On November 8th Chris of The Devil Wears Prada let me know that the band would be writing for their next album at a studio in Kansas City for the next three weeks. He asked me if I wanted to come out shoot for a few days. The next day I booked a plane ticket for the 14th. My plane took off at 8:00am from San Diego and I arrived in Kansas City by 4:00pm. Their drum tech, Junior, swooped me and took me straight to the studio. I photographed the guys that night, and for the following four days. I lit the images with different combinations of ambient light, a Canon 580ex and an Alien Bee 800. Here are the images I gathered during my stay, in chronological order.

I shot a quick video thing for the guys, I am sure you will see it turn up sooner or later. I made a jib out of a rolling mic stand, I felt crafty.

Chris is a talented tattoo artist. He did my Ace Ventura,The Mask, the four cartoon friends on my leg. During this recent trip he crafted up my newest addition- a squirrel nibbling on Wisconsin. I’ll post a picture of it as soon as it heals.

The studio they were writing at was about twenty minutes outside of Lawrence, in the middle of nowhere. The top floor was basically a house with six or so bedrooms that the bands could sleep in while they worked.

There were also big open rooms for rehearsing in, or whatever else a band may need to use it for.

Some of the areas were just for storage, but they looked so badass that we did a photo shoot in one of them.

Here is location where our shoot took place, with the lighting set up I used as well. I shot them over by the stairs you can towards the umbrella. Once again I used a mic stand, but this time as a boom- it worked perfect.

I had the best time with these guys. I wish I could still be stranded in the middle of nowhere with them, but then again I know I will cross paths with them again soon. It is a whole different experience for me when I photograph people that I have known for years, rather than minutes. While I was shooting one of the guys mentioned that he didn’t even notice me anymore. I like to refer to this as Ninja status- I have worked years for this, and I am stoked to have finally obtained it. I feel like I captured deeper images this time around mainly due to the fact that I can now truly call these guys my friends. And they better call me Ninja.