rapturedmind photography » Wuppertal

Deathfist – Promoshooting

Daniel — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:00:19 +0000

I met with the Band Deathfist pretty early during the day with the sun high in the sky. I found a corner in an old parking lot with some nice worn down doors, that made a great background. Do to the fact that it was an public holiday there weren’t a lot of people around as we were shooting and we had the space for ourself. Halfway in the set this changed though and a guy came in to change the tires of his car with the stereo turned up loud. This was fine, as long as he played Rammstein, but after a while he changed to Après Ski Hits. Luckily we were about done at that point and could leave.

Shooting Notes
With the sun high in the sky, I had to get the Band close to the garage doors to get them at least at bit into the shadow, but still left parts of their upper bodies backlight by the sun. Do to this I just used two flashes on this shoot.I was using one 43 inch umbrella from the front as a main and another speedlite from the left side used as a rimlight. The other rim was supplied by the sun. I was shooting at ISO 100, 1/250 of a second and an aperture between f5.6 to f8. I had to dial the power of the flashes pretty high to get the exposure right and still work against the sun. I wasn’t really able to overpower the sun and underexpose the sky as much as I wanted and mostly used the flashes to get some light in the faces and eyes of the Band and set some highlights in the back.

Deathfist - Promoshooting

Kept in Forlorn – Promoshooting

Daniel — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:34:53 +0000

As we went out to shoot the Promos for Kept in Forlorn, Wuppertal seemed to be thrown back into the ice age. Next to it being terribly cold, there was snow all over the place, so we had to find a couple of spots, that had a roof over them.

Shooting Notes
Even though we were shooting at two different places, the setup was pretty much the same for both locations. I was shooting the groupshots with a four flash setup. The main was a 60cm Ebay Softbox camera right, the fill was a shoot through umbrella camera left and behind the Band left and right, just out of the frame, a bare flash as rimlights. Do to the fact, that it was later in the day, I was able to shoot the main at 1/4 power, the fill about 1 1/2 stops darker, and the rimlights at 1/8 power. Camera Settings were ISO 100 at a shutterspeed of 1/250 and an aperture of f5.6. I was shooting this set with the Canon 40d and the EF 10-22 for most parts.
The single Portraits were lit also with a four flash setup, but arranged differently. The main was the 60cm Softbox again, this time boomed over the head of the subject, a flash with a shoot through umbrella camera left as fill, a flash with a grid on the face as a hard contrast light and a bare flash as hairlight directly behind.

Kept in Forlorn - Promoshooting

Kept In Forlorn MySpace

Contradiction – Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) – 09.10.2009

Daniel — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:52:02 +0000

And the moment of truth was here. Contradiction was up next to present their new Album ‘The Essence Of Anger’, after three years the Band was finally back. They opened their set with the titletrack of the new album. Intense, energetic and tight as hell. Singer Koffer was up in the faces of the audience and the band was playing one great song after the next. Unfortunatly they didn’t play the whole Album, but just a couple of selected songs. On the other hand, that left some room for some older Songs. All in all it was a great gig and the audience really enjoyed the show.

Shooting Notes
The Live Club Barmen ist a really small club with low ceiling and no pit, which makes the shooting here really hard. I got lucky and the little club wasn’t packed from the front to the back, so you got enough room to walk around with a little care and get some angles on the artists. Even though I brought the 70-200 f2.8 I knew, that I wouldn’t need it. I was only shooting the 24-70 f2.8 which wasn’t actually wide enough on the Canon 40D. I really need to get myself a full frame camera and a good wide angle lens. The Light though was pretty good, at least from the back, so a flash was really a nice thing to add, even if it was just to get a little light in the faces of the guys.
I was shooting this set at ISO 800 wide open at f2.8 with a shutter speed between a 1/60 and 1/160, depending on the rapid changing light. Next to that I was trying some shutter drags while Contradition were playing… so got the aperture up to f8 and the shutter down to 1/10 and just shoot a couple of frames.

Contradiction - Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) - 09.10.2009

Aardvarks – Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) – 09.10.2009

Daniel — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:51:12 +0000

After a short break Aardvarks from Bonn were up. God this guys were good and their sound and songs hit me from the first second on. Intense, great Riffs and awesome melodies, you just had the felling that they were right in your face. They even included a little instrumental in their set. If you want to check out a great Melodic Death Metal Band go to http://www.aardvarks.org/ and give those guys a chance.

Aardvarks - Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) - 09.10.2009

Naked Frenzy – Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) – 09.10.2009

Daniel — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:48:46 +0000

As I entered the Live Club Barmen Naked Frenzy had just started their Set. The Band was celebrating the release of their first CD and so they teamed up nicely with Contradiction. What surpised me a bit was the enourmous amount of extrem young listener and next to that lots of those were Girls. Well, probably not that surprising when you consider, that the Band itself was in still in their teens. But by listening you couldn’t tell. They had quite great songs, a little bit to cliché for my taste to some parts, but they played with a lot of energy and finesse so it was really nice watching them. Definitly a Band I need to keep an eye on.

Naked Frenzy - Wuppertal, Live Club Barmen (LCB) - 09.10.2009

Razorlight – Wuppertal, Steinbruch Oetelshofen – 17.09.2009

Daniel — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:14:16 +0000

With this event, I got the opportunity to shoot something of my normal radar and actually got around seeing a Band that gets some radio airtime. The T-Mobile Street Gig Team got Razorlight to play in an stone quarry just outside town. Do to the fact, that I was free this eve and got nothing better to do, I thought why not. With the help of Marcel, writer and photographer of Music2Web I got a pass for the event.
After the first Band Kilians, Razorlight was finally up and parts of the crowd got more energetic. Even though most of the people were rather still, there was least a little bit of energy in crowd.
Razorlight played an exelencent gig with a great Sound. Clear, crisp and with a lot of feeling, they laid down a nice mix of Songs.

Shooting Notes
As with the Kilians, shooting was just possible from one side of the Stage. I was able to sneak to the other side before, this was not given this time and I had to get my shoots from one site. For most of the Band this was no Problem, but bassplayer Carl Dalemo stayed mostly on his side, so it was really hard capturing a nice image of him. The Light on the other hand was way better then before. With a nice Spot on singer Johnny Borrell you got great light on him and also got drummer David Sullivan-Kaplan covered as well.

Razorlight - Wuppertal, Steinbruch Oetelshofen - 17.09.2009