Smoke! Lights! A session of promo shots and album art with practical effects, creating both BBC vibes and a hint of drama and intrigue…
Arturia got in touch with a wide selection of references for his promo photos and album art – and as soon as we started going through them we were raring to go at the thought of all the imagery we could conjure, and the toys we have that could make it happen…
But before we built up to all the smoke and neon that was to come, we wanted to ease Arturia into the shoot, and so we had all the more complex bits on standby, whilst we shot the first setup, clean on the cove.
Super simple, clean off-white background, flattering shadows that make features pop – and that was going to be how the day continued, as he started building on the setup.
We mixed it up for the next setup by adding a color background. They wanted something that would fit in with BBC Radio portraits, and at the time they were all on pink – so we rolled out the pink, added an edge light, and created this look.
For the next setup, we turned the backgrounds lights off completely, and added an extra edge light instead of the front light, aiming to highlight his eyes with some bounce, whilst keeping a moody vibe overall.
Half-way through the music video we needed to depict everyone being high/drunk as hell, and for that we brought out our trusty tilt-shift lenses and box of filters, to warp the image and give a glorious haze to the edges.
With that setup over, we started to add some color into the fray, bringing the front light back, and throwing some biodegradable glitter in the mix, to catch the light and give this set of shots an ethereal atmosphere.
Next we wanted to bring some drama – so we added more color onto the backlights to give the setup a more night time feel, and used a combination of filters and fairy lights to get the look of a distant cityscape of sorts going on around Arturia.
The final setup was to be the most dramatic – building on the night time vibes we already had, we swapped the cold lights for warm, and added an even warmer glow behind Arturia, to contrast with the dark blue background – and to complete the look, we pumped the room full of smoke, and took about 50 shots, knowing one of them would frame him perfectly – and this was it:
And with that, our half day with Arturia was done. There was a quick turnaround on these images – but fortunately as we got everything in-camera, there was minimal to no edited on most of the shots he selected, and they lasted almost a year of releases and publicity before he came back again for another shoot.
Arturia’s Twitter
Arturia’s Instagram
