For this brief we were to research the bands that inspired our “clients” and then dig around to see if there is any style or aesthetic that they were after.
I asked for a moodboard and they came through with a board containing a few images, seen bleow on the right hand side of the powerpoint slide.
Moodboard from Wooden Dog on the right and then images from Pinterest and other band album covers that they mentioned in passing. Note the warm tones of the mood board and how this works well with the pinterest page of folk rock bands. The warmth is something that I’d like to use in the studio.
Parlours
The band Parlours featured on the top of the bands moodboard so I did some research into this and found that the work was carried out by Canoe There design agency. Further research highlighted who the main photographer (Dave Poyzer) is and some of his work was a varied mix of genres and subjects but all showing a generally muted and natural pallette. His work on the Parlours cover was very natural looking colours and an informal looking shoot around a tent in a wooded area. The greens, light browns and some dark shadows had a big impact on me.
“Landscape photography is never perfect and never finished. It’s not a frame it’s a journey (that occasionally gets documented by a print).
In my journey I not only attempt to capture light and color but also a mood and a memory. There is more to a landscape than what is captured in light. There is sound, smells, tastes, and textures. It’s nostalgia.” from Dave Poyzer’s Website.
Poyzer is a multi-disciplined photographer who specialises in landscape photography as well as weddings and portraits. His photography has an earthy natural style that suits the Parlours band’s vibe. This aesthetic was consistent on Wooden Dog’s mood board along with some focus on a wider view of the group. Greens and browns with a yellow tint creates a vintage film appearance and this fits in with the polaroid and film photography as well as the old format Super 8 video that Poyzer has shown on his website.
Mumford & Sons
Marcus Haney is a photographer with a wide range of genres in his repertoire. He produces some great portrait photographs of musicians, actors and other people in the public eye. He produces documentary work as well as the rest of his oeuvre but much of his work appears to be unplanned and opportunistic. His photography has a raw feeling to it that isn’t necessarily reflected in the Mumford & Sons ”Babel” cover. He captures images of people in a state of partying so must be well acquainted with the scene and appears to almost be a part of the group having fun. The images are from within the situation rather than of the situation.
Some of his work has the appearance of an unplanned opportunity yet is carefully crafted to seem so. He has some wonderful music based photography, and as well as the musicians he often turns the camera around on the audience to capture the raw emotions and enjoyment being created by the performance.
Like Poyzer, he has a warm tone to his colour images coupled with a rawness and honesty that sells the picture as entirely real. He does however have a questionable attitude to photography and has controversially created a film of himself entering music festivals and concerts where no cameras should be taken in, let alone used to make a film.(Film: No Cameras Allowed)
“Marcus Haney belongs where he doesn’t belong. A Los Angeles native with a home on the road, he’s more likely to be found jumping fences, hanging from trees, or sneaking past security lines to document the human circus rather than following the rules of marching in it. He’s no sheep. The lens does not judge but paints the truth, and he takes to his work like a war photographer on the front lines of celebrating life.” –Gill Landry
Kings Of Leon
Ram Reyes is originally a photographer in Fresno for a city newspaper and quit to go freelance. He photographs many different genres and has a love for design and type as well as photography. His cover for the album Can We Please Have Fun was a success and is a standout album on the shelf. The smaller image of the band and the large title is reminiscent of the early days of album covers featuring photographs. Apart from the red colour of the sofa peeking through, the image is again a set of muted tones including mostly browns with a little green also.
His music photography is usually shot in low light, taking care to use the lights for highlighting important parts of the scene, without making everything one level of light. The use of negative space is also important to Reyes and this can be seen in the album cover with the white wall taking up nearly a third of the total image space. I hadn’t seen this image before researching for this submission, but it is interesting to note the use of a large clock on the wall behind when compared to my shot of Wooden Dog, also featuring a clock on the wall.
His use of text is seen also in the poster to the right highlighting the ”Pale Blue Dot” photograph in an eye-catching manner. The typeface is also consistent across the two featured images but appears to be unusual and possibly even custom.
Looking at the photos of the band from other prints available, they are all pretty standard with a band standing in a line and generally evenly lit. One cover featured below shows the band in a photograph taken by Marcus Followill of the band using long exposure methods and then the design around it by Craig Ward. The standard line up again but the photo has a ghostly appearance due to the Francesca Woodman style motion blurring of the faces.
