How We Got The Shot: Preservation Hall
Come behind the scenes with me as I talk about how we created this New Orleans Tourism campaign to set the mood to go with the amazing music and feelings at Preservation Hall! This is an exclusive behind-the-scenes viewing of our photo shoot done with New Orleans and Company to help promote this amazing city to international tour agencies.
In this third installment of How We Got The Shot – we abandon what we loved about the Fuji and go full Sony, all Trad Jazz, and set the mood with some grids. I have been lucky enough to have a wonderful relationship with the folks at Preservation Hall – Ben, Ron, Howard and so many of the musicians there. Any time I have an opportunity to feature them in anything I do, it’s a no-brainer to call them up. My old pal Clint Maedgen, Joe Lastie, and Wendell Brunious were my 1st choices to be featured on this photography campaign and I am glad they could do it. I have the utmost respect for what Ben and his team have built at Preservation Hall, and through my photography and connections to other brands and businesses I have to do my best to maintain that tone of culture. The paint peeling walls, the patina’d iron, the lush courtyard – they all have a personality and I have to do my best to make their song sing without getting in the way.
When photographing a storied culture as deep as jazz and Preservation Hall, I had to treat ‘the room’ as a character as well as the musician subjects with great levity. You just can’t go in an blast everything with big lights and hope to maintain the aura and story of such a timeless moment. I first starting seeing the use of grids when photographing musicians when I assisted the legendary Herman Leonard when he lived and worked in New Orleans. From 2003-2005 I assisted Herman on many shoots where he would approach a subject AND the environment as a character in the shot and find ways to creatively make the subject pop out of the background. When you grid (see photo and video above) a light, you focus the light in a narrower beam, and limit the distance it travels. So if you want to JUST spill light onto someone without effecting the background ambience too much – you want to grid.
Greg Miles, another NY/NOLA photo legend, taught me more about grids and gridding reflectors when photographing people and so much of that stuck with me. Greg was a color master – through grids and controlled light, he would bring out the deeper tones in a room while making sure the subject had their own ‘aura’.
I do feel that being a New Orleans photographer who photographs the culture, I have a deeper responsibility to record the deeper truth of a moment, a song, a room…more so than just shooting everything like an event. I take my storytelling seriously and owe so much of my own photo story to those that have given me a chance – Preservation Hall is one of them…enjoy.
I hope you are enjoying this edition of my behind the scenes New Orleans video series! Stay tuned to my website, subscribe to my newsletter and my YOUTUBE channel after you view the video!
