And I’ll bring you the the horizon.

The band’s name is Bring Me The Horizon, and the most only entertaining group of English men I have ever met. Then again, anything said with an english accent is funny.

Anyway, back when I was on Warped Tour I was with my friends in Settings for about three weeks, but for the last four days of Warped, I had no one to ride with. My friend was on tour with Dr. Manhattan at the time and they were generous enough to let me ride with them. Turns out, they were sharing their bus with Bring Me The Horizon and that’s where I met them. Over the next few days on Warped Tour I had the opportunity to get to know Bring Me The Horizon as people, and photograph them a handful of times.
About four months later they stopped by Milwaukee on one of their first North American tours and I ended up shooting them again. I know I probably sound like a broken record by now, but photographing a band that you know personally is ten times easier then a band you have never met before.

This shoot was loads of fun, I had always wanted to use dry ice in my shoots, and this time I made it happen (find a dry ice store near you). It’s actually a lot easier to use than I thought it would be, basically throw a bunch of pellets in hot water and watch it go. At first for this shoot I had a bunch of little bowls all over with warm water and I threw a handful of pellets in each bowl. It failed, barely any “smoke” was produced, however Oliver ended up dumping half the bucket into the sink of running warm water, and that worked out 100x better.

These photos were all done in a backstage bathroom at The Rave (venue) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The owners of the venue were pretty baffled when I specifically asked to use this location, which is understandable. However I think it worked out perfectly.
The thing I love about dry ice is that it just sinks to the lowest part of the room, making it very easy to control. Smoke from a smoke machine on the other hand is a whole different story, sloppy sloppy.

The shoot went great, everything according to plan for the most part – but getting to the shoot was a whole different story. I live a good 90 minutes from Milwaukee, so it’s not that far of a drive, but it’s a drive when we are supposed to get upwards of a foot of snow in one day. I drive a 1997 baby blue Ford Windstar minivan that has seen better days, and upon arrival to Milwaukee, it broke down. Luckily it broke down right in front of Luke’s (my assistant) house. So we crammed all my equipment into his car, and drove our asses to the shoot. The experience wasn’t fun, but it could have been a lot worse. My van ended up getting towed by the city and I was stuck with an abandoned vehicle ticket, a life experience that I am content with only having one of.

My original shot:

The cover: