any ideas for photo session with death metal band?

[Emil]

Hi,

a friend of mine have asked me to take some pictures of his band for promotional use. I am of course very honoured, and thrilled to have the chance to create some photographic art with these guys, but...

...I have no idea what to do!

If anyone here on the forum have any kind of crazy idea or inspiration for me, I would be very happy.

Location, mood, medium, look, technique, anything!!

The band is trio that plays death metal, guys in their twenties and all of them really nice and intelligent.

They told me they would like color pictures, in the woods, everyday clothes, but I think that would be a little too folk music-y, don't you?

What would you do? abandoned factory, wide-angle from floor level, subjects jumping off of step ladders? Tell them to relax or act tough or... dress them up as teletubbies?

As you may have guessed I have never done anything like this before, so I look forward to hearing all your crazy ideas

Thank you all

Emil

and please let me know if this is the wrong forum

 

[Rick A]

I think some garish colored lights and/or colored filters, spfx filters of any kind, nekkid chicks, and all the other trite bs you can think of.

Rick

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Dress them in diapers and then use litho masking and stripping techniques to have them popping out of tulips or rolling around in a wicker basket of puppies--the full Anne Geddes treatment, analogue style of course.

 

[nickandre]

Try some 3200 speed film (TMZ or Delta) or 800 speed color film (gold 800) shot under fluorescent lighting to give the green color in 35mm to get grain. Use a nifty 50. Sounds like much fun. For setting a nice old warehouse.

 

[ntenny]

I think some garish colored lights and/or colored filters, spfx filters of any kind, nekkid chicks, and all the other trite bs you can think of.

No, that's 80s hair metal and its successors, which is pretty much the cultural antithesis of death metal...

Unfortunately, since this is promo work, I think you're probably pretty constrained by the styles of the genre, which means a lot of leather, a lot of candid or faux-candid studio shots, and the obligatory group portrait of all of them looking disreputable and menacing. It's the commercial-photography problem---promos are the wrong place to be artistically adventurous...

But it might be fun just to mix in some high-contrast, gritty b&w street-esque material of the band members, for instance. The kind of stuff you'd see routinely for an East Coast hardcore band, and not so weird as to threaten the viewer's image of them as a metal band, but Something A Little Different nonetheless.

I would tend to avoid unexpected props...although the image just jumped into my head unbidden of the band gathered around a morgue table dissecting a giant Hello Kitty, and you may do with that thought what you like, I guess!

-NT

 

[Jeremy]

Listen to the music and journal ideas that come to you.

 

[Dave Pritchard]

My first suggestion is to watch "This is Spinal Tap" a couple of times. After that, just turn it up to 11.

 

[MattKing]

Listen to the music and journal ideas that come to you.

As Jeremy says.

Or if you prefer, something that you would consider to be the antithesis of:

http://adamanthenes.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/fleetwood-mac-rumours.jpg



Matt

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

There can really be no half measures with this sort of thing. It's either Anne Geddes, or dust their skin with white chalk, dress them in torn rags, and photograph them face down in a muddy ditch, like corpses in a mass grave.

 

[Michael W]

Here's hundreds of examples of what not to do ...

 

[thebanana]

Stay out of the mosh pit?

 

[ntenny]

I just realised the OP is from Denmark, which I expect changes the rules significantly. For one thing, there's that weird nexus between folk music and metal in a lot of Northern Europe---has that reached Denmark, and is that actually perhaps part of their reason for wanting "normal clothes in the woods" colour photos? There's also a long tradition of rock-n-roll mysticism, going back at least to Led Zeppelin, that seems to be more persistent in Europe than the US---you know, you talk about a Danish metal band in the woods, and I imagine Vikings around the campfire...

I still think you probably have to work within whatever the expectations for promo material are with European death-metal bands, but those expectations probably aren't the same as the ones in the US that I was thinking of when I posted.

-NT

 

[Ken22485]

Here's hundreds of examples of what not to do ...

I love the caption on this picture...

 

[Rick A]

No, that's 80s hair metal and its successors, which is pretty much the cultural antithesis of death metal...

Unfortunately, since this is promo work, I think you're probably pretty constrained by the styles of the genre, which means a lot of leather, a lot of candid or faux-candid studio shots, and the obligatory group portrait of all of them looking disreputable and menacing. It's the commercial-photography problem---promos are the wrong place to be artistically adventurous...

