With this year, 2023 kicking off with a bit of a busy schedule (if you have noticed my feed for The Pitch, there have already been four concerts, with a possible fifth one coming up in two days), I was fortunate to be able to take a little time out and do a promotional shoot for a friend’s band that has a new album coming out on a UK record label, New Heavy Sounds. This was the second shoot that the band had to have done, for reasons unknown to me, but I was happy to work with them. There was only one stipulation, no props.
While for the most part, this is no problem at all. However, the band, known as They Watch Us From The Moon, performs in costume, all six members do. And the label didn’t want them in said costumes for the shoot (remember, no props). So, street clothes it was. However, the question that present itself to me was, how do I, as the photographer, keep the idea of the the band members’ identity hidden as they would during a show (because of masks) while not having their performance clothing available for the shoot?
This is where I got to have some fun. Unlike a normal shoot that I do, which is a live concert setting where the photographer has absolutely no control over anything he or she sees in front of them, in a promotional/staged shot, you have complete control over everything; from where the member of the band stand/sit, to how they tilt their head, to the lighting that is used, etc. It is a dream of artistic, creative freedom to do whatever I wanted to, however I wanted to.
For the six members of the band were more than happy to do anything that I had dreamed up, which I did about a week’s worth of research, I had several different shots in my head that I really wanted to try. What helped here was the fact that we had full access to a local concert hall/dive bar that was closed to the public on Sundays, and their lighting system. This shoot was such a blast to do.
