help with band's promo shots

theinlawjosie

I was recently asked to be the "photographer" for a local band in my area and they are wanting to get together for some promo shots soon. I have taken lots of pictures of bands on stage performing, but the whole promo shot/album art thing is new to me. I was wondering if any of you guys have experience with this and might be able to give a few suggestions on location, lighting, posing, etc.

The band is a four piece (two guys two girls) and they play mostly acoustic stuff. The bass player plays an upright so I was thinking of incorporating it into the shoot, but other than that I have no idea what to do. Oh yeah, three of the band members are about 6' and the other female in the band is about 5'3", this is also freaking me out a bit. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Art Scott

Barns and noble used to have a book on album covers from the 60's thru the 80's.....the drummer should have his/her sticks.........have them doing something.......did you ever see the album for tommy james and the shondels album mony mony...the band was climbing all over a rolls royce, just having some fun.....take your band to the park get them to interact with each other but still paying attention to the camera......with the altitude irestricted member, make she is in front at all times......do you havce any perfromance pics to post....I usually like to study a bands (or single performer) personality on stage to get ideas also.....do you have a skate park you could shoot at...use the jumps and ramps as you would studio props to sit on and such....or you could do just standard portrait stuff as if they were bothers and sisters, posing them in pairs back to back arms folded heads turned to camera or turnd a tad futher and scowling with eyebrows raised....

If it actually an album cover your shooting for them what is the concept of the album???

theinlawjosie

Art Scott wrote:

Barns and noble used to have a book on album covers from the 60's thru the 80's.....the drummer should have his/her sticks.........have them doing something.......did you ever see the album for tommy james and the shondels album mony mony...the band was climbing all over a rolls royce, just having some fun.....take your band to the park get them to interact with each other but still paying attention to the camera......with the altitude irestricted member, make she is in front at all times......do you havce any perfromance pics to post....I usually like to study a bands (or single performer) personality on stage to get ideas also.....do you have a skate park you could shoot at...use the jumps and ramps as you would studio props to sit on and such....or you could do just standard portrait stuff as if they were bothers and sisters, posing them in pairs back to back arms folded heads turned to camera or turnd a tad futher and scowling with eyebrows raised....

If it actually an album cover your shooting for them what is the concept of the album???

Thanks for the ideas....as far as performance shots go, all I have as of now are practice shots b/c they haven't actually played out yet.....they are a newly formed band. I forgot to mention the band is made of two couples....would you recommend posing the couples together? I do have a skate park near by and I will definitely keep that in mind. The band has a myspace page if you want to check out some shots of the individual members. I did not take the majority of the shots on the page, but it should give you an idea of my subjects and their style of music. The link is www.myspace.com/fourgrain

Thanks again!

Art Scott

theinlawjosie wrote:

Thanks for the ideas....as far as performance shots go, all I have as of now are practice shots b/c they haven't actually played out yet.....they are a newly formed band. I forgot to mention the band is made of two couples....would you recommend posing the couples together? I do have a skate park near by and I will definitely keep that in mind. The band has a myspace page if you want to check out some shots of the individual members. I did not take the majority of the shots on the page, but it should give you an idea of my subjects and their style of music. The link is www.myspace.com/fourgrain

Thanks again!

I'll give it a look......actually shoot as couple and then switch partners using the back to back crossed arm railsed eyebrow posed .adies in the center type of shot....