I tried a couple of line ups when photographing Wooden Dog and using a little license to get them messing around and playing with props to make them more comfortable and natural. I’d considered adding text to images made for the band and created one with the band name above the heads, but I’m not sure I would have used huge bold text like that . Maybe I’ll go and revisit the images with the addition of a piece of block text.
London Exhibitions
Whilst in London to shoot the band in the Soho gig, I wandered around through the day and found a number of exhibitions to visit. A Tube Graffiti exhibition with 10Foot, TOX and Fume, and also two music based exhibitions
The first was in a place called Brityard and was hosting an exhibition”30” by Scarlet Page. It showed some wonderful music portraits of Slash, Red Hot Chilli Peppers amongst many others. The style of photography was pretty standard with an odd touch thrown in sometimes such as an upside-down bassist. One of her photos was the Cover of Stereophonics album “Performance and Cocktails” which was interesting to see. She has made images of many bands and artists, some using standard poses and others using odd framing.
I also popped into a gallery called Iconic Images, which are a bit of a high-end shop for selling prints. But some of the photographs in there were amazing. Eve Arnold, Terry O’Neill, Kevin Cummins, Dennis O’Regan, Michael Grecco, Ed Caraeff to name a few. Photos of Elton John, Queen, Ian Curtis, Oasis, ,Liam Gallagher, Paul McCartney. It was clear that there is a lot of high contrast photography , much of it in black and white when it comes to photos of musicians. Some good names that I have looked further into and found them to be very inspiring for the future. They show that studio photography is not all about being in the studio but using the lights to create a wonderful image that could have been made anywhere. There are also many that have been captured in random places too, some extraordinary.
Further Research
To look into planning the studio shoot I started brainstorming ideas and looking first at photos of musicians on vinyl records in record shops and antique centres.
Two books I have are one by Kevin Cummins whose work I came across at Photo London a couple of years ago. He spent a lot of time photographing the bands and artists in the Britpop movement back in the early 90s as well as bands like Joy division. His images have a rawness and a truthful edge to them than the usual NME at the time style of ultra styling and controversy creation. His band portraits don’t always show all members of the band or have some facing different ways etc.
Another book I have is by Ernie Pannicciolo about photographs of the early days of hip hop with Lauryn Hill, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy etc and these are some great images showing how well integrated into the movement he’s become and how trusted a person he must have been. Again there are some staged portraits and candid prep and setup shots that work well together.
One of the common themes I spotted was a band identity, and I wondered whether I could get Wooden Dog all wearing a similar outfit. After chatting to them at eh rehearsal shoot it became apparent that they may not have enjoyed this type of shoot. I resigned this to the back up ideas in case we had a drought of ideas.
Conclusion
This research did shape my thought processes when engaging with the band and carrying out shoots with them. The different styles of photos and poses from the different artists I’d seen in the research and also as I flicked through piles of old vinyl albums in charity shops helped me to create a minds eye view of what it might look like.
Im not a portrait photographer generally and studio work lifts my anxiety levels, whilst Im more comfortable in an informal environment shooting at a gig or even a rehearsal. This might be down to being more comfortable in those environments. Doing the research of the gig venues was also very valuable and allowed me to prep the gear I might need.
Seeing other photographers’ work capturing pop-stars or musicians in candid situations, or weirdly posed in the street as well as in the studio meant that I was more prepared for whatever I can persuade the band to do.
Throughout the photographing of the shoots I had in mind the shots that I had seen in the books, websites, and even the galleries that I had been looking at. Some of the shots may have been influenced byt the works but I dont see that I got any in the vein of Kevin Cummins which is what I would like to have got. The issue I think here is the difference between the bands that Cummins was shooting in the 90s and the band we were working with. Ian Curtis, Oasis, Radiohead, Suede and Pulp amongst others all had a more dour and dark image around them. It was a time of Madchester and inner city life coming from the streets of run down areas into the music shops. Wooden Dog don’t have the same grungy and depression based image so I’d argue that it is difficult to capture a similar emotional range to those shots by Cummins.
I find that the medium of musician photography is suited to monochrome photos too but this was not really an option for the band we were working with who see the colour pallete and theur clothing styles as being an integral part of their image.
It is useful to see the range of different styles used by the myriad of photographers, how some are so candid it looks like they weren’t supposed to be there, to those who can get the subjects to bend to their will. Some are quiet and reflective whilst others are truly extravagant and this just informs me of the subjectivity of the whole enterprise.
What one band might want for their promo shots, another might sniff at, looking more for the behind the scenes shots that are initially discarded for being incorrectly composed or focussed.
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