Alessa Is Red Photoshoot.
These are my boys Alessa Is Red! My friend Keoki, whom is already all over my blog, recently joined the band to play drums. Now that they have been together for a little bit, are starting to book shows and on the cusp of release a new EP they decided they needed some promos!
So about a month ago the guys came to me wanting to do photos. I asked them what style or ideas they had so we could get on the same page and they told me they were trying to avoid the photos where the band is sitting out in an open field of tall grass because they were a little more serious than that. They mentioned some grittiness and and urban feel as well as sent me some images with pretty harsh lighting and colder colors to reference to. So I took that into consideration and went searching for a spot in Downtown San Diego to shoot.
I set off in downtown around 10th street and remembered when I first started shooting film at City College in 2005-6 I used to wander around the neighborhoods east of that area shooting random pieces of trash and fire hydrants...no I am not sure why. So I decided to head back that way because I remembered a steep hill with a amazing skyline view. After getting there and looking at my angles and lighting I realized my good friend Matt Lingo also shot a really awesome biking photo there for his series "This City Can't Swallow Me"....
After scouting this first spot my gf and myself went looking for a possible second spot in the area in case I needed a back up plan. Also, if i was going to be having a vast skyline in the BG of the group photo then it might be cool to localize the downtown feel when we went to shoot individual photos. And we stumbled upon this spot:
Starting with the first spot, I had some trouble finding someone to assist so I called my friend Justin who picked up and helped me out on the drop of a dime. Lifesaver. I realized early on that I would need to situate the band in the middle of the street (possibly illegal) and would also need to be able to move them and the lights quickly if cars or police came rolling through. That being said we attached one light to a stop sign and the key light was being hand held by Justin but before we get ahead of ourselves here's a test shot of Justin on the side of the street at the first location:
After we go setup the guys arrived and we had to wait for some skaters to finish up their filming before we could shoot. Shout out to the kid who bombed both hills on B Street, that was insane.
There was a lot of going back and forth to get these and the shots from later that night because of the traffic. There were a couple angry drivers but most of the drivers passing actually waited for Justin to waive them by because they didn't want to ruin the shot or they were just interested in watching for a second...super cool. After we got some solid shots the guys decided they wanted to hit up the second spot down the street and then try to come back to the first spot when the sun went down a little. I agreed so we took off to the second spot and shot there for a little bit.
I wish I would've stopped down to f/11 on this one...live and learn:
After we shot a good amount of images there we headed back to the first spot and popped off these final images:
That first one was used for their "Bandpage":
A couple more:
I like this one but the image doesn't stand alone very well. When I shot this I imagined they could throw their band logo/name up in the sky really big.
It was a pretty crazy process and all around a pretty successful maiden voyage for all my new equipment. I have another couple blogs to post up about my new setup and another couple shoots I've done recently too!
Thanks for checking out this post and I'm excited to improve on all my mistakes from one shoot and jump head first into the next one.
In the meanwhile check out Alessa Is Red's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/alessaisred