VSP Workshops Blog

Adventures outside the Comfort Zone…

This was my first band shoot actually – hoping to do more of this kind of thing – not just because it’s far cooler than photographing flowers (apologies to all still life and macro shooters out there), but because Rock bands are just natural performers and bring a lot to the table.
I did quite a lot of location scouting for this shoot – The area opposite the island of Venice, just on the mainland, has a truly enormous area of mega industry – chemical factories – some working, others deserted and rotting. A very cool place actually. Anyway – had a drive around one day to look at some of the deserted factories – amazing locations, and ok if you’re carrying one camera and want to do a little sneaky gorilla-style shooting – but for a commercial shoot, with quite a bit of kit…I didn’t feel like asking the band to lug 80 kilos of kit over a six foot fence. Not to mention insurance, health and safety – plus the yellow hard harts would have made it look like a Village People shoot….I digress…

Turns out through a contact of a contact that we could get to shoot at a transportation depot down by the docks. When I got there for the shoot it was the first time I’d seen it. Could not have wished for anything cooler. We had a warehouse we could use (the size of three airport hangers), plus a work yard as big as a football pitch. It’s been raining here for something like two weeks, so there were strategically placed puddles kindly dotted around the ground – which was the first thing I saw as I drove into the site. Ironically, the puddles were the key to the shoot and it turned out that my instinct was not far off bang on…Puddles gooood….rain on new monoblocks noooooo.

Also turns out one of the band works at the site – so when I pointed to the two giant containers blocking the entrance to the warehouse and he said I’ll get the forklift-truck and move them…naturally I thought he was joking…not the case.
Anyway – the real point of this post is a little about kit, a little about creative technique, but mostly sharing with you the curve balls that this shoot threw at me. I recently made a promise to myself to try, every day, to do something that was outside of my comfort zone. Funnily enough there are some very pertinent blog posts I’ve read recently by Chase Jarvis, and another very cool photographer August Bradley – and they both talk about the importance of doing things that make you nervous – getting outside of your comfort zone – taking risks. A. Bradley also makes some really interesting observations about the trap of over-immersing yourself in other peoples’ content and inspiration at the risk of curtailing your own creative process – see here. Comfort zone excursions are going to be my big thing in 2011 – but joking apart, there’s a lot of truth in what these guys say so check out their blogs..
Back to the subject in hand.

Cool forklift-truck diversion having taken place, I started to unpack the kit. My weapons of choice today were a pair of Profoto D1 Air 1000s, with a pair of giant 120×180 softboxes. Because I’m on location, I’m powering the monolights via a Profoto BatPac. Camera of choice – Canon 5D Mark 2, and a 16-35mm and a 24-70mm.

I can’t deny there were a lot of challenges – the location was wet and it was quite windy at times – note to self – more sandbags next time. Other interesting challenges that the day’s shoot brought up were things such as…

Challenge 1
- Wanting the light source high up above the subjects, also wanting to shoot the entire subject from head to foot – but not wanting too much artificial light on the ground where they’re stood
Response 1
- The lazy workaround was to darkeen the foreground in post – usually with a graduated filter from the bottom of the frame in Lightroom. Unfortunately this darkens, but still isn’t an ideal solution. Another workaround was to shoot upwards and so include far less or no feet and ground in the shots. Most of the time this worked out ok – but I think only because I didn’t have a floor I wanted to particularly show

Challenge 2
-Remember when shooting groups on location with a million things going on at once, to take more frames per pose, because there is always somebody in the group who has their eyes shut or is between poses
Response 2
- I’m bearing all here and being super-honest – it’s a bit of a dumb thing to miss, but when you’re submersing yoursefl in something that is taking 200% of your focus, it’s little things like this that can mean for all the great locations, lights and other elements in the world, a silly face can ruin a whole frame

Challenge 3
- Take the time to direct each subject one by one
Response 3
- Similar to the point above, but here more to do with slowing yourself down, and handling each subject one by one. When they see you calm and clear, your subjects also tend to mirror that and respond to your confidence

Challenge 4
- And biggest challenge of all, particularly with one light source, was getting an even light falling on different band members who are standing at different distances from the light source
Response 4
- Tough one and the solutions are varied. At the root of this issue is the ‘inverse square law’ – which in plain English says that the further away from the light source your subject is, the less power your light effectively has. Sounds obvious, the point of the inverse square law is that you can quite accurately measure this fall-off and plan for it. See here for more info

Challenge 5
- Doing it all in Italian..
Response 5
- Note to self – just keep talking, whatever language it’s in. Silence tends to create uneasiness..

I made a note of all of the things that cropped up as challenges during the day – not because they’re problems I’ve never seen before – but because they were a sequence of challenges particular to this kind of shoot. And because I’m planning on doing more of this kind of shoot, I want to make sure I work through these for the next time.

This was my first field trip with the Profoto kit and I just can’t speak too highly of it. The build quality of the lights and battery pack is really great – feels very solid. The Batpac worked very well for me – although it would have been nice to see how many more shots I would get out of it, rather than a battery warning light….But – so far I’m very happy with how it works…

The band are happy with the images I’m glad to say – they’ll be addorning the inside of the albums CD cover. For those that enjoy the sounds of punk rock you may want to check them out – they’re called ‘The Fastback‘.

I put together a little video about the day’s shoot…

And here are some more of the final selects from the day’s shoot…