Le Monnier Promo shoot, a set on Flickr.
Ok this is my first commisioned photoshoot, and I was extremely nervous. A local band, Le Monnier, had asked me to shoot som promo shots for them. This came about after seeing some photos of them performing live at my local music venue, The Horn, in St. Albans. Why nervous, well this is the first time I had to be responsible for images soley for other people. I didn't know the band personally, and I didn't know what their expectations were. Another reason for my nervousness was my woeful efforts at practising with my family, as you can see on my flickr photostream.
I asked my stepson, James, to come along and assist. This was a smart move as he was keen, and was an extremely capable helper! We met up with the band in a pub in Welwyn Garden City, and short of a location we asked the landlord if we could borrow the function room to do the shoot. This is a music venue called The Green Room. The band is a rock power trio. Alex is the singer and bass player, Matt is guitarist, and Josh then man on drum. So we got started. There were few oportunities for plain backgrounds in the room, as it is decorated with garish cuban comic style depictions of music paraphenalia. However the was a corner with plain black walls, which is where we started. A quick funble with gear to get around a wireless trigger problem, and we started shooting the first group shots. This were ok, but the background was distracting, with a grill, and mismatched colours. A slight turn around, and we got some face on head shots of the band. Next we moved over to a fire escape, which gave some scope for the band to stretch out a bit and get more relaxed. The next group shots we tried some mixed stitting and standing poses, but these were not too sucessful.
To round off I took some individual shots of each of the band.
Overall I am happy with my first go, but there are some mistakes I would want to correct next time. The biggest one is look for shadows. Some of the shots have glaring shadows where I used just the one strobe. A reflector would have filled in the dark areas just enough. Secondly I think I should have been clearer about what poses I wanted the band to try, even to the extent of demonstrating. Thirdly, do more practice beforehand.
On the whole I really enjoyed the experience. The band were wonderful, and put up with my bumbling lack of experience with good grace, and with my bad jokes even more. Would I do more shoots like this? Yes like a shot! I am quite please with the results, despite being accused of being overly self critical. I hope the band like the images I took, and I would like to say again a massive thank you to them for the photoshoot, and of course to James for being my very able assistant for the afternoon!
