I’ve done a ton of promo photos for bands, and anything of that sort. But, the one style of promotional photographs that I have pondered about, and haven’t really grasped a specific style to is LIVE photos. Most of the bands would hire me for a job, probably won’t be playing in very classy venues.

The Great Exploration is a group of guys who play progressive, rock, or something music. They are an example of a band that hasn’t played in many classy venues. The show pictured above was in Roseburg Grange or something. The evening’s roster also included a couple other local bands, and touring bands Kiros, Sent By Ravens, Queens Club, and Emery. It was quite the show I must say, but 8 bands can be a bit of a long evening of loud music.

So, The Great Exploration played earlier in the day, when there was still daylight (luckily) and as you can tell, there is a TON of gear on stage from the touring bands. These photos, including the photo featured here, were taken with my 28-70mm 2.8L at 26400 ISO. Yeah, that’s right, after changing some settings, I was able to use the maximum ISO level on my camera to achieve these photos. Now, yes, as you can see, that grain is NOT added, it’s actually the effect of the extremely high ISO, and occasionally I even had light leaks! I used this to my advantage to create this grungy textured image that represents the venue atmosphere deeply and accurately.

But, is this my style for live photos? I guess it depends on the band and the venue. Gotta work with what I’ve got!

What do you think of the uber-grainy style?

Here are some more from the evening

Yesterday I had the great privilege to teach my very first lighting class. I was extremely nervous at first, but once it started going, it all came natural.

As you know, a lot of my photographs are very fashion oriented and high impact on light. But the techniques that I taught were not to overkill the photo with light, but add a visual impact to the photograph that created depth and value to the images.

The students were a bunch of natural light wedding photographers who were interested in taking their photography to the next level by adding a bit of artificial light to their natural light photographs.

We went over the basics of equipment and lighting techniques, and taught them that less is more. I actually didn’t take any photos myself (Because I forgot both my batteries and memory cards elsewhere) and so all I got was this group photograph.

Overall, this was a huge amount of fun! I have only just taught people here and there some basics, but having an actual class and 4 students really changed my mind on teaching. It was the hardest thing to do, until doing it.

I would love to do this again, many times!

I can’t wait to see the photos that the students were getting!

I show up to a scheduled photo shoot yesterday with my beautiful friend Tai. She and I have been meaning to do some photo shoot work together for a while now, but finally our schedules lined up.

We planned to meet on top of a parking garage in downtown Eugene. Yes, the top floor. Which in Eugene, that’s like 5 floors of driving in a circle. I finally get up to the top, and Tai was already waiting for me, I was about 2 minutes late. No biggie. So we chat and discuss our plan, because this is an evening shoot, we had to work quick. So after looking around the area a bit I pop open my trunk and start pulling out gear. Then I realize, wait, where is my back pack? Then it clicked. It was sitting at my friend’s house where I had dinner! I mistakenly forgot it there when I was charging my cell phone! Anyway, I start making phone calls, and luckily my friend Natalie was still at home, and so she also agrees to help out with the shoot. She’s awesome, just saying. Holding lights over her head, keeping lights from falling from gusts of wind, yes, trooper. I love when I find great assistants! Anyways! Sorry to get sidetracked. Natalie, if you are reading this, *high five*!

I start unpacking my gear again, get everything setup, and then notice that my camera didn’t have a memory card in it. So, I start looking for my Pelican 0940 Memory Card Case, which is no where to be found! This has my two 16GB Sandisk 60gb/sec, 8GB and a 2GB CF memory cards. I start to look back to when I had it last, my mind immediately decided that I had forgotten it at the restaurant from a few days ago (Don’t freak, I found the memory cards).

I silently freaked in my head, the shoot was not starting off very well! Wow, way to be professional Will! Gosh! After pulling it back together after my 5 second freak. I remembered that I hid away an extra 2GB card in my battery charger case. Which is made from an old briefcase that I got from Goodwill (but thats another story). So, I popped it in, sure enough, with my Canon 5D Mark II, I would only get 35ish photo. And they went FAST.

Realizing right there, that I would need to connected my camera to my computer, and tether the shoot. Who tethers an on location shoot? Honestly? Well, I did. For those of you who don’t know, tethered is where you connect your camera to your computer, and when you shoot, the file is uploaded on the spot to the computer from the camera. I was using Lightroom 3′s new Tethering feature which I discovered a few months back with my Olive Tree Clothing photo shoot.

