Hard rock tones.

[Anbesol]

I did a shoot for a local rock group a bit ago. These were not planned shoots, they were off the cuff, I arrived on location where they were filming a music video (for liesure, wouldn't you know), when I arrived the band asked me if I had my equipment on me, which, I always do, so, we did the shoot.

Went in to the forest in the yard and did a few quick shoots, I had someone hold a reflector to fill their faces with light. The green leaves were a really rich summer green, didn't work well with the gritty look of what (I think) should be a hard rock image, so I experimented and came up with this. I decreased the saturation and brightness for the yellow and green color channels, and I adjusted the hue to look more like a natural gritty tone, also, excessive hard edged sharpness for gritty sake. I'll post an original color for comparisons sake, any and all feedback appreciated. If you have ideas on how to otherwise provide a gritty hard rock sort of tone and texture, please tell! Thanks for looking!

P.S. I will also definitely be re-shooting more images for this band, and next time they can be planned. So, thoughts on future shots also helpful and appreciated!

[jetrim]

Fastest way to get "gritty" without using grunge brushes (and there are some WAY COOL grunge brushes out there for free) is to overlay a duplicate of the original and push the sharpening through the roof. I'm talking like 275% with a 60-100 pixel radius. You'll have 'em looking like Linkin Park in no time. Monotone is a pretty popular way to go too...

[arne saknussen]

Good job on the lighting. But, yeah, hard rock and forests aren't a common grouping. The pose is OK (not sure about the cut off hands), but it lacks any real character that would separate them from any other rock band.

[n8]

I had to take a stab at this...hope you don't mind.
I had to stop before I abused color efex any further, but what I did was treat the bg w/ a bleach bypass filter, the guys with the tonal contrast, then treated the merged version with the low key filter. I'm sure some of those got redundant, but that's what I did.

[Anbesol]

Jet - Awesome idea, thanks! Much improved 'grunge' effect. At a 60 pixel radius the effect was way too extreme, but 30 pixels seemed to do the trick, when I reduced the opacity to 50%. Is there a trick to doing it with a 60 pixel radius without getting those massive chromatic fringes? Or is it just that I'm at 12 megapixels. What is a grunge brush?

Arne - I kind of had the same initial thought, but if you look around at rock images, you'll see that most of them use industrial areas, graffiti, with large buildings and strong lines, or some other sort of large heavy structure. This forest thing is actually pretty atypical. The overall theme and execution, however, yeah I agree nothing that really distinguishes them from any other rock band, it is a very ordinary and straight forward posing.

N8, awesome effect, but I don't know exactly what you mean by a "bleach bypass filter", and what do you mean by "tonal contrast" (seems redundant), and whats a low key filter, and what did you merge? Were you working in layers? Or was this not done in photoshop? (I'm on CS4). I really like the effect but I don't know what you did. And no I don't mind editting my images at all,

Come to think of it, please anyone feel free to edit to your hearts content, please, but show me and tell me what you did, thanks.

The band is Black Ribbon Sky, they produce a really awesome sound. Definitely worth checking out if you like that music. link

[Greg McCary]

I like the second shot, both times. I think there is just to much mid tones for a black and white, much the case with that much foliage, greens in a shot. The shades are cool and one reason I like the second shot. I think you did a very good job for the cards you were dealt. I think the guy on the right needs both hands in the shot.
Find you an abandoned factory, cemetery, school ect. Think death and destruction. Looking forward to more.
Plus, someone needs an instrument. Something to tell me it's a band. Guess you know that already.

[n8]

" I don't know exactly what you mean by a "bleach bypass filter", and what do you mean by "tonal contrast" (seems redundant), and whats a low key filter, and what did you merge? Were you working in layers? Or was this not done in photoshop? (I'm on CS4). I really like the effect but I don't know what you did. And no I don't mind editting my images at all,"

those are all filters in Nik Color Efex , so it was done in photoshop, just with the help of some plugins. To be more specific though, I had the main image as one layer, and another layer with just the guys. The main image/bg was treated with the bleach bypass filter...essentially a combo of contrast and saturation tweaks I assume, then treated the guys with the tonal contrast, which is kind of a tone mapping/high pass effect maybe. Merged those layers, and treated them both with a low key filter, which I assume lowers the brightness and maybe adds a little soft light glow.

If you haven't, I'd highly recommend checking out Nik's stuff, the especially color, hdr, and silver efx ones.

Here's another just for kicks, using a tweaked preset in hdr efex...taking about 30 sec

[CLKunst]

I want to play. The first thing that needs to go here is the background. Too incongruous with the subject matter. Like the pose and the grouping with the second one,a nd since you asked, I took a crack at it.

[Asmarlak]

I'm afraid that every version with a forest backdrop is not working, forest setting is just not right to begin with. I guess rock groups are one of those things that should be photographed in a down dark and dirty setting.

I like what CLKunst did, good approach.

[n8]

The setting seems to be becoming one of the main critiques here, but as it was said, this was an impromptu shoot. As a bit of a metal head myself, I think the forest in general is fine for the genre, but its got to be done right, and would require a lot of pp no matter what. Opeth comes to mine as a (death metal) band that I think uses this kind if setting, but again, its usually dark, foggy,and treated to appear aged.

[jetrim]

The setting seems to be becoming one of the main critiques here, but as it was said, this was an impromptu shoot. As a bit of a metal head myself, I think the forest in general is fine for the genre, but its got to be done right, and would require a lot of pp no matter what. Opeth comes to mine as a (death metal) band that I think uses this kind if setting, but again, its usually dark, foggy,and treated to appear aged.

Yep, here's the shot you're thinking of, linked from: http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Opeth/38


This isn't decidedly more sinister, and they didn't use a ton of PP. Looks like a sepia conversion, blur vignette, soft focus, and seriously boosted contrast.
like this:

[n8]

Nice find!

[Anbesol]

Wow, great feedback guys! Thanks a lot!

Greg - yeah, good call on the BW. I'll be shooting again, will go for something like an abandoned factory, maybe an abandoned house. I was also considering the industrial area of Kansas City, get them in a street shot.

N8 - I like the effects, especially the second one. I'll look into that color efex.

CLK - Awesome work. I may try something in that way, seperating them from the background altogether, maybe more solid black back.

Jet - good find. The guys look like aliens though in the edit, with those big glasses. I dont think what I have can be turned in to that anyway, nor would it have worked. They wanted fairly equal representation, so organizing one front man wasn't the idea.

[CLKunst]

Jealous! KC has an awesome, grungy industrial and trainyard areas! I'd love to have a band that wanted to play amongst urban decay like that! You go have yourself some fun!

[draymorton]

Great shots, Anbesol. The guys are very photogenic (in that badass sort of way). I like the last edit you posted best, but they are all good. Excellent lighting, as well. I would like to see more of this kind of work from you.

[GB1]

In general I agree that the forest background doesn't work with hard rockers, but I think that the 2nd image in the original posting looks good. The top image's bright green creates a bit too much contrast between their 'rock' demeanor and peaceful background, and the bottom one's angle is a bit too 5 feet high and the fellow on the left's expression doesn't work with the others'. The 2nd is the keeper imho.

I like that photo link to the other band, and it shows that such a shot can definitely work. It's just a matter of kicking things around to you find the right formula.

GB

[Anbesol]

CLK - lol, yeah, I usually avoid going to those places in KC, but looks like I will be going there on purpose now.

Dray - thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you like them. I will definitely be doing more!

GB1 - thanks for the feedback. Thats funny that you say that about the guy on the left, as I picked the shot specifically where he was pulling that expression for that expression.

[rustysphotography]

Some cool shots here