My recent Kent (UK) music shoot with hip-hop artist RBN (Rapper By Nature) was a great opportunity to visit some grimy derelict locations.

I’d been recommended to RBN by a few of the members of Promise Me Tomorrow; a band I shot a little while back. Both Josh and Aaron run a recording studio in Kent which is where RBN has been laying down his tracks. He said he was looking for some photos for his up and coming EP… word of mouth took over and the rest is history.

For the shoot I knew I wanted to do a mix of location and studio photos, as for an emerging artist I feel it is important to cover all the basis and have a great set of images to call upon for as many situations as possible. So we were looking for EP cover shots, photos to go on the back with the track listing, head shots for Twitter, a ‘magazine cover’ shot etc.

Here is a short video taken from the outdoor location.

For this first set-up I wanted some straight up powerful portraits. Something where he would give off the impression of power and pride without being overtly ‘gangster’.

The Second set-up was aimed around being the reverse of the EP with the track listing on the left hand side. This one was a bit ‘realer’ and implemented him more within the location.

For the third set-up I wanted a bleached white backdrop with his body falling completely into silhouette. I then added a focused light so as to pick out just his face. The fourth set-up was used again to add an impression of strength and power.

http://twitter.com/jwphotography

In this video I am showing you a quick walk-through of the post processing I did to an image from a recent band shoot I had.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzfqlBErvMk

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments below

As of today, users can start seeing bigger, bolder Flickr photo pages with prettier controls and more apparent options for learning more about each image.

For one thing, photos will automatically be a lot bigger — 640 pixels wide on the photo’s main page. Flickr has also placed the “who, where, when, how” of related information just to the right of the photo. These so-called story elements will be easier to see and edit and will make research and discovery easier for Flickr users.

Navigation controls have gotten a bit prettier and easier to use, as well. The familiar filmstrip interface has been completely redone. And when you really want to appreciate a particular snap in all its splendor, try out the new lightbox view.

If you want to zoom in on an image, just hover your mouse over the picture, and you’ll see a magnifying glass.

“We’ve been keen to build a better showcase for your photos for some time,” wrote Flickr staffer Josh Nguyen on the Flickr blog. “With the new photo experience, you can discover, share and organize your visual stories in a new and improved way.”

You can go to your Flickr account to test out the new interface right now.

What do you think of these changes? Are they simpler to use and/or more aesthetically pleasing to you?

Here we have an awesome video of some great tips to show you all how to get some awesome shots from the one and only Chase Jarvis!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6zK6cz52CI

Let us know in the comments below, how you will use these tips!

In this video tutorial I am showing you how I get my images ready to proof for my clients. It’s a simple process of letting Adobe Lightroom creating proofing HTML galleries ready for you to upload and to show your clients!

It’s very simple, but sometimes overlooked…..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXB4hfQI2Zg

Let us know in the comments below, how you get your shots ready for proofing!

We are pleased to announce that Amber McConnell with her shot ‘Our Waking Hour’ is our flickr pool winner of the week!

This week we chose this shot because it is very creative!

All the band members are lit evenly which is hard enough to do in the first place, and she went all out in the post processing.. however she pulled it off! Adding lots of textures and effects can really spoil a great shot, but we believe Amber got the perfect balance here. The band are blended well with the other textures and Amber also used select toning which really gives this image a kind of ‘mystical’ feel! She also used a logo behind the band to bring the whole image together.

Here is what Amber told us about her shot:

This is a promo shot I did for a San Antonio band called Our Waking Hour. The band wanted something that was clean but also surreal and dreamlike. It was shot against a white wall using three alien bees lights with softboxes. I had one large horizontal softbox in front of the band just above eye level and one smaller softbox on each side.

Amber McConnell is a photographer based in Texas, USA. Be sure to check out more of her work at her personal flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambermcconnellphotography

Congratulations Amber!

So tell us, what do you think of Amber McConnell’s ‘Our Waking Hour’? Tell us in the comments below!

Ohhh, the softbox. It is probably one of the most used and at the same time, could quite possibly be one of the most overlooked light modifier. Maybe because of it’s simple design and structure. Maybe because it’s been around for a while now. But, the softbox is not a light modifier that anyone should pass by quickly.

Now, the softbox itself is a very versitile light modifier. It can be used in many different ways. Key lighting, rim lighting, hair light, boomed out, on and on and on and on. A thing to notice about this light modifier is that not only does it put out nice light, but more importantly, it puts out some feathered light.  What does that mean for us photographers?  It means that we can control and direct it’s light better. That is what it’s all about, right?  Controlling and putting the light where we want it and where we dont.

It took me a couple weeks to pull of this shot.  Mainly because I wanted minimal to no light on the background, I just wanted light on the subject and more importantly, I wanted it to look like the light was coming from the table lamp.

I used my large softbox and had it angled towards the camera, so that the very edge of the light was just hitting the subject.  I couldn’t achieve this with my beauty dish or large octabox (mainly because it was just too big.)

I cannot say this enough, the softbox is very versitile. Go ahead and check out some of Dave Hill’s recent BTS videos, you’ll see that recently, he’s been using a softbox for hair/rim lighting. And you can see some of the SOOC(straight out of the camera) shots/results that they are getting. All in all, give the softbox some use. See what you can do with it. It’s a great modifier that isn’t one to be overlooked quickly. I’ve been trying to use it more and more with each shoot that I have, to use it to it’s fullet potential.

So today is a special day for PromoShots.com We are announcing our exclusive PromoShots store!

The PromoShots store will feature a whole variety of awesome Photography clothing.

