Photographing musicians
 
Photographing musicians
Last weekend I met up with my own band, Shindiggery, to take some promotional photos for our gig in the Edinburgh Fringe in August. The Fringe has become a huge event, and in order to get an entry into the official printed programme, you have to get your skates on pretty early in the year!
It was a strange position to be photographing musicians for the band I’m in. I’m used to taking photos of other people, but don’t often end up on the other side of the lens. I also had to think through how to create a final image which I was in, and which would work when it was shrunk down to the 29mm x29mm size that is allowed in the Fringe programme. The timer delay is a great invention on a camera!
I decided to take a few individual shots as well while we were all together. Some of them ended up looking pretty dramatic after I’d set to with Photoshop. I don’t often creatively edit photos, beyond trying to recreate what I remember seeing when I took the original shot. For these pictures I wanted to create something that would really stand out, so I did a wee bit of experimenting.
I decided to go for silhouettes for a couple of reasons. If you’re taking photos with 7 people in the shot, there’s a pretty high chance that someone will manage to blink or scratch their nose just at the moment the photo is taken. Silhouetting the people resolved that problem, and also meant we didn’t need to spend hours taking hundreds of photos. The final image would be so small that any detail of individuals would be completely lost. I was aiming for something simple and effective.
Here’s one of the individual photos:
And the final Fringe brochure image can be seen on our Facebook event
I am available for commissions to photograph musicians and bands for publicity purposes.
Fiddle and bow in hand
Fiddle and bow on black background
A fiddle and bow, photographed at the Scots Fiddle Festival in Edinburgh. I am developing a library of traditional music, song and dance images which are available to buy as digital downloads, for the purpose of promoting Scotland and its culture.
This photo is available to buy as a digital image from the Photography Scotland website shop
Violin, Cello and Viol
Stringed instruments on a piano
I was taking photos at the Sound Chamber event at the Fringe today, organised by Chamber Music Forum Scotland. I was particularly taken by this collection of instruments sitting on the grand piano in between sound checks in the morning.
Fiddle, viol and cello
Buy prints and cards of musical instrument photos from the Photography Scotland website shop
More fiddling on Lismore
The band was back on Lismore this weekend for the island’s St Andrew’s night celebrations. We loved it!
On Saturday morning the sun was streaming through the window in the cottage, creating a lovely light for taking photos.
A fiddle, caught in the sunlight
We had another day of Lismore sun and grand tunes. We especially loved the slip jig that we found on the piano…that one’s likely to end up the the repertoire somewhere!
