Music Photography Blog

by Adam Elmakias

This Wild Life Photo Shoot

This shoot was random. I just hit up This Wild Life and asked to photograph them. They said yes, then we did the shoot. The first set of test images I shot with my friend Grayson at a studio in San Diego. We used the Light Blaster on most of the images.  We had no idea how to use it ahead of time, so we had to give ourselves a whole day of playing around with it to figure it out.

It’s basically a projector that’s powered by a Speedlite and magnified by a lens of your choice. The wider the lens, the wider the image. The more open the lens, the brighter the image. In addition, you also have to focus the lens/image each time so the background can be your desired sharpness.

Softbox for main, Speedlite on background with OOF design
standing close to the wall to get shadow
standing close to the wall to get shadow
OOF design shot at the background, doesn’t hit subject at all, start the test with just one light, then add more

After we figured out how it worked, we tested it with a bunch of different designs. Each one involved a few adjustments.

Whatcha know about aliens?
what up house
nailed it
IM HOME
standing in a field of flowers
zen
swim swim swim
FIRE

The next day was shoot day. All-in-all the shoot was maybe 2 hours. Pretty quick and easy. We just had to move the guys around and change slides a few times. Lighting remained relatively easy and we never used more than two lights and a reflector. I honestly don’t remember the lighting setups for most of these.

This Wild Life
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
lighting setup for the above image
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
Anthony Del Gross of This Wild Life
Anthony Del Gross
Kevin Jordan of This Wild Life
Kevin Jordan
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
This Wild Life
Anthony Del Grosso of This Wild Life
Anthony Del Grosso
Kevin Jordan of This Wild Life
Kevin Jordan

Their record label ending up buying all of the images and using them for their new album’s press. You might have seen them on posters at Warped Tour, ads in magazines, or in your album if you purchased it from Target!

hanging with This Wild Life
hanging with This Wild Life
hanging with This Wild Life
hanging with This Wild Life