Or, should that be bland portraiture? I've been rattling on about band portraits that I've seen in the last few weeks having been boring, very boring... I want to disclaim that I've never taken a band portrait [I've taken individual musician's portrait's] and I realise that the wrong thing to do is to post someone else's photograph here to illustrate my point, so what I'll do is do some hand drawn thingy and try to explain what I want to do...
What I keep seeing is, let's say a five piece band all standing either side by side, one maybe more the main focus, or the band lined up like bowling pins...
Then there's the "sitting on some meaningless object" pose... anyway... I'm going to stop listing what I think is boring and daft, and I'm going to empty, from my head, onto this page, what I think would be cool...
So, what do I think would change it up some? Well, when I think about a portrait of anything, I need it to tell me something, take me somewhere... So, as I said in the first line, I'm not experience with band portraits, but what I am into is music and images and how those two things come together to give the viewer some sort of feeling of being there, some sort of idea of 'who we are' ...so all these photos outside the stage doors of six people lined up in a row, not looking interested in anything... I just don't get anything from them... I've only photographed one 'band' with more than one person... I had ten seconds, from green room to stage door, and the two guys in question were kids... silly kids that muck about... I said (almost yelled) muck about!! ....I got energy and something, I think, that people seeing them would associate with fun, silly kids and immediately get a sense for what they're like on stage...
I spose I could have taken a photo of them, standing normally looking at me?
I've had a thought about a band shoot, it's a busy street scene, all the [five] members of the band are "going about their business" in this street scene... The scene, the actions seemingly separate, tells a story... The only thing is, I don't have a five piece band, a street or any idea really... I just tihnk it would be cool if that scene told a tale about the music, somehow, and that the band were part of a story telling their story, rather than some dull, flat boring snap...
I love music and I love photography... I just wish I saw more inspiring stuff, or that I could just have a nice cold can of "shut the hell up" and go inspire myself, and maybe one or three others...
Keep on shooting, eh
Sime