By day two of the FasterLouder Splendour Studio i’d just about lost my voice. The combination of festival dust, tiredness and a day of barking instructions took it out of me. So i hoarsley rasped my way through the following days, prodding musicians to do this and that.
Here’s my photos from day 2 featuring Clare Bowditch, Two Door Cinema Club, Florence and the Machine, Jonathan Boulet, Band of Horses, Band of Skulls, Magic Numbers, Bluejuice, Tame Impala, Paul Kelly, The Drums and Midnight Juggernauts.
The first act of the day was the delightful Clare Bowditch. She also made up one of the trio of gorgeous redheads i photographed, with Ana Matronic and Florence Welch too.
Jonathan Boulet wasn’t really into props, but when the idea was put to him to smash his face with glitter he was more than happy.
While i was photographing The Drums i had a strong sense that i’d photographed them before – even though i knew i hadn’t. Turns out i’d snapped two of the members in their former band Elkland five years ago in Austin.
The act who i was probably most nervous about shooting at the whole festival was Florence Welch. She has the potential to make a beautiful photograph and i didn’t want to stuff it up.
She was very nice, but reserved and quiet. Quite at odds with the booming presence she has on stage. Perhaps she preserves her energies for the performance.
See all the photos from day 1 and 3.
Oh man, I love that first shot of Clare Bowditch.
Really nice work, Dan.
Awesome work. I had a strange dream last night I was talking photography with your partner. Anyway, i wanted to ask, what lighting set up did you bring for your portable studio? I’m thinking of buying the BXri 500w elinchrom kit or whether I should do a Gavin Blue and invest in a bunch of speedlites and go all strobist.
I hired a couple of studio lights. It was a brand called Hensel which i hadn’t used before but worked fine.
Most of these were shot with just one light with a white umbrella attachment that i borrowed from Elleni.
The ones with colour in i used one light with a gel on the background, and another light on the face.
I couldn’t say which system you should buy. Both would work fine.
You can always just hire the more powerful studio gear when you need it.
Thanks Daniel,
You have a good point about hiring. I am lucky in that I can get free hire of my college’s lights, but that also depends on whether other classes are using it and I know I won’t have as much access in the next few weeks. We pay really cheap rates for their studio as well which includes access to all gear. I’m going to miss having that access when I graduate at the end of the year. I plan on using their stuff as long as possible, but am trying to work out which lighting scenario I look at forking out cash over, but I stupidly didn’t think about just hiring gear when I need it. Of course this involves getting paid work and right now as I’m sure you know, shooting musos/artists don’t pay unless they’re above a certain cache and even then other snappers are friends/get those gigs!
Natalie
Daniel, fantastic pics from the festival. Great idea with the props to get some more candid moments. My fave’s are the top pic of Clare Bowditch and Paul Kelly. I do like the outdoor Midnight Juggernauts shots as well. Great job!
Nice pictures of Florence Welch!
Also very nice lighting with the shots of Midnight Juggernauts.
Did u use external flash on strobist-way ?
I had a studio flash with an umbrella head attached to a battery pack.