Semester 2 sees us pick up a new brief of working with a band from the BIMM Institute in Digbeth Birmingham.
BIMM is the British and Irish Modern Music Institute and is a University for performers of all types of music and performance related careers. Alumni of the BIMM Institute include, George Ezra, Fontaines D.C. and Natasha Bent, so it’s not a small organisation with no future. Sam, our lecturer, has close ties with BIMM and after doing the brief last year for the first time he has reengineered it and we are picking it up this year.
As a class of 18 have 9 acts from BIMM to work with so we must split into pairs and then work together with the artist to produce a number of pieces of work. “Promotional Imagery, Social documentary and behind the scenes (BTS) imagery of the process of an artist.”
This ultimately will lead to three outputs:
1. A promotional photoshoot, either at a location or in the studio.
2. Social Documentary – eg : The artist working and writing in the
studio / their day to day process / quiet moments.
3. Live show (If possible, in timeframe– If not, arrange for when is!).
Sam shared some works of famous photographers too, by the likes of;
Kevin Cummings, Laura Lewis, Bruce Davidson, Mick Rock, Pennie Smith, Pooneh Ghana, Zebie, Steve Best, Dean Chalkely, Jim Marshall, Kenneth Capello, Jamie McMillan, David Bailey, Martyn Goddard. Some really inspiring works in this list and I have a book by Cummings called While We Were Getting High in which he’s documenting Brit Pop artists such as Blur, Oasis, Suede, Sleeper, Lightning Seeds, Radiohead etc.
After having a look at the socials of each artist it appears that there are a number of solo female artists, a solu male artist and a couple of bands too. The mixture of music is cool too, with some rock type songs available as well as softer poppy type melodic songs. The music is all excellently produced and my favourites in no particular order ar Jazzcat, Wooden Dog and Esore Alle. they all have some good content on Instagram and most on Spotify too, with a couple also having a youtube presence.
Artist Meet
Last week on Monday 27th January my coursemates all travelled across to BIMM in Digbeth, Birmingham to meet all of the artists and select a solo artist or group to work with. Each of the pairs of photographers were provided a list of the artists in the first week back and have had a chance to listen and look through the socials of each band.
Unfortunately, I was needed at my work as I have a lot of responsibility and a visit from an ISO9001 / ISO14001 auditing organisation to ensure that we are meeting the criteria set out to ensure the quality of the work we produce as a business. I was in the audit meetings all day monday, part of Tuesday and half of Wednesday and it was not an easy thing to be a part of.
As a result of me not being present, Brian and I had chosen each other the week prior and we both agreed that we had no preference on which artist we worked with ultimately. To me I like to go with the flow and see what develops, an unexpected networking opportunity can often lead to some amazing linked chances and invitations to other work. Brian informed me at the end of the Monday that we would be working with a group called “Wooden Dog”, a five piece originals guitar band based in Birmingham.
Considerations
The brief gives us some guidelines to help us out too, this list is provided by Sam as part of the assignment materials.
- What are you trying to convey?
- A couple of things you will want to consider are whether you want to use B&W or colour. A gritty or lean aesthetic? Creating a friendly or aggressive image? Intimate (looking at the camera) or aloof (looking away)?
- Take Inspiration from them!
- Asking the artist to collate some images from their favourite acts and aesthetics will help steer you to the right direction for the feel they want to achieve.
- Location, Location, Location!
- This is important, playing with juxtapositions can be fun but sometimes won’t deliver what you expect. Discuss and don’t be afraid to ask establishments for permission to take images, they can only say no (Rarely don’t) So do your research!
- Take a range of images!
- They need to be able to use these images for many different applications. Social media, banners, PR, Tour Posters… So play with angles and imagine text being there.
Research
Thinking about Wooden Dog and their music I have had a few ideas, looked at some work by other photographers but until I meet with them for the first time I’m unsure as to what they might be expecting from a shoot.
Wooden Dog are a five piece folk/rock band from Birmingham who formed in 2019 and it is made up of the members:
- Vocals & Guitar : Alfie Nicholls
- Keys: George Nicholls
- Guitar: Luca Simian
- Drums/Percussion: Ben Roberts
- Bass Guitar: Drewe Norwood
The song “Molten” was their debut single in 2023 and it’s a wonderful and light song that has the elements of an indie guitar band along with some terrific lyrics. Haunting sound, weird little chuckle on the end of the itunes version. Molten has over 15,000 plays on spotify
It reminded me a lot of other bands that I listen to such as Radiohead, Starsailor, Athlete, Mansun, Cure, and Oasis
Their second single was released in April ’24 “Black & Grey” followed by “The Wheel” in October 2024
Black & Grey is a happier sounding song whilst the wheel is a lovely ballad about losing someone and not being able to hear their advice or be near them again. George and Alfie lost their Dad, who also used ot be in the band, and this is about them missing him. My dad died in 2023 and whilst I haven’t written a song about it, the words the band use for it are very close to the mark. Lovely little phrases about living life and making the most of everyday type sentiment.
