Most professionals require certain tools or instruments to be able to perform or create their work. Musicians included. As creators, their musical instruments are an inevitable part of their everyday life and quality of their work. They spend hours in practice and usually carry their own instruments for their performances or rehearsals.

When photographing musicians with their music instruments you should keep in mind that it’s important to capture the essence of the artist, but also to compliment their pride towards their craft and tools.

Here are a few tips of what to keep in mind during your photoshoot:

Don’t hide the person behind the object
Not every professional (especially in the early stages of their career) is confident to be photographed. Some might try to hide their body or expression behind the instrument. Your job as a photographer is to capture the passion, the movement, but also the performer. Make sure you have enough frames of your subject with their instrument in movement/performing and also of them proudly posing with their instrument. Keep in mind how you crop your frames, how natural the image looks and how both musician and instrument stand together. Even if your sitters might not feel it at the time, later on they will thank you for sure.

Reflections, reflections, reflections
Most music instruments have glossy, shiny finishing that reflects not only the light but also the objects surrounding it. So, while you’re thinking about the framing and position of your subject, you should also keep an eye on the reflections that appear on the instruments. You don’t want to see a selfie of yourself or the backstage on your amazingly lit and positioned professional photographs. And more often than not, it’s easier to correct it on the spot, than later in Photoshop.

No fingerprints
One way to make your life and job easier is to make sure the instruments that you photograph are well polished and clean. This will not only save you a good amount of time in post production, but it will bring the best out of the item. It’s like when you like your shoes but if you polish them you fall in love with them again. Also the performer would feel more proud while posing for their photoshoot when they see their instrument shining bright. After all this is not a performance, but a photoshoot and you can take your time with every detail on the set. (Of course, this is not the case when you want to explicitly show the work marks of the craftsman on its equipment.)

Environment
A photoshoot of musicians with their instruments doesn’t necessarily mean live, stage performance. But the place where you do your photoshoot might be the same. When planning your shoot be clear with yourself and the brief (if there is one), what is the feel/effect that you’re going for. In or out of a music environment, your photographs can capture the essence, the vibe, even the sound…

Despite the global situation with Covid, I’ve managed to travel back home and make the most of my time there. My home city has always been an inspiration to me - form the beach, to forests and cityscapes all the way to… old airplanes? - why not!

I’ve had already arranged with the music band LSDD to photograph them on location. And “strangely” enough their upcoming second album is about a story involving a plane crash in an area around Varna. So it couldn’t be more perfect! The only big thing I needed to figure out was how to arrange everything and everyone. This was my very first time photographing a band and I can’t lie - I did feel very nervous. But what a better way to release a fear than facing it straight on? Luckily they are such a funny bunch of people and I’ve had way too much fun doing my job than I actually expected.

The plane itself was on my location list for a long time. I didn’t know how exactly it looks like, how big it is or what else is around it. But from what I had seen from others who had been there, I knew I want to go and create there.

I stared my preparation advance. I was going home only for 3 weeks and I had to fit everything in. I arranged the time, styling and feel of the shoot with the band in advance. Once I landed in Varna and before the actual photo shoot, I went to see the plane to gain an idea about the size and space around it. To see how I can work with this massive prop, that later on we turned into a photography set.

So 1 week later with 4 cars full of equipment, snacks and drinks, 7 of us went and had a blast. As it is an unsupervised area, there was a lot of rubbish I didn’t wanted on my photographs. So firstly we cleaned up the ‘set’ and covered up a few bad graffiti.

We shot in front, at the back, on the side, inside and on top of the plane from afternoon to after dark, catching the gorgeous, gold sunset light in between. As it usually happens on sets, we had some technical issues, but nothing major than could stop us of achieving the desired result. We brought a smoke machine and colourful stage light with us to add on to the feeling.

I had a great support by my assistant Jivko Manev, without whom it would’ve been much harder to achieve the results I wanted. Plus he did a great #BTS drone video of the whole shoot.

Overall, the shoot went well, we had loads of fun and I learned a lot more about woking on location, with group of new people and patiently managing every obstacle that comes round. I can’t wait to work agin with L.S.D.D. and Jivko Manev!

You can listen to L.S.D.D. on YouTube or Spotify.
And also make sure you check out Jivko’s music band