Since moving to Vegas we have managed to stay pretty busy. The usual house stuff and random projects in what is my normal life. One of the things I have been looking forward to in this area was getting out and doing more photography gigs for local artists. We have a few friends that perform around town and in between fixing house stuff and normal work I did manage to get out and take some shots. One of those friends, SJ, posted about some of my photos on a Las Vegas Musicians group a few months ago and it was cool!
Flash forward a few months and I got a totally random message about a local band that had scheduled a photoshoot but their photographer canceled on them at the last minute. They wondered if I would be available (the next day). I thought, “Sure, why not?”
I spent the next few hours looking up the location we were meeting at on Google Maps, and checking out where there might be a few good places to shoot nearby. Since I didn’t know the band, or that side of town, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Things that would be good to know going into this would be… Are we shooting indoors? Is there a good backdrop? Should I set up lights? Not knowing any of this, I packed up all my gear, including my pop up backdrop and lighting.
In talking with the lead guitarist, who set up the session, I learned that they are a Rock/Metal cover band named Throckmore (https://throckmore.com/) (working on their own stuff too) and they are still fairly new to the scene. We agreed on a general look to the photos and the rest was completely improvised. We met at a dive bar in East Las Vegas and I had the quick chance to walk around and find some good locations nearby. The manager of the bar said we could use the alleyway behind the place and we set up shop.
The chain-link fence and stone wall worked great for some grungy backdrop as well as some used kegs that the bar let us borrow.
From there I talked them in to a quick drive to a desert area. The sun was just settling into the golden hour and we had some great clouds.
It was great to get to know the band and they were all super cool with the last minute change and making stuff up as we went along. They all were fantastic to work with and I highly suggest that if you are in Las Vegas, you should look them up and attend a show!
After all the photos were done we even managed to do a quick flyover with the new drone and got some video that they may use for future stuff.
Overall, it was a great, last minute, experience! Enjoy the rest of the photos!
