Eisley / Mesa Boogie shoot

I’ve loved Eisley‘s music for years, so I was thrilled when they asked if I could snap some shots of them for their Mesa Boogie amplifier endorsement. I wanted — as usual — to deliver something above and beyond awesome. Except I wanted to do it twofold this time, so I called in my collaborator/assistant/friend Michael Strout for reinforcements. It was an excellent decision, and I’m thrilled with the outcome.

The location was a formerly abandoned house in Tyler, and the place was like a giant studio. It was in poor condition, with holes in the floor, a thick layer of grime, peeling paint, a ceiling that was collapsing at points and who knows what else. Basically: It was a photographer’s dream.

For the Mesa shot, we picked out this neat room — possibly a kitchen or living room — for the nice wall behind them. It had high ceilings, but the space away from the wall was a few feet short of optimum. Thankfully, I have moved up to a Nikon D700 with a full-frame sensor, so I could take full advantage of my 24mm lens. The wide angle gave me plenty of vertical real estate, and just enough on the sides to get by.

Michael supplied the main light, an Alien Bees AB800 with a beauty dish, as the main light. We had it set about 3/4 power, on a boom pointing downward at Sherri and Chauntelle. For the background light, we had a Calumet Travellite 250 pointing downward from about 8 feet. It had a parabolic reflector on it that narrowed the beam somewhat, but I wanted a much narrower beam. We didn’t have any snoots or grids for it, but a stroke of improvisation hit me when I realized the unused grid from the beauty dish could be held up to the light and serve the same purpose. It worked perfectly. (And special thanks to Todd D’Agostino for holding it, and for risking a death in the jaws of a Rottweiler to give us power!)

All we lacked form our lighting now was a little spot for Sherri’s guitar, which kept going dark. It was especially important for us to have the hand-made instruments be identifiable and visible, so we spent several minutes working on solutions for this. In the end, the winner was a Nikon SB-80DX snooted with a church flier and a Starbucks sleeve (it strikes again!). Michael held it and aimed it at the guitar, casting a perfectly subtle light on it.

From there, all we had to deal with was posing details, and I think this shot nailed it. Sherri and Chauntelle were real troopers, and never lost patience, even while we all troubleshot technical issues. In fact, they said it was a good shoot, and I couldn’t have been happier. True professionals and great people right there.

We did some other shots that day, but they wound up serving as prelude to hopeful future shoots. We definitely have aspirations for this house in the future, so hopefully we’ll get to do that one day soon.

Having Michael on hand not only allowed access to more lighting, but it especially helped by having another set of eyes for paying attention to detail. When you create an image from top to bottom, there are so many details and things that can change and go wrong. Having someone else there is priceless for keeping everything in line. Collaboration once again wins!

This shot is already up at Mesa’s Web site, and it’s pretty awesome that it’s featured among so many of those awesome artists.

Eisley’s Fire Kite EP is available Tuesday on Amazon, iTunes and at their concerts!