July 22, 2009 – What do you do when you get five minutes with thrash metal kings Slayer? You make sure you know all of the band member’s names, you dial in your lights, and you don’t think about the fact that they’ve been crushing eardrums and melting faces since the time you were in diapers.
Photographer’s Notes:
When you get a call about an assignment for Rolling Stone, the best possible answer is probably, ” Yes. I can absolutely do that.” Or not, but that’s what I said, anyway.
The main charge for covering Mayhem Fest was the live performances of the headlining bands: Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Killswitch Engage, and Bullet For My Valentine. However, when I called the tour’s on-site production coordinator before heading to out to the venue, I immediately inquired about portrait possibilities.
“Killswitch would definitely do a portrait. I’ll ask Slayer’s people.”
And with that, in addition to my normal concert gear, I packed up my speedlights, lightstands, and the rest. When I checked in with production, the production coordinator confirmed that the shoot with Slayer was on the table. The band had 5-minutes. Could I do that?
“Yes. I can absolutely do that.”
After talking to the tour’s stage manager about possible locations and touring the backstage area, we decided on the band’s gear trailer as the location with the best look.
The shoot is scheduled for just before the band goes on stage at 8:30pm, and I make the plan to setup in the trailer starting around 8:00pm. Just before 8:00pm, my assistant Allyssa showed up and we headed backstage and assembled the lights and roughly dialed in the flash power.
The band’s trailer was still full of racks and crates, all of this work was roughing it before we could get into the trailer. The trailer was cleared by the stage crew about 8:15pm, so we quickly setup and fine-tuned the lighting.
At 8:20pm, the band came out, filed into the trailer, and we got to work. From the first shot to the last, the shoot lasted 3-minutes 43-seconds.
Here’s the setup we used:
For this shoot, the Nikon Speedlight system really excelled. Fast and light, the strobes worked flawlessly and made setup a breeze. Controlling the flash power from the SB-900 as the commander meant no running around to set the lights, only spinning the command dial of the flash.
End Notes:
Big thanks to everyone who made this happen, and especially to Amanda Moore with 4Fini and my assistant Allyssa Ohlman.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with backlight, boom, CLS, location, mayhem, mayhem fest, Portrait Photography, promo, rolling stone, slayer, softbox, speedlights, trailer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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What do you do when you get a five minute portrait shoot with thrash metal kings Slayer? You cowboy up & you dial it in: http://bit.ly/Fr24N
Awesome! I can’t even begin to imagine what a challenge this would be, but you captured them nicely! :)
Hey JR, thanks for the comment. It was a really tough shoot – with a band like Slayer, they’ve done countless shoots and they’ve probably seen it all. This was also the shortest shoot I’ve done by half, so the pressure was really on to deliver.
Absolutely wicked. The assistant helps I guess to!
Hey Sean,
Yes, assistants are wonderful. Allyssa was a great help in knocking out this quick shoot, especially given the quick timeframe. And with a “voice-activated” boom, it made the shoot all the easier.
You’ve got a 5 minute slot to shoot metal gods Slayer, what do you do…ask @ToddOwyoung- http://bit.ly/pcLxj
love the shadows in the vertical shot!!!
given the time restraints I won’t criticise the other, as I imagine it was literally setup with a tried & tested lighting technique, band turns up…get in place, snap snap band walks on stage haha
looking forward to the others, killswitch shoot in particular!
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the comment, nice to hear from you here. Yup, this shoot was very, very quick, but it all worked out and the band was easy to work with. No sweat, right?
excellent Todd, as usual
what a little piece of time, my gosh!
congratz!
Hey Gaisler,
Thanks very much for the kind words.
3 mins 45 seconds ? I stood in line at Starbucks longer this morning.
Nice job not letting the celebrity status of the band distract you. Great captures Tod!
Hey Paul,
Great to hear from you here. Even with the very short timeframe, it was almost as if there was no concept of it. I was just shooting as much as I could, making sure the lighting was working, and was working as quickly as possible to get the band on their way and on stage.
What do you do when you get a five minute portrait shoot with thrash metal kings Slayer You cowboy up & you dial it in: http://bit.ly/Fr24N
RT @toddowyoung: What do you do when you get a five minute portrait shoot with thrash metal kings Slayer? http://bit.ly/Fr24N
Portaits: Slayer | ishootshows.com: Portraits: Slayer, for Rolling Stone. July 22, 2009 – What do you do when yo.. http://bit.ly/47fpAS
Just awesome Todd ! And what an honor. You obviously handle a pressure situation like this quite well. I get a lot of inspiration from your photography.
