Oxford band – Invisible Vegas photo shoot

I recently photographed a set of photos for an Oxford based band Invisible Vegas. I really enjoyed the project because the band gave me quite a free reign on the kind of shots they wanted. I found a great location in Oxfordshire by a river and with an old barn in the grounds. For this shot I used Elinchrom mono-block heads plugged into a portable battery pack. This gave me the freedom to be away from the usual mains power restrictions. I used two flashes to the left and right of the camera and the standard 45 degrees reflectors on the strobes.

Getting the background right meant that the timing of the shot was important as I wanted to capture it at dusk to get a ‘moody’ sky. I used a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second to retain good detail in the clouds and sky. The logs were already there, we just moved them around a little to provide small platforms for each of the band members.

After the outside shoot we moved into the old warehouse to get some closer shots of the band, showing their faces. This shot was lit with three lights, one above the camera through a white umbrella and then two strobes behind and to the side to give rim lights.

This shot was taken with a shoot through umbrella and then a flash behind the band members which creates a back light to the band, and also create the shadow coming out from their feet.

This shot was lit again with two rim lights and one main light above the camera.

Here’s a set-up shot of the band after we had finished the shoot. You can see the two rim lights to the left and right of the picture and the main light high and in the middle but without the umbrella which was attached for the shoot. As we were working inside and had access to the mains power I didn’t have to use a battery pack for these later shots.

Invisible Vegas will next be playing the 02 Academy, Oxford on the 27th May 2009.