The Illustrative Look – Band Photography

I love band photography, it gives me a chance to seek out a bands presence, or their vibe and create something original. This band was a band that had been broken up for a few years and recently gotten back together and needed a photo for their press package.

They wanted something original, and cool looking, as well as something they called “Urban Grunge”. So I put them in front of a garage, and used strobe to overpower the sunlight, and when I edited the photo I used photoshop to paint a “Tag” of their band name “Wild Hare”.

I used a blend of high contract, layering and desaturation, to get that illustrative look of the picture. The only thing I would have done differently is to set the lights differently. I had the lights coming from either side of them, thus creating a criss cross shadow, which for some people can be a bit distracting. If I could do it differently, I would put one light to camera right and one light to camera center instead of camera left and right.