Just two questions. Do you think you needed the fill with those white walls giving you lots of bounce? And the two dudes on the left look tanned while the two on the right look pink. Was that the case in reality or could it be a color balance difference between the two light modifiers?
Hey Gene,
It was definitely a high-pressure shoot, but I think we all made it happen in the short time allotted.
To answer your questions, the fill was definitely needed – there was a lot of light coming from behind, but not too much that was actually reflected onto the faces of the band members from where they were. As for the skintones, that’s pretty much the way it was – I don’t think it’s a color balance issue. The band is being lit entirely by speedlights and the color temp. of those is all matched. I haven’t noticed any difference in the color temp from the different modifiers that would account for that either. Also, everyone is being lit by the softbox and receiving some degree of fill.
RT @toddowyoung: What do you do when you get a five minute portrait shoot with thrash metal kings Slayer? http://bit.ly/Fr24N
Todd,
Great shots under tough conditions!
Do you prefer to let the CLS system do the work, or are the flashes in manual and you set them up?
Hi Tim,
I’m using CLS and I’m shooting with the flashes in manual mode.
Dude, I love the second image, the bright reflection off the floor really makes the shadow pop, amazing job! I love the face on the guitarist, doubt you had to say anything just stand there and shoot, they did all the rest huh?
The only critic I would have is that it feels odd when three shadows come right at the camera but the guy on the far left’s shadow floats off to the left, obviously I was diggin for something. :) Great work as usual.
Thanks for the comments. I gave the guys basic instruction on how I wanted them to be positioned and told them how to stand. Just the normal kinds of posing so that everyone is clear and nothing essential is getting cut off in the stack.
The great thing was that all during the shoot, Kerry King was just noodling away on his guitar, even through the positioning, giving the camera a pretty badass stare.
Great story. I really enjoyed it! Geeze, you must have been on adrenaline. It’s amazing that you made this shoot happen so quickly. Especially considering that the band had to go on stage so soon. Way to handle the stress.
Bongopix,
Thanks for the comment. It certainly was an adrenaline rush, which kept things moving. There wasn’t too much time to stop or slow down.
I’m used to doing very quick shoots, so even though this was the quickest setup of this kind, it all worked out, thankfully.
Old time rockers, still rockin’! Cool shots! I really like the lighting too. I do feel the shots would be even better if cropping out the guy on the left. He’s just trying too hard, haha! I can’t even imagine a shot like this done in the time constraints you had. Excellent job!
Hey Thomas,
Yup, these guys still rocked. Next time I’ll get Dave in line.
Trust me, Todd, I should be the one thanking you! The experience was amazing. Even though the shoot was quick and slightly hectic, you defiantly got the shot. Major kudos!
Hey Allyssa! The shoot was much easier thanks to you. We’ll do something again soon — definitely going to be doing more shoots in the Fall for sure. Thanks again!
todd-i totally agree about the versatility of the nikon system (donno about canons, never tried)
when doing anything… its totally great to not have to run around and fiddle with things..only hit up the hotshoe mounted device (su-800 for me, sb-900 for you) to adjust.
ever try the su-800?
Hey Tony,
No, I’ve never tried the SU-900, though it seems like a nice option. I’d love if Nikon made a commander the size of the SU-800 but with the interface of the SB-900. It’s all about the jog dial.
I’m waiting on the new Pocket Wizards for Nikon, but until then, CLS is treating me well.
[...] we wrapped up a quick 3-minute 43-second portrait shoot, Slayer took the stage and I jumped into the photo pit. The epic thrash-metal four-piece got to [...]
nikon pocket wizards you say?
go on….
Hey Tony,
Check out the current Pocket Wizards – the Nikon versions are coming out soon. I’ll be picking up a set.
http://www.pocketwizard.com/inspirations/technology/controltl/
Excellent stuff Todd!
Nice work, Todd! Just curious: Was a release signed before photographing Slayer’s concert footage and portraits? If you dont’ mind me asking, can you be specific to what kind of release it was, and also, who did the signing? Lastly, could you write an article about the different kinds of releases, and the one(s) you use, and possibly mention a book/website that offers these release forms. Thanks!
[...] I loved photographing Mayhem Fest. Metal is always hugely fun to photograph, but what made this a standout event for me was all-access and the thrill of a high-pressure photo shoot with metal legends Slayer. [...]
Anyone catch Slayer on Jimmy Fallon? Did they broadcast one of these portraits? http://bit.ly/acvfmw