Or go with the Shellac method of making it look like none of the people would be in a band with the others: http://www.exclaim.ca/images/up-shellac.jpg
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Band Photo...we need some ideas
- Thread starter troy mcclure
- Start date
I'm Jah Wobble Fan and I support this message - a band against a white background indeed looks bomb.
I have no idea who this is, but someone on another forum captioned it "I AM going to kill you/I AM actually a wolf/Hi, I'll be your substitute teacher today".
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I've never liked album covers that were just guys standing around desperately trying to look cool and nonchalant.I prefer one where the band is doing something unusual like trying to get to the other end of a wind tunnel or running away from something very silly
As a professional photographer/retoucher (and graphic designer in my past life) my advice is to get in nice and close to each other, as close as possible without touching each other's junk. You need to maximize your presence in the photo and eliminate any space at all between band members. This works well graphically because oftentimes the image ends up really small (online, club ad, etc.) and if you are too far apart you'll appear to be tiny specks. Also, this gives the impression you all like each other and are a family unit. When there is space between you it's kind of an indication of band drama.
How about seated in an auditorium or a cafeteria? Lawn chairs in your backyard, one sitting backwards? An Abbey Road spoof with the two middle guys walking towards one another about to crash? Come up with something original, not the overdone stuff.
+1
No one cares about a picture of guys that evidently play music together. If you're not doing something worth looking at in your band photos, don't bother with them at all. I'm sure you're all handsome gents, but nobody really cares what you look like. Think of it like a viral video in a sense. What makes a video go viral? Take the answers you come up with to that question, and use it as a springboard for photo ideas.
How about this? Divide the cover into the number of equally sized spaces as you have group members. Assign each member a space and have him/ her/it draw the group. If you survive this, your second album will be a killer!
Look at pics of bands in your area and see who the photographer is of the photos you like. Call him up, and let him concept the shot. It's what they do. You play music, it's what you do.
(Choose your photographer carefully.)
(Choose your photographer carefully.)
- May 16, 2009
- 625
- 743
- Disclosures
- Former Manager, Bass San Diego
There's a proven formula for this:
And don't make sure you get everyone in focus to prevent drama regarding the T-shirt
George
And don't make sure you get everyone in focus to prevent drama regarding the T-shirt
George
I respectfully submit that you are going about this a little backwards 
I will give you my perspective as a guy who makes his living as a photographer, and has for more than 20 years.
Find a photographer whose work you like and ask for his feedback in response to the music and image that your band is about. Good photographers always welcome the opportunity to do paid work where they have input into the image and can express their own creativity. They are going to be more emotionally invested that way, vs being handed an idea to execute. You can certainly do that and its what most commercial shooters get paid to do, but then it's just a job and not something to get excited about. It might even cost you less. I personally am much more inclined to discount my fee if the job will be an adventure of sorts or yield a really great image I can use to promote myself.
You should also figure out ahead of time how much you can spend on photography. A real pro with the chops to do something spectacular for you will not be cheap, and band pics are frankly no fun to shoot...too many opinions and egos to deal with unless you have a bandleader who makes the decisions (I stopped doing them a LONG time ago in favor of corporate and entertainment clients with real budgets But maybe you don't need "spectacular", maybe just a nicely lit and styled picture will work for your purposes.
Just some thoughts I hope will be helpful.
I will give you my perspective as a guy who makes his living as a photographer, and has for more than 20 years.Find a photographer whose work you like and ask for his feedback in response to the music and image that your band is about. Good photographers always welcome the opportunity to do paid work where they have input into the image and can express their own creativity. They are going to be more emotionally invested that way, vs being handed an idea to execute. You can certainly do that and its what most commercial shooters get paid to do, but then it's just a job and not something to get excited about. It might even cost you less. I personally am much more inclined to discount my fee if the job will be an adventure of sorts or yield a really great image I can use to promote myself.
You should also figure out ahead of time how much you can spend on photography. A real pro with the chops to do something spectacular for you will not be cheap, and band pics are frankly no fun to shoot...too many opinions and egos to deal with unless you have a bandleader who makes the decisions (I stopped doing them a LONG time ago in favor of corporate and entertainment clients with real budgets
But maybe you don't need "spectacular", maybe just a nicely lit and styled picture will work for your purposes. Just some thoughts I hope will be helpful.
I'm a photographer as my day job, and one thing I love getting are band shoots.
I'm going to agree that a basic backdrop of the colour of your choosing would be best. Basically, keep it simple. I like doing punchy black and whites for bands, and I'll shoot them together, as well as on stage, individually.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures I can share of this that were paid work. I suffered a hard drive failure which had a lot of my work, so I lost a lot of photos, but I can show an example where I just happened to go to some cage fights and I took some shots of the hired band. I have no idea who they were, but I'll show at least the kind of shots I'm talking about.
Here's a shot of their bass player. I kept a high ISO, which kind of gave it some moodiness and atmosphere and then turned it to black and white (I use desaturate and adjust blacks, whites, shadows, and highlights. I didn't use a whole lot of sharpening for this shot. I did that intentionally to suggest that they were a gritty rock and roll band. Hope it gives you some ideas.
I'm going to agree that a basic backdrop of the colour of your choosing would be best. Basically, keep it simple. I like doing punchy black and whites for bands, and I'll shoot them together, as well as on stage, individually.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures I can share of this that were paid work. I suffered a hard drive failure which had a lot of my work, so I lost a lot of photos, but I can show an example where I just happened to go to some cage fights and I took some shots of the hired band. I have no idea who they were, but I'll show at least the kind of shots I'm talking about.
Here's a shot of their bass player. I kept a high ISO, which kind of gave it some moodiness and atmosphere and then turned it to black and white (I use desaturate and adjust blacks, whites, shadows, and highlights. I didn't use a whole lot of sharpening for this shot. I did that intentionally to suggest that they were a gritty rock and roll band. Hope it gives you some ideas.
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Fair point. A killer band logo, title treatment or insignia can arguably make a stronger impression than a shot of the group.
THEN AGAIN.....
