Recently did some portrait shots of a music band at a cool club venue in the Bussey Building, Peckham. I would have liked to have used more colour gels (and smoke) that you get in clubland but we were very limited for time.

The band group shots are covered in my next post Band Portraits – Location Lighting 2

For this shot, I used the big windows to frame the guitarist. Main light was a 3ft Profoto Octa with 50 degree grid to his left. I bounced some light off the wall on his right side with a Profoto B1, zoom reflector and 20 degree grid.

This added a splash of fill to his face but also cast some nice shadow and detail onto the wall behind him. I lit his guitar with a Canon 580, grid + 1/2 cto gel. This set the guitar out from the rest of the photo with colour and a strong shadow.

Finally, I lowered the colour temperature to 4,000k to give a cooler overall look to the image but popped the guitar out to give a more unusual lighting look.

This is another quick 3 light setup. Here I used the big speaker, portable amp and large fan as props. Main light was a Profoto B1 with 3ft Octa + 50 degree grid. This was set directly behind a large fan which was in front of the musician.

I set a Canon 580 with grid behind the projector screen (which acted as a flag) to light the left wall. Finally, I set Profoto B1 with zoom reflector and 20 degree grid to bring out detail on the portable amplifier.

Whilst I shot the sax player solo, I also added the trumpet player below for a second shot. This added more of a story to the overall image.

Gear used: Canon 5d3, 2 x Profoto B1’s, Profoto 3ft Octa + Grid, Zoom reflector + grid, 1 x Canon 580 EXII, 1/2 cto gel.

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