Portraits are my favorite. I remember telling someone after this shoot that if these were the only images I got on this tour, I would be okay with that and go home a happy man. I had never really photographed about half of the people in these photographs, so it was exciting to get portraits of them! These are all shot pretty quick, maybe 30 seconds- 3 minute shoots backstage. These shoots are very “go with the flow” kinda shots, someone was getting tattooed in the room next door, we were surrounded by three dressing rooms, James was warming up on his drums, people were showering, this was a busy area! Thanks much to the bands/ crew for putting up with me AND letting me take their photograph, so sick!

At the start of this shoot I did a few different setups and became pretty frustrated. I think this was try three of having Sam (first guy I shot/ tested light on) go back into the dressing room while I adjusted light, and then return so I could shoot him again. I eventually settled on this set up.

580ex shot at the ceiling, LED panel on camera for fill and catchlight. It worked great and gave me a nice soft light that can sometimes be hard to get in smaller shooting areas. Backstage walls are white maybe 5% of the time? It was quite cool to have such a clean backdrop and not one with band/crew graffiti from every tour that passed through, often consisting of phallic objects and words you can’t say in school.

Everything is shot on a Canon 35mm f/1.4L pretty wide open.