Before photographing The National at The Pageant, I had the pleasure of meeting up with musician Owen Pallett for a photo shoot. One light, a beauty dish, and a little ambient light later, here are the results.
Photographer’s Notes:
Normally, I’m quite used to quick, gorilla-style shooting, but this experience was a little different. A little more than an hour before Owen was scheduled to start the show, I was introduced to him by our mutual friend Heather, who was on the tour. As a surprise to both Owen and myself, Heather informed us that we were going to be shooting a couple portraits.
There are times when living five minutes from the Pageant come in handy, and I booked it back to grab a little lighting gear while Owen changed into his stage attire.
I went into this shoot with the intent of using the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S, and the lens performed beautifully. You can read more about this lens in my extensive review.
Cameras Used:
Lenses Used:
Lighting Gear Used:
For this shoot, I used a Nikon SB-900 as the key light on Owen, triggered via CLS by another Nikon SB-900 on-camera. For this sort of quick shoot, the speed and flexibility of CLS is beautiful.
Since we were shooting well after the sun went down and past the blue hour, the only ambient light used for these exposures were streetlights. I shot between f/1.4 and f/1.8 at around 1/40 on the Nikon D3 for this set.
End Notes:
Special thanks to Heather for setting this up and being all around awesome. Thanks to Owen for being a great subject, and thanks to Jason for assisting.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 6th, 2010 at 8:29 am and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with band, beauty dish, final fantasy, music photographer, musician, owen pallett, Portrait Photography, promo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hi Todd,
I love your work! Just curious…. when you shoot portraits at night with streetlights as ambient light (or under any non-daylight balanced light), do you gel your speedlights to balance? If so, what did you use in these portraits?
Thanks a ton for posting. Keep up the great work.
Brad
Hey Brad,
With these portraits, I didn’t gel the lights as I wanted that warm look from the lamps in contrast to the more neutral flash light.
Thanks for the kind words.
Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett w/ the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, a few streetlights & a beauty dish: http://ishootshows.com/2010/12/06/portra…
RT @toddowyoung: Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett w/ the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, a few streetlights & a beauty dish: http://ishootshows.com/2010/12/06/portra…
@toddowyoung Owen Pallett rules.
@toddowyoung surprised he’s in a suit.
RT @toddowyoung: Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett w/ the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, a few streetlights & a beauty dish: http://ishootshows.com/2010/12/06/portra…
tripod or no??
No tripod was used.
Portraits: Owen Pallett http://bit.ly/dGDn6E
Portraits: Owen Pallett: Before photographing The National at The Pageant, I had the pleasure of meeting up with… http://goo.gl/fb/TslCK
I shot Owen at the Houston House of Blues (not a portrait session) when he toured with The National. His music was beautiful and haunting. I got some great stage shots too!
You got some fantastic portraits. The bokeh from the city lights is wonderful. Another fine job!
Hi groovehouse,
Yes, Owen makes amazing music. I recall seeing him years ago when I first started shooting shows – it was great to see his music find a wider audience. Also caught him a couple years ago when he was on tour with Bloc Party, too.
Thanks for the comment.
http://bit.ly/hrlL6I @owenpallett portraits by @toddowyoung
Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett w/ the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, a few streetlights & a beauty dish: http://bit.ly/ecMTDC
Wow, gorgeous @owenpallett! RT @toddowyoung: Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett http://bit.ly/ecMTDC
RT @toddowyoung: Portraits of the talented Owen Pallett w/ the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, a few streetlights & a beauty dish: http://bit.ly/ecMTDC
@zarias would be proud RT @toddowyoung: Portraits of Owen Pallett w/ Nikon 85mm f/1.4G, few streetlights & beauty dish: http://bit.ly/ecMTDC
These are SO NICE RT @Alpentine http://bit.ly/hrlL6I @owenpallett portraits by @toddowyoung
RT @Alpentine: http://bit.ly/hrlL6I @owenpallett portraits by @toddowyoung
Great set Todd! Really beautiful with those bokeh lights in the background! :-)
Hey Dennis, thanks for the kind words. The 85mm f/1.4G did a lot of the hard work with this one.
I really love your work (: What are some of the things you do when you direct your subjects on how to pose? Directing is always the area I have trouble in.