Band Photos: Tips for a Successful Photoshoot
Published on Thursday 31 October 2024
As a band, whether it’s conscious or not, you develop your own unique character and image, which not only gives your music some colour and identity but your gigs as well. Some well styled photos can do wonders when it comes to putting your band in the spotlight and presenting the right image, but how do you go about making a good set of photos? Photographer Gerard Burgers offers a quick workshop, filled with tips and tricks that will help you get the best photographs you can. This blog might not make you a professional band photographer, but it will improve your chances of completing a successful photoshoot.
Photos: Gerard Burgers
Band Photography: Part of the Show
You should consider the photography part of things as part of the ‘show’ that’s involved in being in a band. If you want to gather followers on social media, get people to click on your website or make some crowd-pulling posters, then your photos need to give people an impression of what you do – in other words: you should see your photos as an extension of your music. An image can give someone that all-important first impression, so the style, the composition and the photographer needs to be right. You can always hire a professional and they don’t have to cost too much but, if you do hire someone, it’s important to make clear written agreements beforehand about how the images will be used and credited and if they’ll be used by any third parties. The photographer is likely to ask about these details anyway. If you can’t afford to hire someone, then you can always ask a friend who you know has a good eye or learn how to do it yourself.
Preparation!
Before the shoot even happens, it’s important to think really carefully about the details. What kind of atmosphere are you looking for? What will fit your music best? For example, a hard-rock band is likely to make very different decisions to a soul singer. Consult with your photographer and find a good location. You might want to match your clothing choices to the location – or not – so you can create a complete contrast. Do you want to be holding your instruments in your band shots – or not? Have a look at photos of other bands and find some inspiration. What do you need the photos for? If you’re going to use them for any printed media, like posters, then you might need to leave some space in the composition for text. If you’re going to use them for your website, then you also need to think about the aspect ratio so your photos will actually fit.
Take Inspiration From the Location
What can you do to get the best out of your chosen location? You could take a few shots in every spot, but there will probably be places that are more inspiring than others. Look for interesting features that can serve as your backdrop, whether it’s a wall that has some character, an interesting object or just a stunning sky. Figure out the focal point of each shot. Is the location tranquil? If it’s really busy, then try to leave out as much as possible, maybe even using a telephoto lens. These kinds of lenses have a really narrow image angle so you can stand further away from the subject while capturing less of the background. Less is often more in this case since it will usually result in a more concise image. Basically, only add the ingredients needed to create a powerful image. If you have too many elements leading the eye, it’s often just distracting.
By carefully picking where each member of the band is standing, you can specify what is and what isn’t included in the frame. If you want more of the background in your photo, then a wide-angle lens will help. Also, look carefully at everything that you’re photographing. Because you’re so focussed on the main subject of the image, you can often miss other details and, since a photograph literally shows you everything, you don’t want be haunted later by that distracting thing in the background.
Visualise the Composition
Photography starts with looking: visualising what you want to make. When constructing the composition, the subject or the person is often not placed dead centre (even though in some situations this can really work). A diagonal composition of the subjects in the image or an imagined diagonal within the image can often result in a stronger composition (see the example photos). Contrast can also work really well in a photo, whether it’s contrast between dark and light or colour contrasts like reds against greens or yellows against blues.
Where do you want the attention to be drawn? By playing with sharpness and blur (using a larger aperture and therefore narrower depth of field) you can lead the eye. Your inspiration for these kinds of details will come from the people you’re photographing and the background, which will then inform the combination of photographic techniques you use. Taking a good photo is not just about capturing the moment, it’s also about the value you can add by considering the angle and the photographic technique. Don’t be afraid of the techniques involved either, these are all things that can be learned. If you’re interested, you can always take part in some workshops or find some good tutorials online before giving what you learn your own personal spin.
Image Editing
Editing your images is an essential part of photography. If you want to get the best out of the photos you’ve taken and put your own final stamp on them, the editing process is where it happens.
