# help please! upcoming shoot



## anel (Jun 24, 2010)

a local underground rap group has contacted me today, they need photos of one of their rappers and if they are happy with the results they'd hire me for more shoots in the future.

i'm confident that i'll get a great shoot but i really want  a good idea of what i want before i get there.

any tips for this? i was thinking a tunnel full of graffiti or something as a location..

as for gear, i have an umbrella, one off camera flash, a 70-200 for tele photo and 28mm for semi-wide

any tips for lighting, technique etc...?

thanks so much!


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## KmH (Jun 24, 2010)

So your saying you don't know how to use your gear?

Grab all your gear, and a friend to be the subject, and go to the location(s) and try out your gear in a variety of setups, *before* your 'shoot'.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 24, 2010)

And get paid for it. Pro bono for a client on the promise that they may use you in the future if they say they like your work is not a recipe for a good client photographer relationship.


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## anel (Jun 24, 2010)

KmH you understood me wrong.. i've had many shoots, i want tips on the setting, where to shoot a underground rap artist, what lighting would be best for a rapper and things like that.
@village idiot: definitely! they've already promised a payment, but i really don't want to give them photos they don't want (even though they are "good").

if i don't get any good tips i guess i'll just ask them what they want but i'd really appreciate your input.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 24, 2010)

anel said:


> KmH you understood me wrong.. i've had many shoots, i want tips on the setting, where to shoot a underground rap artist, what lighting would be best for a rapper and things like that.
> @village idiot: definitely! they've already promised a payment, but i really don't want to give them photos they don't want (even though they are "good").
> 
> if i don't get any good tips i guess i'll just ask them what they want but i'd really appreciate your input.


 
What type of music is it? Underground Rap describes nothing. Is it thought provoking? Goofy? Gangsta ass ****?

It depends on the artist. I'd take some one that has intellegent lyrics and put them in a robe smoking a pipe on some big fancy ass chair. If the music is more violent, go for a darker locale and theme.

That or just come up the dumbest idea possible and do it. I put a friend in a shopping cart in the middle of the street with a strainer on her head, a spatula in one hand, and a ladle in the other. That's something I'm going to use the next time I find a local musician to shoot.

If you have the greatest lighting in the world and you put an artist standing there infront of a brick wall, it's just going to be a well lit shot infront of a brick wall. Get creative and give them something no one else will.


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## Derrel (Jun 24, 2010)

Village Idiot has some good concepts in his post above. Good album art is often funky, offbeat, weird, strange, unexpected, ironic, iconic, laconic, moronic, and sometimes features chronic...

Does one of the group's members own a really ghetto ride, like a black or cream Escalade with dubs?? Maybe you could group them around that, doing some of the weird $hit rappers are known for...

Whatever concept you go for, act like you know what you are doing. With only one off-camera flash, you might need to jack your ISO up to 800 or 1,000 in order to get enough effective power out of your flash if you are photographing a group with any depth to it...you can't expect to pull decent focus at f/4 at ISO 200, you know what I mean?


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## anel (Jun 24, 2010)

thanks guys, usually i don't get much response here but i'm loving this! i don't know anything for sure yet but the music is defnitely ghetto and gangsta if you know what i mean. Derrel the idea with the car is awesome! definitely gonna try that! 
this isn't going to be a group shot, only one of the rappers is going to be shot.. i'm still gonna incorporate the car though! 
village idiot, the idea of just going crazy sounds awesome but i wouldn't risk advising stuff like that with people i don't even know yet and because i'm kind of young in comparison with them they might take it the wrong way and see me as too goofy to be taken seriously.

these tips so far have been awesome, keep the commenting up please!


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## camz (Jun 24, 2010)

Well you have the four elements of hip hop...

MC
Break Dancing
Painting the Walls
DJing

I had a shoot with some local artist about 3 years ago same as your idea and I took them to the rail road tracks where there was graffiti.  Used the graff as a back ground and had some train tracks represent their image of Oakland where they were from.


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## anel (Jun 25, 2010)

sounds good camz, were you doing it in all natural light? i really don't wanna disappoint them, i think i'm going to write a list of possible locations and just put it out to them and let them decide.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 25, 2010)

anel said:


> thanks guys, usually i don't get much response here but i'm loving this! i don't know anything for sure yet but the music is defnitely ghetto and gangsta if you know what i mean. Derrel the idea with the car is awesome! definitely gonna try that!
> this isn't going to be a group shot, only one of the rappers is going to be shot.. i'm still gonna incorporate the car though!
> village idiot, the idea of just going crazy sounds awesome but i wouldn't risk advising stuff like that with people i don't even know yet and because i'm kind of young in comparison with them they might take it the wrong way and see me as too goofy to be taken seriously.
> 
> these tips so far have been awesome, keep the commenting up please!


