarf/gloves fuzzy thing he got for his birthday last week.  It's pretty adorable.  This first one with the panda hat I took into Photoshop and tried out a technique Cryss taught me to get rid of color casts on black and white.  I really do have some amazing exes.  You can see a difference between the first and second shots below, so I was pretty excited that it worked!

We took a look at all those images on my computer and I realized, hey, you're wearing sunglasses in every picture.  erich was pretty ok with that, but I talked him into taking a few where his eyes were visible.  Because I'm me, he allowed it, and the results are beautiful.

I tried out my new fancy font on these last images because they're more...proper?  More high class than some of the others.  It fit better, just like the black and white conversion.  We took these in my hallway where the light from my living room window was shining in.  The sun was starting to go down and despite erich squinting a lot, it was a really awesome quick little thing to do to finish out our shoot.  You check out erich's music at www.boundlessepicjoy.com

What I've been working on lately

It's been awhile since I last updated. I graduated in June and have been doing some freelance work including something a little different from my usual style lately: SENIOR PICTURES! Dun dun DUN! The one to the left here is my lovely cousin Meghan. Some moms are a little worried that I'm too edgy to do senior portrait, but I do a decent job. Yes, some of my images may be interesting looking than your average portrait studio senior portraits, but who's to say that's a bad thing?! Not all kids want the cookie-cutter photos that so many of the major studios in the area offer.


I've also been doing some promos for local bands such as Sunday Morning (a No Doubt tribute band) and Ohio metal band Resistance 13. Photographing bands is very, very different than photographing high schoolers, but the variety keeps my perspective fresh. Sunday Morning especially was a challenge because we were attempting to keep with the No Doubt aesthetic. Mimicking their style was definitely fun and the singer, Courtney, is a graphic designer so I provided her with images that she then made into a flier, seen below.