{"id":1007,"date":"2017-01-26T15:19:51","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T15:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/?p=1007"},"modified":"2020-03-23T11:20:38","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T11:20:38","slug":"music-photography-diving-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/music-photography-diving-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Photography: Diving Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester based band Diving station are releasing their first EP today at Aatma, 14-16 Faraday St, M1 1BE.\u00a0I was fortunate to photograph them last August when they visited Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

I really love long exposures of seascapes, because of their effect on water and clouds. I had dreamt of combining a long seascape exposure with people in the shot, and when I proposed this idea to Anna McLuckie, the lead singer, she was very enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
Diving station at Silverknowes beach, Edinburgh. From left to right, George Burrage, Sean Rogan, Anna McLuckie, Barny Kimberley.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The picture above consists of two photographs, one with a relatively short exposure to get the band and a second frame taken without the band but with a two minute exposure. It was a typical Scottish summer day (that was the only day where the band was available for a shoot), but I knew that if we waited until after sunset, the light would be soft and there would likely be some colours in the sky. I\u2019m quite pleased with my first attempt at a photograph of this nature.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
I like unusual compositions, and since the sky over Silverknowes beach looked really interesting, I decided to give it the lion’s share of the frame.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Manchester
More conventional composition this time. I always shoot these.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The band logo has a lot of blue in it, so I wanted to give the other beach shots a blue colour cast. This is easily done by setting the white balance of the camera to tungsten and lighting the band with an off camera flash and CTO \u201corange\u201d gel on it to give them proper skin tones. I worked a number of compositions with two of them shown above.<\/p>\n

The photo shoot started earlier in the day, in a stairwell, believe it or not. These kinds of locations are a blessing and a curse at the same time. I\u2019m sure you get the curse part, but the constraints imposed by locations like these allow one\u2019s creativity to be pushed, and one\u2019s frame of mind to be stretched. I\u2019m always up for a challenge.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
The more people in the picture, the harder it is to get everyone looking good. Fortunately, every band member liked this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I always need to warm up at the beginning of a photo shoot, and so we started by taking very straightforward band photos.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
I always try different angles, either from above or below.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I started looking for different angles.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
I always look for elements of design such s lines. The stair railing offered an opportunity to frame each member of the band. I also liked the pipes above their heads and therefore included them in my composition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And compositions.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
Adding smoke completely changes the atmosphere of the location. Pun intended.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had brought with me a smoke machine, because I thought this could really add some atmosphere to the photos. One light behind to backlight the smoke and a light in front for the band.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
I love silhouettes, so I just had to try to light the band just with the backlight. I really like this moody pic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After I get the \u201cobvious\u201d shot, I like to ask \u201cwhat if..?\u201d.\u00a0For example \u201cwhat if I switch off the main light?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
When I sense I’m running out of ideas, I just try something. Anything. So I put a bare speedlight on the stairs, camera right, just to see what would happen. Lucky me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Usually, a number of mistakes occur when I start working my subject and lighting. Fortunately, some of them turn out great. At the time I didn\u2019t think much of the shot above. I think it was because it wasn\u2019t what I really was after, but the band immediately liked it. And I have to say it has become one of my favourite shots of the day.<\/p>\n

\"Manchester
Since I liked this composition, I decided to revisit it with a different lighting set up and the smoke.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the smoke and more moody lighting scheme, I explored some of the earlier compositions. I never thought you could have this much fun with a smoke machine in a staircase.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manchester based band Diving station are releasing their first EP today at Aatma, 14-16 Faraday St, M1 1BE.\u00a0I was fortunate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,52,14,43],"tags":[241,169,253,288,188,287,289,88,7,286,78,9],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-edinburgh","category-mood","category-music","category-photography-2","tag-anna-mcluckie","tag-band","tag-beach","tag-diving-station","tag-edinburgh","tag-location","tag-manchester","tag-music-2","tag-photography","tag-rock","tag-silverknowes","tag-smoke","has-thumbnail"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Music-Photography-Diving-Station-Philippe-Monthoux-1.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Music-Photography-Diving-Station-Philippe-Monthoux-1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"PhilsBlog","author_link":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/author\/philsblog\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1534,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions\/1534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}