I had a quick little photoshoot with Dow Jones of the South Rakkas Crew. They produce dancehall/regge music with an electro edge.
http://www.myspace.com/southrakkas
http://www.southrakkascrew.com/
I shot one of his artists a couple months ago so he called me to snap a couple of promo shots to send out for flyers and such when he travels around the world to DJ. So we went out and found a couple of run down places to shoot at and I brought out my two Vivitar 285's my rebel xti and my sigma 17-70mm lens. Thank goodness it was an overcast day so I didn't have to power out the sun with my tiny 285's.
So my idea since dancehall seems to be the new underground hiphop he needed some pictures that made him look a little tough but not too much like a ghetto rap star. The funny thing is that he is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and just doesnt appear cocky what so ever... so it took a bit of effort to bring it out of him but i think i did an ok job.
Here is the final picture that i liked the best.. I even stuck it into a little CD cover design i threw together just to see how it flowed.
The design isnt all the way finished but it gives you an idea or what it might look like.
OK Here are a couple of shots testing flashes and just getting a feel of his natural look.
Ok im not getting anything at this point.. so i tell him to loosen up a bit so he starts being silly and dancing a bit. I snapped this pic just to show him the difference of what two little Vivitar 285's can do for photography versus on flash at all
No flash at all below:
A back up shot of the quick setup with the two vivitars firing off:
Ok back to work... So we grab his headphones just to give a clue that he is a dj from the shot and I tell him to show hiw shirt because its one of the logos just to kind of showing he is reppin his company. Also we lose the glasses.
Alright now we are getting somewhere he doesnt look smiley and happy he is starting look look a lil more serious..
So then I say point the headphones at the camera and look down towards the lens
And bam I took the shot Chimped it and knew this was one of my favs.
I decided to not use any umbrellas just to keep the light raw and harsh there might be some unconventional shadows in the pic but i dig them =]
Here is another shot by a railroad car one strobe pointed at him camera right and one pointed at the car camera left to light the background to give some separation.. I should have brought out my 3rd light to give him a rimlight but oh well.
Not a great tutorial but just something quick to show the process of how I got the shot.
P.S. showing love to the website http://strobist.blogspot.com/
whom i learned ALOT from