But it might be fun just to mix in some high-contrast, gritty b&w street-esque material of the band members, for instance. The kind of stuff you'd see routinely for an East Coast hardcore band, and not so weird as to threaten the viewer's image of them as a metal band, but Something A Little Different nonetheless.

I would tend to avoid unexpected props...although the image just jumped into my head unbidden of the band gathered around a morgue table dissecting a giant Hello Kitty, and you may do with that thought what you like, I guess!

-NT

Me thinks you failed to notice the hint of sarcasm in my post.

Rick

 

[perkeleellinen]

If the guys want colour in the woods, I think I'd give them colour in the woods. Work within those constraints and spend time scouting a few good locations and thinking about how to make it good. Regular clothes is a bit of a disappointment, could be difficult to make it interesting and not just 'group of men in woods'.

I'd toy with the idea of getting them to set up a full-set in a woodland clearing. Drum kit, amps, everything. I'd then get as many people as possible to turn up and shoot the band 'playing' live so to speak from a slight distance as if you were three rows back at a gig. So, some dark and blurred back of heads in the shots but the focus on the band. Would be great if you found a clearing where the light illuminated the area but left the surrounding woodland in relative darkness.

 

[Bosaiya]

Emil,

It's been a while but I think I still remember the feeling well enough.

Celtic Frost did some interesting things, more Hieronymus Bosch than metal.

There is a modern death metal band from your region (aren't they all these days?) that often features the main character sulking around in the woods. I can't remember the name off the top of my head but it's pretty common knowledge and I'm sure the source of your friends' inspiration.

If it were me I'd go for cross-processing to get some funky colors and shoot into the sun with uncoated lenses to get some intense lens flare in the shot. Shoot from low angles. It's been my experience that death metal bands want to look like badasses but often end up looking just plain silly, so hide as much as possible to leave it up to the viewer's imagination.

Which band is it?

 

[Emil]

Hi.

I loved the link to the page with horrible band photos!!!

I'm really excited now to go out and do this, and see if I can do something original.

Bosaiya, the band is called Grevil, they don't have a website yet, but I think they're on myspace. They are actually quite contemplative in their music and lyrics, and not very badass or scary. The guy I know, Magnus is a student of astrophysics and philosophy.

I really like the idea of setting up a gig in the woods and I will definately do that at some point, but for this shoot the budget is limited to, well, nothing. I do have an idea, that I'd like to get some feedback on. How about bringing a rope to the shoot, and have a tug-of-war contest between the band members? I could get some great closeup shots of arms and faces, and bring some dynamics and masculinity to the imagery. Is it too contrived and cliché? It certainly also adds to the Viking image (I don't know if that's something they would want). This as an addition to the group shots and individual portraits, of course.

In my mind the whole thing wants to be done in black and white, but the band really wants color. I think I'm going to look for something in-between.

Emil

 

[DLawson]

I love the caption on this picture...

Is the kneeling guy holding a tiki torch? What sort of bet did he lose?

 

[ntenny]

I really like the idea of setting up a gig in the woods and I will definately do that at some point, but for this shoot the budget is limited to, well, nothing.

What would you need a budget for? They pack up their equipment, they drive out to the woods, they set up. (Somebody needs a generator if they're going to run amps, but IMHO any good metal band ought to be able to play a respectable acoustic set...)

-NT

 

[removed account4]

how about just a normal color photograph of them in the woods ...
you know - a beautiful landscape and the band is
wearing sweaters and their sunday-best, all smiley, giddy and cute.
it would be reminiscent of "throbbing gristle 20 jazz funk greats"

 

[Anscojohn]

No matter what, I would be sure to use a Lanthanum "death metal" lens for the shoot! ~+>}}

 

[Bosaiya]

how about just a normal color photograph of them in the woods ...
you know - a beautiful landscape and the band is
wearing sweaters and their sunday-best, all smiley, giddy and cute.
it would be reminiscent of "throbbing gristle 20 jazz funk greats"

Or Dario Argento's Phenomena. Of course unless times have changed drastically irony was never well-received by the youth of the day (Minor Threat being a case in point).

 

[Bosaiya]

In my mind the whole thing wants to be done in black and white, but the band really wants color. I think I'm going to look for something in-between.

That's why I suggested cross-processing: Wash out the colors. You get the best (or worst) of both worlds.

 

[Bosaiya]

For example:

Or this cheery holiday scene:

 

[removed account4]

Or Dario Argento's Phenomena. Of course unless times have changed drastically irony was never well-received by the youth of the day (Minor Threat being a case in point).

exactly!