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Stuart Wood Lighting Masterclass - June 2016 - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Stuart Wood Published 01/07/2016

Even the band later confided that they had absolutely no idea what was going on when they walked into this underwhelming location, although they did relate this to me in a rather different fashion!

I decided to place Mikel Akerfelt, who is the founder member and leader of Opeth, on 'our side' of the frosted window and sat him upon a 'throne' of sorts. Then I positioned the rest of the band behind him and on the other side of the divide.

With the door to the store room open, I noticed it produced a lovely side light and decided to use just this to light the whole band (even through the window) and to give it a little more 'edge', I decided not to use a reflector. Sometimes, an image can loose its character and become to sanitised and corporate if every part of it is beautifully lit and filled in - it can start to resemble a stock image used for some American life assurance ad.

I also knew that the darker edge of Mikel would still be clearly defined against the bright and diffused image directly behind him and he would appear almost 'cut out', so there was absolutely no danger of loosing any important detail and the image would be far more dramatic as a result.

As Stallone's trainer in Rocky IV explains to him why he had gotten a little soft lately ...'you got civilised Rock!'

Well, we certainly do not want 'civilised' images for a Metal band, so I deliberately chose to keep it a little 'raw', but still told Mikel to angle his face toward the light from the doorway, so that his face and hair were both nicely lit.

I then told the band to be as close as possible to the window, without producing any 'squashed face' effects. I got Frederick and Martin (the two members at either side) to place their outer hands upon the window just to improve the composition.

And there was my picture.

Deliberately shot portrait and with plenty of uncluttered space above and around the band, this would hopefully make a spectacular cover shot for my client.

Just to reassure the band, I showed them the finished capture on the back of my camera and they then understood what I had been trying to achieve.

This was a one of many pictures taken over the few days with Opeth, but this was my favourite and I was thrilled when it was finally chosen for the cover.

Still think I've got a brilliant job though!

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1st Published 01/07/2016
last update 09/12/2022 15:00:26

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