If you are a musician, professional promo photos are a way to convey that you are a serious professional. It’s not just about the music, people can look you up on the web and see if you can play/sing or not. But this doesn’t tell someone willing to hire you if you are going to show up on time and behave professionally. Good photography sends the signal you are for real.
I had a promotional offer for music photography and Susy took me up on it. She used to perform (and I think still does) at CC Blooms in Edinburgh and they generously allowed us to use the room downstairs for the shoot.
I loved the colours of the bar, so it was an easy background choice for portraits. For ladies, I like to use clamshell lighting, as it produces a nice flattering light on the face. The fascinator gives Susy a classy retro look I really liked. I believe Susy has a nice collection of such hats.
If you’ve done this sort of assignment, you know that a small change in head position, orientation as well as expression can make a big difference to the portrait. So I took a lot of photos which made Susy’s choice quite difficult. I take that as a good sign.
Finally, I changed the set up to do an environmental portrait (above) using light painting.
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