This is the 2nd post from my recent band shoot Musician Portraits – Location Lighting 1

I find group shots hard work – because I am an annoying perfectionist with lighting and I don’t like to be rushed. So here, to help myself out, I picked the darkest most difficult place to shoot 5 people for a quick set up.

For this shot, I used 4 lights (2 Profoto B1’s + 2 x Canon 580 EX II’s). The Profoto B1’s are easy to control with TTL-C but the Canon 580’s have to be done manually. Mixing lights is not always recommended when you need to work quickly.

I started with 2 x Canon 580 EXII’s in the background. Idea was to create 2 star burst effects with lens flare to fill a pitch black background and also be a rim light on the band. These had to be set up manually and took a long time to get the star burst’s even. The 580’s were also on the back row of a raised seating stand so it was awkward to adjust them (How I value the Profoto B1’s).

Once I got my star bursts sorted, I fixed a Profoto B1 with zoom reflector to the rear right side of the band as a rim light. The key light was a Profoto B1 with magnum reflector to bands’ front left. I placed a diffuser on the magnum to soften a touch.

I could have changed the seating position of the back four band members to give more balance but taking so long to sort the back lights distracted me…but I also like messy composition sometimes.

This is a second set up we did earlier just after the band had finished filming their promo vid. I had to be quick so I only used 2 lights for this shot.

I make hard work of thing sometimes trying to go the extra with lighting. It puts you under time pressure which can really distract your composition etc…but that’s just how I work and I can’t do it any other way.

To view more of my work, please visit my web esam hassanyeh