VersaEmerge: Portraits

VersaEmerge – (Atlantic Records)

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.

VersaEmerge – (Atlantic Records)

Nikon SB-900 clamped behind the band, Alien Bees B800 fired through an 47″ octabox above the camera.

VersaEmerge – (Atlantic Records)

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.

Related Posts

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  4. Preview: The New Heathers
  5. Attracted to Gods: Behind the Scenes
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About the author: Todd Owyoung is an internationally published music photographer specializing in concert photography and band portraits. He also grills a mean steak.

Contact Todd for image licensing and assignments wherever the rock show lives. You can also get in touch with Todd via Twitter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

19 Responses to “VersaEmerge: Portraits”

  1. Clayton says:

    Beautiful soft light, Todd!

  2. Al Graham says:

    beautiful work, as always.

  3. Todd says:

    Hey Clayton,

    Thanks for your comment. The 47″ octabox on the Alien Bee did a great job.

  4. Julie says:

    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.

  5. Jovi says:

    Amazing photos.
    I was waiting for them and i’m not dissapointed.

    great job, as always.

  6. Martin Hobby says:

    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.

    • Todd says:

      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.

  7. Corey hale says:

    love the shots todd man .. really nice lighting man

  8. Corey hale says:

    P.S. in shot to is the SB900 bounced of the wall or is it shot directly at the band

  9. Corey hale says:

    the line before was about shot 3

  10. Aaron says:

    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.

    • Todd says:

      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.

  11. [...] our portrait shoot, VersaEmerge flew out of the gates to start off the Love Drunk Tour properly with a crushing [...]

  12. Great shoots! Like it a lot….such a perfect lightings’ positioning…really love it!

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