Another song, “All The People” was released on BIMM Radio YoutUbe too and this was great track also.
The Shoots
Rehearsal
Brian has organised to shoot at the BIMM Studios on Monday 3rd Feb so tomorrow we’re off to shoot the band during a rehearsal between 12:00 and 14:00.
I’ve packed my Canon 5D MkIV with 16-35mm and 24-105 along with plenty of batteries, a Leica M6 with a 28mm Elmarit and a 35mm Voigtlander Nokton. I’ve also packed a flash gun for the 5D along with remote triggers so I can add the transmitter to the top of the camera and hold the flash remotely to capture some different lighting options. I’ll also have my Leica Q3 with me as a backup, its 28mm lens is amazing but I’m not a huge fan of low light images made using the camera. Maybe it’s me but I always get tonnes of noise when hooting anything over 6400, but I’ve also packed my little Godox Lux Jr for the Q3 too, it can also be used on the M6.
For the M6 I’ve packed two rolls of Ilford HP5Plus and a single roll of Kodak Portra 400. I may not get any film images but it might be worth a shout. I’ll have my tripod with me but I don’t anticipate needing to use it. I’m not taking a gopro with me or anything as i want to concentrate on the photography rather than messing with video or timelapses.
Once we’ve been and successfully shot the group doign their thing I’ll post process the images and see what is available, it’ll likely be in the next post.
Photo Studio
The following Monday, Brian has provisionally organised for the band to come across to Wolverhampton School Of Art and have a session in the photo studio. For this I think it’ll be worthwhile doing some prep ahead of the day so I’ve been looking through the examples in Cummings’ book as well as another book Hip Hop At The End Of The World but I don’t necessarily want to copy anything that others have already done. I do realise that it’s tricky to do anything original, but I’ve seen some of the most successful or effective shots have been when there is a “uniform” that the members wear, either suits, all denim, hats and many other types of clothes.
One of my brainstorm ideas was to buy a number of disposable paper overalls, then have the members of the band spray them with some basic lines, patterns etc and then have them pose against a wall, or even an external brick wall etc.
Whilst the band are wearing the overalls, no masks required though, I could project graphics onto them from a projector and a powerpoint slide set. I’ve already built up a set of random geometric slides that it might be worth trying.
They might also have one of their own videos playing behind them whilst playing in the scoop or messing around with each other and their instruments etc..
The geometric shapes and videos might look cool on the white overalls too, either sprayed up or not. I thought that the spraying of the overalls would get the band in a creative mood and start them off doing something different than they might be expecting for a photo shoot.
Another idea I had was to use a drone to capture a photo of the band from above, whilst intermingled in the artwork outside the School Of Art building or even in the subway and around there.
Another idea was to have the band’s faces behind a large perspex sheet coated with water to provide a bit of distortion whilst still being able to make them out.
At our photo club meeting last week we were playing around with shallow depth of field and we had some crinkled up and straightened out silver foil hanging as a backdrop, then lit by some gel covered lights . I wondered if I buy a couple of rolls of Turkey Foil, due to it being larger, whether I could pin this to the poly boards and have these behind the band to give us some trippy lighting.
The photos that emerge from these sessions will be used as promo or editorial images so we are to take into account on some that it might be good to make space for banners or text in a magazine article etc.
Live Performance
One of the things we’ve been asked for is to photograph a live performance so we’ll need to work closely with the band to find out if they have anything lined up before the summer break.
I know that they’ve played at Trees 2024 and Moseley Folk & Arts Festival so they already have experience of playing live which is a blessing as it means we can go and shoot them when they’re already reasonably comfortable with their performances.
I can see on TicketTool that they do have a gig lined up in London at The Spice Of Life on the 22nd March. I don’t think this is early enough to get the photos and prep them for inclusion in the final submission, I estimate it being a month late. We look like we need to have everything done by 3rd March for a group review in Sem 2 Week 7. We can discuss this with Sam too.
Wrap Up
Well I’m knackered and it is time for bed, then up for the shoot at the rehearsal rooms tomorrow.
We’ll share some thoughts with the band and see what ideas they might have to guide us along the way.
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