Photo Shoots for Musicians

High quality pictures are needed for anyone who is producing music or promoting an artist. This blog-post shows you the pictures from a recent photo-shoot, and I’ll share some reflections around the process. I initiated this shoot, and seen from my angle it had three components: an artist, sourcing a high-end photographer, and finding a visual expression that fitted the artist. The artist was Oda Kveinå Tonstad, and the photographer was Theodor Haltvik With (both might be familiar to regular readers).

Planning and process

1. The pictures from this shoot was for general use rather than for a song or album. This meant that we didn’t need to analyse any musical material to match with the visual expression. The pictures were to be used for professional online-use, and near-future music-releases should they come. The process was initiated with me compiling pictures of artists and styles that I felt represented Oda as I knew (and wanted to see) her. If I had produced a specific musical work (album, iTunes-single, etc.) I would have held on to the central coordinating role between artist and photographer (some music producers will want to give this process away; you’ll know for yourself). Theodor compiled my pictures into a mood-board while he and Oda both worked on their own compilations of images. Creatively this is where I left the process. Oda felt some of my pictures represented her while some were discarded. She came up with her own compilation of pictures that added new influences to what we already had. Theodor received our input and stretched some of them one step further, since he saw hidden potentials as a professional.

2. Oda and Theodor finalised the mood-boards and agreed on clothes, locations and a date. I believe a contingency plan was hatched in the event that the weather should turn unsuited for the outdoor-part of the shoot.

3. Photo-shoot. I rocked up for the studio-shoot; firstly, to make sure the key elements I wanted on film was captured, but mostly to create general mischief! :-)

Some thoughts on the process

- Oda is an accomplished dancer and some of the images are taken to capture this.

- Shots included both profile pics and whole-figure for different use.

- If you’re a management, studio or record-company working with an artist for the long-haul, it is useful to have a portfolio of pictures from the duration of the collaboration. Ideally, get the first pictures done as soon as you start working with the artist (perhaps even in the studio, practice room or in everyday settings). 

A selection of headshots for profile-pictures

 

Behind the Scenes/ 'General Mischief'

Yours truly having some fun with Theodor’s Smartphone :-)

In the 1930’s Oda worked for Walt Disney Company

under another artist name. Some of her old

friends came to visit her at Theodor’s studio :-)

 

Oda and Theodor at Work

I really liked the eye-contact between Oda
and this dinosaur!

Three Hot Runway Mixtapes

I just put out three runway mixtapes on Mixcloud. They were made some time back for my good friend Andreas Constantinou who is a top of the range international hair stylist. Andreas runs Zoosh International in the UK and you can check it out on this link! Andreas choreographed some amazing shows to these tapes. It was all captured on camera by the equally amazing photographer Dave Sander.


Hope these get you dancing and jumping around!

Runway Mixtape 1 (For Stylist Andreas Constantiou) - by DJ Snowdrift by Snowdrift on Mixcloud

Runway Mixtape 2 (For Stylist Andreas Constantiou) - by DJ Snowdrift by Snowdrift on Mixcloud

Runway Mixtape 3 (For Stylist Andreas Constantiou) - by DJ Snowdrift by Snowdrift on Mixcloud

Ha&Ha Exhibition at The Clock Cafe (LS6) in Leeds

"Beauty Explored and the Journey from Eco-friendly to Eco-fatigue."

"Ha&Ha," aka. Harjinder & Harald now has a photo exhibition on in Leeds. It displays pictures from the Norwegian Mountains, places where the urban meets nature and familiar sites from Leeds with a new twist. Keywords are beauty, familiarity and new thinking about how city and nature interacts. The exhibition is on from July 28th to August 10th 2010.

For further explanation to the concept, please see bottom of this post. For captions, please scroll down to the next post.

Click here for Feacebook Event.

View of the Gallery:





"Nature Series" (On canvas, Harald Haltvik):


Morning in Rondane National Park, Norway


Snowy mountains in Jotunheimen National Park, Norway


Lake in Northern Norway


Cabin in the middle of the mountains, Jotunheimen National Park, Norway

"Urban Series" (Harald Haltvik):


Bodø Harbour, Norway


Lake in Rondane National Park, Norway


Winter in Trondheim, Norway


Panorama of Trondheim city, Norway


The Leiv Eriksson Centre, Trondheim, Norway


Church Street Røros, Norway

View of the Gallery:



Pictures from Leeds (Harjinder Nangla):


Wearing The Crown


PolicePorsche


Hyde Park


UR!


WAIT


Dr


Striking The Deal




The Concepts:


Beauty Explored and the Journey from Eco-friendly to Eco-fatigue.

Over-focus on anything will spur counter-reactions. No one doubts that eco-friendliness and conservation of fragile environments are good developments. But if we loose touch with what we are protecting we will easily go from “eco-friendly” to “eco-fatigue.”

From Adam stood in the garden for the first time till today, humanity has constantly had to interact with and modify its surroundings. A modern urban challenge is to increasingly develop society while decreasingly impact the environment. Seen with the goggles of the city it is a matter of cutting, reversing and decreasing. Seen with the goggles of untouched nature it is a matter of embracing, exploring and expanding centuries of knowledge of interaction between humanity and nature.

The pictures are created with a strong desire to communicate that our time here is short and that beauty, challenge and fulfilment happens now! Not in a hundred years, then most of us will be somewhere else.

(All the works from Norway come with a note from the artist attached at the back. Notes contain information, memories and reflections of the location where the pictures were taken.)


The Nature Series (On Canvas):

Depicts the beauty of natural environments and seeks to evoke a desire for exploration.

Here there is no direct eco-friendliness, nor eco-unfriendliness. When we grasp the thought that this was once our nearest neighbourhood we gain a new light on what in our urban lives has lasting value and what has not. And if even that thought should send anyone into fatigue, then at least enjoy the beauty and you will have understood almost the entire point.


The Urban Series (Framed):

Early city environments could span from a collection of rough shelters to street systems with markets for trade.

“The Urban Series” seeks to play a few tricks on the modern mind and looks at any modification we have made to nature. It depicts the boundaries of where the city meets nature, where nature is visited by human inventions and at new and old building traditions.

It is the hope that the viewer sees that:
* The divide between the city and nature is not as black and white as we sometimes portray it.
* There is no society or freedom without commerce, progress and organisation.
* Commerce and nature are not opposite enemies. If they become enemies it is because we have chosen to make them so by our actions.
* There is a lot of hope for sustainable progress when one stands in the grey-zones between nature and human invention.

Set in brushed aluminium frames for a more industrial look.

Harjinder’s series of impressions from Leeds:

-picks up where Harald’s “Urban Series” lets go, and Harald’s “Urban Series” picks up where Harjinder’s series lets go. It explores familiar sites and things that draw attention on a walk through the city and presents them through a modern interpretation. They could be impressions from anyone’s life but also show how we have the power to interpret and choose how we see things.