Go Bang #6 Portraits

I generally try to avoid making excuses for why photos from a night might not have turned out as well as I'd hoped, but damn, I'm not sure a single thing went my way this night--from a photographic point-of-view, that is. I was looking forward to Go Bang #6. Amanda Blank and Devlin & Darko were in town and headlining the party and I had some cool ideas for a lighting setup I wanted to try. Upon arrival with a carload of heavy equipment, I soon found out there was no space for me to set it up. Call it lack of prior planning or call it what you want, the small amount of extra space the tiny club usually offers was unfortunately taken up by extra DJ/sound equipment and reserved couches that could not be moved. Alas, I was left with nowhere to turn.. but outside of the club, on the sidewalk!

I had to keep it simple so I set up a single flash w/ umbrella inside the lobby and threw a faux-ringflash (Ray Flash) on my camera and parked on the other side of the glass. It is a cool setup, in theory, but with little time to tweak the light, super scuffed up/dirty glass, malfunctioning-equipment, and drunk subjects (who are hard to position when precise positioning is important), it made for a tough job.

Nerdy photo ranting aside, the few shots I managed to take before it started to rain on my outdoor photo studio are pretty cool. Check out a few samples below and peep the entire gallery here. /rant

Click here to see all the photos from Go Bang! #6 at Sonotheque

Go Bang #4 Portraits

This was the fourth monthly Go Bang party at Sonotheque. Knowing that Crystal Castles were going to be DJing and the place was going to be a mad house, I avoided my usual setup with backdrop and all and kept things as simple as I could inside that little room near the entrance. The downside was that I had no room to set up lights, making for some rough shadows. The upside was that the wall in there looks great and I wouldn't need a backdrop. I decided to just keep it simple and then spice things up a bit in photoshop after the fact. I tried to get a bit of a retro look going and in the end I enjoy the results but really spent way too much time on each shot for what it is. Rambling aside, here are the rest of the shots! Come back next month for an all new theme!

click here to see the entire gallery

Go Bang #3 Portraits

Another monthly Go Bang party under the belt. These are so far the best portraits I've puled off there. I tried a bit of a unique look this time around, unfortunately the space is so small it's hard to make the light work the way you want it. Fortunately, the shots are still pretty solid and I have no regrets. Be sure to come by next month I'm pretty sure we have Crystal Castles doing a DJ set. Anyway, here are the pics! Click a pic to see the whole gallery..

click here to see them all!

Go Bang #2 Portraits

Go Bang! is every second Friday at Sonotheque here in Chicago. This month we had Dances With White Girls from NY/Philly headline along with resident Jordan Z. There was a bunch going on around town and turnout wasn't as good as last month, but we had a good time and Dances played some great stuff. And of course stay tuned for future Go Bang! parties, we have some solid guests in store for future parties!

Click on any of the photos below to see the entire gallery!!..

Go Bang! Portraits

So the first monthly Go Bang! party w/ Vito Roccoforte from The Rapture has come and gone. Our big kickoff night was a lot of fun. We had a line to get in most of the night so apologies to those of you who were turned away or did not want to wait to get in. We're back again next month (February 13th) with Dances with White Girls and a new portrait setup by yours truly. Be sure to rsvp to rsvp@gobang.biz for free entry before 11pm.

And on the subject of portraits.. this was kind of a trial run for me. I had the idea to use the party as the backdrop and see how that goes. Unfortunately, it kind of just made the pictures look like they normally do when I am out shooting. Aside from that they turned out alright but expect to see some cool new and different concepts from me in the coming months!

Click here to see all the portraits from Go Bang! at Sonotheque with Vito Roccoforte (The Rapture) & Jordan Z..!