Portraits: Interplause

I caught up with the duo Interplause last month to shoot a set of band promos while also having a great workshop, working with up-and-coming music photographer Colleen Allison on lighting technique. Here are some of my favorite images from the shoot.

Photographer’s Notes:

This shoot with DJ and Caleb of Interplause was great. We setup at a spot downtown that had a nice variety of textures and backdrops – walking a minute in any direction gave totally different looks. This sort of flexibility is always something I look for in a location when I know I’m going to want to try different things.

Since this was a workshop shoot as well, I split time between shooting, setting the lights, and instructing Colleen. The main goal of this workshop was to introduce location lighting, so a lot of the emphasis was on building up a lighting scheme to balance with the ambient light.

For this shoot, I used the new Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S exclusively on the D3 – the lens was perfect for isolation and creating a flattering perspective for individuals and the two-person group shots alike. For more samples with this lens, you can check out my extensive review of this new Nikon prime.

Cameras Used:

• Nikon D3

Lenses Used:

• Nikon 85mm f/1.4

Lighting Equipment Used:

• Nikon SB-900 (3x)
• Manfrotto 9′ Quick Stack lighstands
• Nikon SD-9 battery pack
• 18″ Beauty Dish
• 45″ reflective umbrella
• 45″ shoot-through umbrella
• Phottix Strato wireless flash triggers

The key light for this was my DIY beauty dish, the Chinatown Special. For fill, we used a combination of shoot-through and reflective umbrellas, as well as bare flash for rim lighting and backlighting in the different looks.

The flashes used were the Nikon SB-900, my favorite go-to flashes for their nice UI and power, which we triggered using the Phottix Strato wireless flash triggers. You might recall from my review earlier this year.

Big shout out to the guys of Interplaus for being great subjects as always, and to Colleen for being a great student. Special thanks to Allyssa for coming out to assist on short notice and rocking the beauty dish.

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About the author: Todd Owyoung is an internationally published music photographer specializing in concert photography and band portraits. He also grills a mean steak.

Contact Todd for image licensing and assignments wherever the rock show lives. You can also get in touch with Todd via Twitter.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010 at 10:31 am and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with band, band promos, colleen allison, interplause, lighting workshop, music photographer, promos, todd owyoung. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.