Photographers need some great apparel to match their creative craft, and we haven’t found anything worth noting.. So we we decided to create it ourselves!

The first addition to our store is the awesome T-Shirt:

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Hi, my name is Joseph Watts and this is my first guest post on Promoshots.com

Last week I was commissioned to shoot some portraits of a dancer in Kent called Louise who specialises in hip hop. She wanted to be able to use the photos in a professional and also personal context so I ensured she had a wide range of shots from flash-based hip hop images to ambient natural headshots.

As is my favourite thing to do (time permitting), a week before the shoot I went out location scouting. I knew of a place that I’d shot a few years ago for an online periodical but wanted to refresh my memory.

The location is a tunnel/bridge under-pass with graffiti all over the walls which I knew would work for the hip hop images. So I wanted to find how close to this location I could find a second location which could be used for the natural set-up. To my amazement I found a secluded field about a 5 minute walk from the bridge which had some great features; long grass and isolated trees.

So now I was happy. I knew where I wanted to shoot and how far we’d have to travel which is important because I was carrying all my kit and she would be bringing a large bag full of clothes.

Here’s how the shoot played out.

I wanted to ease her into the shoot so thought I’d begin with some tight headshots. I find this a great way to begin as the model/dancer etc only has to think about a small section of their body when posing.

Thanks to my location scout the week prior I knew exactly where I wanted to shoot her headshots… in the long grass.

Here is a snap from my phone of the long grass as seen from my perspective. I don’t always worry about composition or even the exposure when taking a snap of a location because it is just there to remind me of a place.

Here’s how the final shot looks taken literally from the exact same location. Louise was an incredible subject!

Being a dancer she doesn’t really suffer from nerves, so when I said ‘ok look straight at me’… Boom! She hit me with those eyes!… she showed no fear of the camera what-so-ever which was so refreshing.

Next up I wanted some longer length images with a subtle fashion feel. So where on earth would I shoot these? Oh yeah, there was that tree I saw last week…

What I hadn’t noticed was that there were stinging nettles at the bottom of the trunk, so after some trampling on my part and the addition of a black bag I was able to move Louise into place.

Following swiftly on was the hip hop set-up. We walked the 5 minutes to the location only to find out I’d dropped my trigger at the first location so I left Louise with the stuff and ran back to find it… luckily I did find it!

What I thought would be a nice touch for this section seen as I don’t have a location snap is to show an evolution of a shot.

Basically this series of images shows how I build a shot using flash. I went from frame one (IMG_5161) and was capturing useable photos at frame nine (IMG_5170) which took roughly 3 minutes. I have added some descriptions below each image to describe what I changed and what led me to the next frame.

Here is the final set of images from this section. For the seated shot I only had to shorten the light stand to bring the light down to the correct height.

Great model, great locations… I hope the next one is this much fun!

I hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. For more of my work and some other indepth behind the scenes blogs visit my website at Josephwatts.co.uk

So tell me, did you prefer the natural lighting or strobe light? Let me know in the comments below!

We are pleased to announce that Severin Sadjina with his shot ‘Gåte’ is our flickr pool winner of the week!

We picked this weeks winner as it really sounds out from the ‘norm’. Severin has done a great job with this shot, by creatively using lighting mixed with HDR style processing to make this image really pop.

He did a great job using his lights to get that great rim lighting on all of the subjects in the picture and another great thing we like about this  image is the pose of each band member. Most band shots you see these days is just a bunch of people standing in a line staring at the camera, however in this shot you get the feel that each band member as their owns story and personality.. which is a hard thing to do!

Here is what Severin told us about this shot:

So this shot was taken as an editorial shot for the student magazine I am working for. The band Gåte (meaning “riddle”) has been quite successful in Norway and some other European countries (Germany, for
example) some years ago. After the band split up, they got together again for a cultural festival that takes place in Trondheim every other year and we had an article about them in the magazine.

We did the interview around the industrial harbor area in Trondheim so while the journalist was talking to them I got out to scout for locations. As is often the case with student magazine related work, it is hard to gather info on the shot beforehand so most of the times I have to improvise and think fast. Luckily, we found this cool location close by and I had about 20 minutes to set up the light and get the right exposure.

I used a basic three light setup with some additional fill from below: I had one flash through a shoot-through umbrella from front overhead, two flashes from behind and from both sides just outside the frame and flagged in order to avoid light spill onto the scene or the camera lens, and two flashes mounted with medium-sized softboxes on the ground in front of them (also makes them pop out a little more). I triggered those with a mix of Elinchrom Skyports and optical slaves.
I used a Canon 40D so I knew I could go down to a shutter speed of 1/320s if I was careful. As you can see there are no confusing shadows on the ground because no flash light reaches the sensor at 1/320s in the bottom part of the image. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on personal preference and the shot at hand. I simply wanted to overpower the ambient light with my speedlights as much as possible.

I chose wide angle (15mm on the Canon 40D equals 24mm on a full frame
body) and a low perspective to make them appear more “grand”.

So just as I finished setting everything up the band came and I got like five minutes to shoot them. Luckily it was enough to get a decent shot for the magazine.

For post production, I wanted to extract as much detail as possible so first I made a pseudo-HDR out of the RAW file using Photomatix Pro and tonemapped it with the Detail Extractor module. That can work out really great for this type of shots and this sort of lighting. The rest of the job was done in Adobe Lightroom (including dodging and burning and partial desaturation).

Severin Sadjina is a PhD Student based in Trondheim, Norway. Be sure to check out more of his work at his personal website http://www.sesaphoto.com/

Congratulations Severin!

So tell us, what do you think of Severin Sadjina’s ‘Gåte’? Tell us in the comments below!