Ben Powell - musician shoot

Last week, I had the opportunity to photograph a very talented guitarist, Ben Powell. I wanted to add him to my collection of "Friends of mine that do stuff" series. He's a genuinely nice guy and plays really cool guitars, so he's perfect for the project! This project is a work-in-process that is starting to take shape. Basically, I'm forcing myself to create portraits with a black background and 1:2 aspect ratio. Why those parameters? I have no idea. But it does force me to be creative in the sense that I can't really use environment as a crutch to add visual appeal to my photos.

I set up the first shot with Ben to produce a photo for my project. Out here in California, I don't have a studio to work in so I offered to shoot the portrait at night in our backyard. The yard would give me space to set up a background and strobes and the night sky would provide wonderful controlled lighting. Ben suggested that we could also shoot in the garage at his house. He said his garage had a high ceiling so I agreed to shoot it there. When I arrived to set up, I found the garage to be a wee bit smaller than envisioned. It was going to be tight, but it would work out fine.

Here is a little tighter view of the deluxe studio space/recording studio in Encinitas

I originally had the vision of him playing slide guitar "tabletop" on his lap. I pictured the guitar spanning the whole bottom of the photo with him getting really close to it while playing. It would have made a pretty sweet shot. When I asked him about doing that, he explained that he really doesn't play that way he doesn't have the right type of guitar for what I was envisioning. To keep it organic, I told him just to play some of what he had been working on lately. He played and I shot and it was fun!

This...

...turned into this.

Our friend Bri stopped by to help and I used him as a prop.

I got the shot I was looking for so we changed it up a bit.

I really like panoramic format.

Now, it was time to go outside. A week earlier, I scouted out a location under a bridge down in Del Mar. The columns and geometry were very interesting and would make a delightful backdrop for a portrait. Yes, I did just use the word delightful.

Notice all the white spray paint. That's where the bridge people marked all the concrete that is weak and is ready to fall off. Where we were shooting, there were bunch of fragments of concrete laying on the ground that had fallen off the bridge recently. Makes you think about where you are standing.

Here, I had Brian holding one of my Dynalites with a Med softbox to offset the natural sunlight.

Then we were off to shoot one final shot on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. But first we had to shoot one on the tracks. What is slide guitarist photo shoot without a train being involved?!?

For the bluffs shot, I had a vision of Ben throwing his dreads while he played. Kind of Bob Marley/Michael Franti style. We tried it a few times, but it didn't quite work out as I wanted. Ben was really a good sport and tried numerous times. We laughed our asses off because Bri was getting worked by the strobe/softbox getting blown by the wind. I wasn't without my issues either. My batteries in my PWs decided to crap out on me right when we were ready to shoot. They were charged beforehand...I swear!

Eitherway, while I was running around like a monkey humping a football, Ben pulls out his iphone and starts watching the Laker game - LIVE! He said it costs him $20 bucks and he can watch any NBA game at any time. So... here we are doing a photo shoot on the bluffs overlooking the ocean, Ben's playing slide guitar, Bri is battling the strobe in the wind, Barbara is manning another strobe in the deep grass that all the dogs pee in...and we're watching the Lakers get worked by the Bobcats! I love technology!

We didn't get the shot I wanted but I did get an one-off that was pretty cool.

It was a fun day of shooting with some great photos created. Thanks to Ben for playing along with my ideas and throwing in some of his own. Thanks to Brian showing up when he could be riding his cruiser and drinking beer on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. And last but not least, thanks to Barbara for coming out when she was sick with a cold and being part of the program with no complaint.