The photo that comes out of your camera is referred to as the ‘digital negative’ and needs to be further processed before it’s ready to go. It’s just a fact that every photo will need some kind of final polish using image processing software. This can be something as simple as a colour edit or a contrast adjustment, but you can also use some more out-there techniques. Basically, the complete digital tool bag is at your disposal.
Professional photographs are stored on the camera as a RAW file, which stores all the data of the captured image so it can be processed by software. This is a ‘non-destructive’ process, where the original image always remains intact. The processed image is saved as a separate file and can always be further edited. This is different from a JPEG file. With JPEGs, the camera actually applies adjustments to the photo already, and these small adjustments cannot be changed at all or only changed to a very limited extent later.
Software packages like Photoshop and Lightroom are really popular processing tools. You can even get Photoshop Elements for a bit less money and get plenty to work with. If you want to use a lot of effects and filters, then I recommend downloading the free Google NIK Collection, which is a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom and is a lot of fun to play around with.
The Finishing Touches
For this photoshoot, we chose a park as the location. All of the photos were taken as a RAW file and were then processed in Lightroom before some finishing touches were added in Photoshop. To a greater or lesser extent, every photo has also been treated using the NIK Collection plugin, where filters were used to give them a specific look and feel. With a lot of the images, a soft fill flash was also used to add a little more brightness.
In Practice
The Location
The first photo: This is what I’d call a standard photo, and it’s a little boring. Is it possible to take the shot from a different standpoint? Which elements within the environment can you use to focus the attention on the main subject while giving the image more creative value? In the second photo, I stood on a lower slope amongst the weeds, and used a wider aperture to create a smaller depth of field so that the weeds in the foreground were blurred – which was important, otherwise they would have been distracting. The blurred objects in the foreground create depth and make the image more attractive. The lower standpoint also meant that the figures are photographed against the sky, making them look more ‘loose’. Using a telephoto lens here was also important, because it gives you a narrower angle, compressing the foreground and background together and making a more compact whole.
The third photo: Here I completely changed the perspective by standing really close to the subjects and holding the camera a little higher, widening the angle so that more of the background is included to create a more exciting image. This can certainly add something, but can also be distracting, so I advise paying attention to that. There’s a lot of space in this kind of vertical composition, giving you more options if you want to add text to the image later. The sky in the photo has also been slightly darkened to make it push through more, and has been given more structure using the Viveza filter from the NIK Collection.
The Angle
This photo was taken from a far higher perspective to create an entirely different angle. Try out various different angles to gain different results. The red heart on the ground plays a striking role here.
Telephoto Lenses
For the photo above, I also used a telephoto lens. Using this kind of lens, you can ensure that only the elements that you want to feature pop out, making the band members the focus of the image. In the foreground, really close to the camera, the flowers are so blurred that they become undefined splotches of colour, adding a playful effect.
Movement
Movement! Action will always make things feel less static. Using a fast shutter speed you can freeze a moment of the action, making the image feel more spontaneous and given a really different feel. Here, the red heart creates contrast, making the green in the image really pop.
Perspective
The first photo above doesn’t have that much going on. See how a situation like this one can be captured differently by framing it differently. In the second photo, I tried a lower standpoint to get a different kind of perspective and the band members are differently positioned. The sharp perspective formed by the bridge in the background, where the upper rails lead off diagonally into the distance, help strengthen the composition. In the third photo, the railing of the bridge is placed in the foreground and forms a sort of window for the image. Without that foreground, this would have been an entirely different image. Look around, play with the elements you have to work with and you’ll only gain more and more experience. This is the kind of photo you can also use for print, since it leaves plenty of space for text.
Placing Figures
The position of the people, or figures, in a location has a big influence on the result you’re going to get. I often work towards a specific result. The trick is to first look, then think before adjusting to create an image that gets more and more compelling with every shot. The first photo above is actually just a straight-on shot made with a 24 to 70mm zoom lens set to 42mm. In the second photo, I chose a longer focal point with a 70 to 200mm telephoto lens set at 85mm. Less background is included in the image, so the focus is more on the band members. I also used a wider aperture: f2.2. This narrows the depth of field and therefore makes the background less sharp. The blurriness of features like this is definitely something you can play with. While the front figure is slightly blurred, the two other band members are more sharp.