 
Limiting your ideas with clients based on how well you know them limits how well you do.

Do you think some one like Chase Jarvis shows up to a shoot and says, "I don't know you real well, so instead of doing this kick ass ninja shot, Imma shoot you infront of an escalade?"


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## ghache (Jun 25, 2010)

I would use bare bulp lightning with strong shadows.


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## gsgary (Jun 25, 2010)

As above you could keep it simply,black background one  bare light 
http://gsgary.smugmug.com/Music/Dow...BE0C0491-1-2-afterdowni/436210542_SrvRg-L.jpg


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## mwcfarms (Jun 25, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


> anel said:
> 
> 
> > KmH you understood me wrong.. i've had many shoots, i want tips on the setting, where to shoot a underground rap artist, what lighting would be best for a rapper and things like that.
> ...


 
+1 I say do something different like he said. Be different.


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## Derrel (Jun 25, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


> anel said:
> 
> 
> > thanks guys, usually i don't get much response here but i'm loving this! i don't know anything for sure yet but the music is defnitely ghetto and gangsta if you know what i mean. Derrel the idea with the car is awesome! definitely gonna try that!
> ...



Ninja rappers...how very,very likely! Why didn't I think of that! I bet they show up dressed in black jumpsuits, with throwing stars and very Asian-looking clothes. Bank on it, VI, bank on it! Or, in another idea equally as good as Ninja Rappers, how about photographing them so they look like the guy in the Cham-Wow and the the Slap-Chop infomercial? Now THAT would be wayyyyyy cooler than Ninja Rappers...Ninja Rappers are so,so played out...I mean, all the old 80's and 90's rap albums featured Ninja Rappers, and the last time I drove through Northeast at night I saw only maybe twenty-five or thirty Escalades in the 'hood, all with boyz and their posses chillaxin, just hangin', sippin 40's and admiring the hunnies they had with...


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## anel (Jun 27, 2010)

hey guys! since i am not shooting the entire group but just one person i had this sort of half-crazy idea for a photo, it's not too crazy and it's not too boring. after we do all the alley, ghetto, car shots..  i was thinking of a shot inside a warehouse (there's an abandoned one nearby), this rapper on a chair and i want a shot of seeing him frustrated with like hundreds of sheets of paper flying around cause he threw them away.. how do you like the idea?

i was thinking putting a grid on the flash and lighting him almost directly from the top giving it a really dramatic look.. not at a 90° angle.. maybe around 75° just to get a bit more detail on his clothes and face.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 28, 2010)

Derrel said:


> Village Idiot said:
> 
> 
> > anel said:
> ...


 
You obviously haven't seen the photos that Chase Jarvis did with the ninjas?

Chase Jarvis RAW: Ninjas | Chase Jarvis Blog

And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Who wants to be that guy that has the same album cover as any other artist from the 80's or 90's. Further more, just because not everyone in the hip hop scene owns and escalade or can be found with a 40 on their hand, they are stereo types that can put your client looking just like everyone else out there. If you want to be uncreative and blend in with the rest of the pack, that's your perogative, but then you're going to be competing against a ton of other photographers that do the exact same thing as you, follow the crowd instead of lead.


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## rocky_bablo (Jun 30, 2010)

props are more important, where you shoot is more important than how you shoot. obviously try to add some creativity using props like what CAMZ said. He decided the location to be rail road track to bring out the image of oakland of his client. you just speak to your client and ask them what that inspires them and what is the image they wanted to portray when do the rap in front of the audience. From this discussion you could get some ideas and plan the location accordingly. sure you can do the brainstorm to crack good concept.


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## GeneralBenson (Jun 30, 2010)

rocky_bablo said:


> props are more important...



For sure.  Props are the biggest factor here.  Especially when dealing with rappers, make sure to always be giving them props.  Even if the photoshoot isn't going that well and the photos end up sucking, just keep giving them mad props, and that's the only thing they'll care about.  They won't even remember that there was a photo shoot.  They'll just remember that cool day they spent hanging out with the guy who would stop dishing out the props.


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