By this time, it was starting to get dark. All throughout the madness we made friends with all the security guards, which is easy to do if you approach them with an attractive girl. They would occasionally stop by during their rounds and check up on us, or just watch. With the added security we pulled our cars into a corner of the parking garage and built a little photo studio. I used two umbrellas, and my DIY beauty dish. We rocked the photo shoot, and got some excellent photos considering everything that had gone wrong.

So what’s the moral of the story?

Don’t freak out when things don’t go your way! If you paint yourself into a corner, don’t be afraid to get a little paint on your feet when you walk out. Own the situation, and kick it’s butt! …oh, and always be professional about it! In return, the model was very interested in doing another photo very soon, and she had a lot of fun as we joked around and got some beautiful photos!

Southern California… I’ve been here for 4ish days!

It has been a long time in the making, almost two years to be exact. I have built friendships and connections down in the Southern California area and I have talked about traveling down here since I was down here on tour with a band. I have had many thoughts of moving down here, and now that I am down here visiting it is becoming a bit more realistic. Meeting people I hadn’t met before, and realizing that my friendships were definitely beyond just Skype and Facebook. These are real people, and they have poured into my life over the last few years.

This place is definitely beautiful as I am sitting in the sun writing this, I probably couldn’t do this in Oregon too often, but I absolutely love the atmosphere around here. Moving here will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but now that there is a direct flight between Eugene, OR and Los Angeles, CA it is definitely more realistic!

I will be down here until June 10th, then I will be returning back to Eugene to my mostly empty apartment just to get the rest of the stuff out and begin my voyage as a couch surfing photographer. I am super excited for this adventure in my life, to add clarity to who I am and just to meet a lot of awesome people along the way.

If you are a praying person, please be praying for my safety and for continued faith in this adventure! I want to make a difference with my photography.

Sometimes when I am driving, I see some clouds and a location and think, "It would be fun to shoot there sometime," then I continue driving. I never find out what those photos would have turned out to be. This time I decided to pull a u-turn and fulfill my thoughts and see what happens. This is a result of that u-turn.

My life has been filled with "what ifs" and my cowardliness (most people call it being shy) holding me back. I have been embarking on a new adventure of turning against my second thoughts and continuing on with my first thoughts. Therefore following through with my ambition, and letting myself go!

I’ve met a lot of amazing people along this journey, and I am looking forward to seeing what will happen with my life, instead of what could have happened.

Promotional photos for Josh Hutcheson’s music project called YOUandME. Musical flavors of metal, techno, acoustic and more. Definitely something worth checking out if you get a chance.

Lighting: All Natural with a splash of light from a beauty dish slightly camera right at a VERY steep angle.

Client: YOUandME
Type: Band Marketing
Date: April 24, 2010
Location: Klamath Falls, OR

You can listen to Josh’s project on YOUandME’s MySpace Page

This video is available to watch in 1080p on Youtube.com

This past weekend I put together a quick little video with my friend Grant. This video was shot with my Canon 5D Mark II with my cheap 50mm/1.8 lens. I kept the lens simple because I liked the depth of field. I should have used my 24-70m/2.8 for the inside the car shot, and used more graduated filters, but overall the video quality turned out good. The inside the car shot was a bit more desaturated than I had hoped.

I was the stunt driver for all of the shots, but I still lined up and planned all of the shots. Grant and I came up with this idea a few weeks back when he actually pulled this stunt on me. I figured we should make it into a video, and so this last Saturday I called him up and shot the video in 2 hours near his church.

I have decided to do more video work as well as photography because i have the option, and I have always enjoyed video work. It’s also more fun for my friends to see themselves in a video especially if it gets people to laugh!

Duh! Use Skype!

This last week I did a photo shoot for the spring line of Olive Tree Clothing here in Eugene, Oregon while the client was in his office in Little Rock, Arkansas! Skype has a wonderful new(ish) feature that allows screen viewing, and so I allowed him to view my screen and I had my camera remotely tethered to my 15″ MacBook Pro. The client was able to be a part of the photo shoot through voice and was able to see the photos as they were being taken. Pretty simple!

The photo shoot was a success for his Spring Line release 2 days later! Go check out my product shots for Olive Tree Clothing at www.olivetreeclothing.com

Add me on Skype: WillFosterPhoto

Sporting my I AM LIVING shirt by . I am very stoked by this ministry which builds and teaches bands and musicians to become musicianaries. 100% of all profits goes to ministries and such. Go look at their web site for more information: www.comeandlive.com