47″ octabox boomed over the band, reflector camera left, two speedlights for rimlighting behind the band.
I caught up with Blake, Sierra, and Devin of VersaEmerge on the Love Drunk Tour for a portrait shoot. We shot with a handful of Nikon Speedlights and one Alien Bees B800 with the 47″ octabox – here are the results.
Nikon SB-900 clamped behind the band, Alien Bees B800 fired through an 47″ octabox above the camera.
Alien Bees B800 fired through a 47″ octabox camera right, 45″ silver reflector camera left, Nikon SB-900 fired camera right behind the band.
Photographer’s Notes:
I had a great time with VersaEmerge – Sierra, Blake, and Devin were all super nice, which always helps on a shoot. I met up with the band in their dressing room at the Pageant, then we walked over to the Moonrise Hotel just down the street.
The Moonrise Hotel is a nice little boutique hotel that opened up earlier this year, and thanks to Harry Lunt, the marketing and sales director for the establishment, we were able to shoot there for the portrait session. Overall, we shot at a total of four separate locations in and around the hotel for this shoot.
For these images, we used a mix of one Alien Bees B800 and several Nikon Speedlights, including three Nikon SB-900s and a couple of Nikon SB-600s. One SB-900 was used as the TTL commander, and the AB was triggered via PC-sync cord.
End Notes:
Thanks to Chelsi, Jessy and Mike for helping coordinate this shoot. Shout out to Blake, Sierra, and Devin for being great subjects.
Finally, thanks to my assistants David and Allyssa.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with Blake Harnage, Devin Ingelido, music photographer, Portrait Photography, promo, Sierra Kusterbeck, strobist, versaemerge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Welcome to ishootshows.com, the premier site for music photography featuring daily concert coverage, portrait features, and photo advice from professional music photographer Todd Owyoung.
My name is Todd, and I love the rock show. My work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, the New York Times, Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard Magazine. I'm available for worldwide travel for editorial and commercial assignments.
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Beautiful soft light, Todd!
beautiful work, as always.
Thanks very much, Al.
Hey Clayton,
Thanks for your comment. The 47″ octabox on the Alien Bee did a great job.
I’ve been waiting for you to post these. Amazing pictures Todd. I love them. VersaEmerge is a great band and they’re all super nice people. I’m seeing them for the third time two days after Christmas in Fort Lauderdale.
Hi Julie,
Thanks for the comment. Yup, all of VersaEmerge were very nice and it was a pleasure working with them. Have fun at the show!
Amazing photos.
I was waiting for them and i’m not dissapointed.
great job, as always.
Hi Jovi,
Nice to hear from you, thanks for the kind words – glad the images were worth the wait for you.
Wow, the skin tone/texture looks gorgeous!
Is that just the effect of the AB through such a large softbox or generous amounts of PS work?
either way, they look great, and I really like the suble backlighing, bearly noticeable, but I bet they would look flat without it.
Hey Martin,
The large softbox and reflector are probably the two biggest factors here. The softbox is the start, but the reflector is also doing a great job at filling in the shadows here as well. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to photograph subjects who don’t really need much retouching, either.
Thanks for the feedback on the backlighting – that’s the look I was going for with these. Nice to hear from you, Martin.
love the shots todd man .. really nice lighting man
P.S. in shot to is the SB900 bounced of the wall or is it shot directly at the band
the line before was about shot 3
For the last shot, the SB-900 was shot directly at the band, not at the wall. The light on the wall is from the sun.
love it! big VE fan, plus Sierra’s never too difficult to look at. great lighting, too – wish i had an octabox in my holster, hah.
Hey Aaron,
Thanks for the comment, glad to hear you like the photos. The folding/collapsible octabox from Alien Bees is pretty nice – my assistant Dave’s rig with the AB and Vagabond worked great for these shots.
I used to have the discontinued octaboxes that had to be assembled by hand, but the new ones are great for speed if you don’t mind the added bulk/weight of the setup.
[...] our portrait shoot, VersaEmerge flew out of the gates to start off the Love Drunk Tour properly with a crushing [...]
Great shoots! Like it a lot….such a perfect lightings’ positioning…really love it!
Hey Kesit, thanks for the feedback on this set, I appreciate it.