Lighting and Portraiture Tutorials
You are here: Home / Archives for Articles / Music

Suzanna Choffel on The Voice

September 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Suzanna Choffel

Suzanna Choffel appeared on NBC’s The Voice.

My friend Suzanna Choffel appeared on NBC’s The Voice tonight!  As of today, she’s on Blake Shelton’s team.  It was exciting to see her doing her thing on television in front of millions of people. I’ve been shooting photos of Suzanna for various media outlets for several years but seeing her shine on tonight’s show was very exciting. Want more Suzanna?  Go to her website (suzannachoffel.com) where you can watch some videos, download her music and learn more about her.

suzanna choffel on magazine cover

A shoot we did for an Austin magazine.

 

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , ,

Photo Assignment: Music Photography

August 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

Do you like photographing bands and musical performers as much as I do? I’d love for you to submit your best examples of this to the About Photography Group. I’ll post my favorites right here on the blog!

James Gonzales
James Gonzales by patrickleroy

Christian Scott and Eric Gravatt
Christian Scott and Eric Gravatt by avbizzguy

Courtney Taylor-Taylor
Courtney Taylor-Taylor by heyheyjk

Thao
Thao by heyheyjk

BodyGroove_CanadaDay_SL_Studiob-6
BodyGroove_CanadaDay_SL_Studiob-6 by Steffi_YUL

Filed Under: General, Music

Music Photography Tips

August 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Some musician friends of mine were in the Big Apple a couple of weeks ago and I had a chance to drop by for their show at The Living Room on the Lower East Side. Suzanna Choffel, Brad Houser, and Kyle Thompson are well-known in the Austin music scene, but what musician can resist an occasional showcase in NYC?

Naturally, I brought a camera along. Of course, you never know what the lighting conditions are going to be like in a given small nightclub, so I chose the Canon 7D for its low noise at higher ISOs. I switched between my 85mm 1.8 and my 17-40mm 4.0 lenses. Note: I don’t like to use flash for performance photography. I thought it might be instructive to share my thought process for each shot:

 

Brad Houser

I started off with an ISO 2500 and my 85mm at f/2.2. This gave me a good view of the bass player, Brad Houser, and the wide aperture not only provided me with a decent shutter speed in the ISO range, but also a shallow depth of field, which is nice. I like to get a shot of each band member alone in a frame, if possible. Sometimes this doesn’t work if they’re standing in a dark corner of the stage.

 

Suzanna Choffel

Another shot I like to get helps establish a context or story about the camaraderie of the band members. Here, you can see Suzanna doing her thing, with Brad looking on. The depth of field keeps her the focus, and him a noticeable but “supporting” player in the shot. Settings where the same as the previous shot.

 

Suzanna Choffel

Getting the name of the venue helps establish a location. The cool thing about some locations is that they can look great in photos. Bands love shots that show where they played, especially if it’s a well-known hotspot.

 

Houser, Choffel, Thompson

Finally, my 17-40, although slow at f/4.0 is sharp and wide enough to capture the whole scene at once. Dialing my ISO to 3200 was necessary to obtain a workable shutter speed.

Filed Under: Music

Portraiture: Side Lighting

September 14, 2010 By 8 Comments

Whether it’s boudoir or glamour, an editorial shoot, a band publicity photo, or a product shot, when it comes down to it, it’s all really just portraiture to me.  When I shot the promotional photos for Andrea Marie & The Magnolia Band, it was probably no surprise to them when I asked the members to pose for me individually.  Sure, I love a good group shot, but there’s just something great about working one-on-one with a person to get a nice portrait.

The shot above was taken outdoors.  But we wandered into a nearby beer joint to get some interior shots, too.  After all the main setups were shot, I asked each band member to sit individually by one of the windows and pose for a few frames.  I setup an umbrella, in shoot-thru configuration, opposite the window as shown with a 580EX II as the light source.  Below the diagram are my shots of guitar player, John Fink.  He’s got a great look which is perfect for demonstrating the effectiveness of having the subject simply turn their head when using this sidelight setup.

Notice how we can get a soft and contemplative look, as he looks out the window.  Then, more dramatic and intense looks as he turns his head away from it, letting the double side lighting really bring out detail and texture.  The shadow side, as you you can see, is always toward the camera.   A very similar effect is often created in the studio by placing two identical light sources opposite each other on either side of the subject.

Flash was set to approximate the intensity of the light coming in through the window. However, keeping the flash at a distance of about 10 ft. gave us a "harder-looking" indoor light effect.

For these shots, I used my Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM at f/1.8.  ISO was 200, shutter speed 1/100 sec.  The big window light is noticeably softer here.  You might wonder why the lighting from the shoot-thru umbrella is harder.  Consider that the umbrella was actually positioned about 10 ft. from the subject.  This, in effect, makes it a smaller light source than the window (relative the the subject), giving that side a more contrasty/harsh effect.  If we’d brought the umbrella closer, it would have provided a softer light, similar to the window light.

Filed Under: Lighting Tutorials, Music, Portraiture
« Older Posts