In the third photo, I’ve lowered the point of view a little bit. This brings more of the sky into the background while the focus still remains on the band members. The position of the figures was chosen to create an imaginary diagonal from the top right to the bottom left, making the composition more compact.
The fourth photo is almost exactly the same as the third. The difference is the shift in focus, so the figure at the front is sharply focussed, while there’s some blur on the two figures behind. I also used a flash which also adds a different feel. I have a wireless flash and I set it up just to the left of the figures to give their faces more form. Because the distance between the flash and each of the three band members is pretty much the same, they get the same amount of light. When you use a flash in front of the camera, the face is more evenly lit, so the person closest to the camera gets hit with the brightest light, the person behind a little less, and so on. Most of the time, this doesn’t actually look that great. By dosing a flash though, you can create something that really works, so a light fill-flash can really freshen up an image, or you can use a more powerful flash to create a more impacting effect. Play around and try to find your own way of doing things.
Back to the final image above. This one was edited using a NIK Collection filter. I also converted the image to black and white and made some subtle adjustments within the filter. You can spend hours on end messing with and combining these filters, so give your creativity plenty of space to play.
Solo Shots
Here, I took some shots of the individual band members. In the first photo, I held the camera at a tilted angle so that the lower portion of the image is parallel to the edge of the opening created by the wall behind. See what shapes you can create in your image using elements of the background.
In the second photo, the figure is placed to the left of the image and, in the foreground you can just see that the camera is held very close to part of a wall, creating a blurred point of interest that gives the image extra depth. The shot has also been taken at a tilted angle to make it more dynamic while the wind in the figure’s hair does the rest.
The final three photos are of the same figure in the same spot yet, by making just minor framing adjustments you can create very different photos. In the second image, I placed the figure all the way on the right of the frame, where the wall in the background creates a lot of space, resulting in a different image. In the third photo, I held the camera at a tilted angle again to create some dynamics using the angles and lines in the background.
Positioning
Kijk wat er gebeurt als je de positie van de bandleden onderling wisselt. Voor deze serie heb ik een 24-70mm zoomobjectief gebruikt. De bandleden staan vrij dicht op de achtergrond; hiermee bewaar je de rust in het beeld door niet te veel andere dingen in beeld te brengen.
See above what a difference simply playing with the position of your figures can make. For this series, I used a 24 to 70mm zoom lens. The band members are standing really close to the metal construction that serves as our backdrop. This was to make sure that the image remained clean and clear of clutter, so you’re not too distracted by other elements.
What the Band Thought
The models that helped with this photoshoot are members of the band One Big Heart: “We chose this really beautiful nature park so we got to walk around this really tranquil place to find good spots to shoot. Gerard was really relaxed and radiated that vibe which really put us at ease. For us, it’s not an everyday experience. We’re not photographed by a professional every day. But Gerard really guided us through: advising us on where and how to stand and where to look to set up each shot. We wandered all over, since Gerard kept spotting an interesting place to take a few photos, then another one, and another. A lot of photos later, Gerard had enough material to make a whole photo report. All in all, we had a great time and that time really flew by – before we knew it, four hours had passed. It was sometimes tough to fight through the bushes but, to our mind, it was a really successful afternoon. We’ve already had a look at some of the photos and we’re really impressed with them. We’d like to thank Gerard for the great experience, for his time and for his expertise.”
What Now?
Of course, this blog is a bit too short to really go into the details of taking professional photographs but I hope that these few tips have inspired you to try out some things and maybe discover some surprises. Besides looking at some more in-depth tutorials about the technical side of photography, I recommend looking at the work of other photographers, analysing it and learning from it. Why does a photo work or not work? In essence, photography is much like making music: using your instrument, you search out your own rhythm and style to create the tone that best conveys the feeling you want to evoke.
See also
» Cover Band Not Copy Band: How to Gain a Following
» Improving your music career with 5 daily habits
» 10 steps for finding the right artist name
» How Much Does it Cost to Make a Music Video?
