This Monday came around and Brian , my coursemate from the course at Wolverhampton University, had organised to meet Wooden Dog for a photo shoot at the BIMM Live Rooms. The set up for this can be read in the previous post.
The time came to head over to Digbeth in Brum where BIMM Institute resides and after I parked up a little early in Coventry St car park I had an hour to wander the streets capturing any scenes that I found interesting. There were a few. I also came across Red Brick Market which was full to the brim of lots of small stalls selling a varied range of indie gifts. It was impressive and I’d recommend it to my two offspring.
I entered the reception of the BIMM Institute and the young fella on reception suggested I go over to the Infohub to meet the students who were expecting us. I did this and then partly signed into the visitors book before using an instant massage app to contact the band who said they’d be down to sign us in and take us to the studio.
We were planning on photographing the band setting up and practising some of their work in this rehearsal room that has many seats and is often used as a classroom for lectures. There appears to be a collection of instruments set up and the band would use them, as well as their own guitars.
Drewe from the band came to take us over and Brian and I unpacked our gear which is odd as we both have Canon 5Ds. Brian was rocking a flash gun on the top of his camera and I set up a transmitter on my hotshoe so I could try some off camera flash if I felt like it. The receiver was on the bottom of the Jessops Speedlight (cheap flash) and I eventually played with it only a couple of times, but I do struggle with flash photography.
It Begins
The band began their setup and discussing which song they’d rehearse first and once they got underway Brian and I were milling around the room taking photos of each fo the five members. The room was quite dark except for the stage lights that Ben (Percussion) had set up for the shoot. The lights were fairly hot in some areas and a bit darker in others so it wasn’t easy to get consistent images.
The room had wooden panels and other materials that help deaden sound around the room and it was sometimes difficult to make these work in the images. THe colours of the walls from the lights was also producing some strange effects.
Individuals
With each band member having their own specialty instrument it was essential that I tried to capture each of them with their instrument. Photos of guitarists are difficult, I find, because most images look static so I try and capture the strumming hand in a pose just about to hit the strings or just after it’s hit the strings. It feels a bit like the way that I prefer to capture people walking with a good stride in progress, it implies movement and speed. I could drop the shutter speed to a lower setting but the rest of the image might come out too blurred.
Drummers are similarly tricky as they often look as though their drumsticks are at rest and I find it better when the sticks are coming down onto the skin of the drum or hitting a cymbal so that you get a more dynamic photograph. Ben was playing drums and was sat right behind Alfie singing into the micriphone at the front. Without swinging to the side it was a challenge capturing the drummer in action as well as everyone else up at the front.
The positioning of the band members at the front of the room was also a little troublesome. Luca on the guitar all the way on the left and then Drewe on Bass behind George on the far right meant that it was tricky getting them all in the same shot or even spaced out nicely when they were all together. I had to stand back a long way in the room to get them all in the photo even with a 28mm lens.
Photos of singers/vocalists are also easy to mess up. When singing, peoples’ faces contort or when a mouth closes the face looks blank. Sometimes its worth shooting a few images one after the other to try and get a range of facial expressions so that you can pull out the most pleasing image. You can see below in the two images that the black and white image has a closed mouth and passive expression, where the colour image (not post processed) has a certain gleefulness and an obvious appearance of being open mouthed, enjoying himself and undoubtedly singing.
goerge on the keyboard was also difficult to capture in a photograph as I wasn’t sure whether to take pictures from above showing the black and whites with his hands or to capture a keyboard level photo with him leaning over the top of the playing surface.
You can see the difference between these two photos, one clearly shows the hands on keys and the skill it takes to play the instrument where the head on at a lower angle removes this and he might be buttering a couple of slices of bread for a sandwich afterwards. You can’t really tell. There is a lack of separation between him and Drewe on the bass guitar in the background too, in the upper photo she can be made out in the top right corner but in the lower of these two photos she appears right behind George and it looks like he has a guitar sticking out of his shoulder.
There really is more to it than I thought.
Film & Flash
I was shooting with my 5D and then also with my Q3, using available light. I also pulled out the M6 with a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus and was using that at a slower shutter speed with the available light, but I also popped my godox lux jr flash on it on the lowest power, 1/64, to see if it made a difference, but I wouldn’t know until I develop the film, which I still am yet to do.
I was also playing with the off camera flash, using the remote trigger from the 5D and I felt that I didn’t like the harshness of the images produced. There were too many strong shadows on the wall behind
Aesthetics
As you can see from this selection of photos some are colour and others black and white. I’ve found through editing and post processing that the wood colour merged with the unnatural lights create a weird cast that is difficult to remove and even when it is representing the reality it still looks off.
I found that converting to B&W allows me to remove the confusion caused by the colours, remove some of the separation of the band members due to their differing coloured outfits and tie them all together in one neat image. The warm tones of the wood and lights also makes it appear cartoonish to me and I think it becomes more natural and less stylistic when presented with no colours.
I also tried a few close ups but it was tricky to do so with the 28mm Q3 or the 16-35 on the 5D, without feeling like I was encroaching beyond the remit of the job..
Ben and Alfie set up a phone at one point to film a run-throuhg of the song they were workign on and they asked Drewe to sit on top of the speaker to the side of George on the keyboard. Whilst it put her in a place not hidden by the keyboard player, it also moved her into a well of shadow, that and her black wooly cardi meant it got increasingly difficult to pick her up in the wider photos.
Down Time
There were also some lighter moments when they may not have been playing seriously or just having a giggle, a rest in between their bars or some clowning around. These times are also lovely to catch on film or sensor and give a different perspective of the people that make up the band.
The band wanted us to capture a natural, no-nonsense, no artifice and real people based group. Hopefully I did this job well and they will like the photos when they see them. I’ll be sure to feedback with some results on here if they have improvement suggestions or kind things to say.
After we’d finished I thanked the band for their invitation to join them, told them that I would have clapped if I hadn’t been photographing and told them I’d enjoyed myself being in their company. The music was excellent and reminds me of some music I listen to when I’m calm and trying to chill out. Kind of same vibe as Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons, David Gray, Starsailor, Athlete and many more that I like.
Comparing to Examples
Not many of the photos I made on the day are reminiscent of images that Sam showed us as part of the brief but here are a couple that I feel have the same vibe as the photos I shot in the live room.
Follow Up
We spoke at the end of the day with the band and discussed the possibility of coming into the photo studio next Monday but they are unable to make this. They asked about Saturdays and we said we’d talk to the tutors etc.
They have a gig coming up in Soho on 22nd March so we could go and make a live gig, unless it’s too late to include in the work for the module, I’ll ask Sam about this. They’re on super early in the bill so it shouldn’t be too rammed and possible to get some good photos without not being able to move around.
After talking to Sam and Dan at the Uni, they’ve suggested that Saturdays are not available, apart from 15th March when it is an open day at the uni. Other than that we can keep the studio open until 7:30 pm with some notice and this might be an option.
Brian and I are communicating witht he band on an instant messenger platform and we’ll work together to see what we can do. Another alternative might be to meet them somewhere else, sans instruments, for a photo shoot in a street or an interesting location. Sam is quite insistent that we don’t use Digbeth as a backdrop though as “Spielberg has used it for Ready Player One so it’s no good for anyone else”.
We’ll stay in touch and work out another arrangement.
With the band not being available on Monday, it means that I’ll have some time to develop my HP5+ from the day and see what that comes out like, maybe make a print or two and discuss with Sam, how we proceed.
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