In October we were approached by Metro Vocal Group to shoot promotional images for them and help produce their new album design.

They really liked some of our previous ‘grungy’ HDR portraits that we had done and were very keen to emulate this style, so we went ahead with this concept to help promote their new ‘more funky’ image for the group.

The ideas consisted of shooting several portraits of each member of the group using 3 point lighting. The purpose of this is so that light is coming from all different directions, this helps when making composite images.

Because of the setup required for this, we were able to do the shoot in the comfort of Metro’s own studio, so minimal disruption to them, and luckily our offices are only a few minutes apart in Central.

Once we had the portraits shot with the 3 point lighting, we did a few outdoor shots in the street below their studio so we had some variety of images.

Then we just needed to shoot several HDR backdrops from around town to use as backdrops for the composite images and put it all together in photoshop.

Below is a video showing a quick edit of the day of the shoot and a few of the images also.

We had great fun, great bunch of guys and look forward to seeing the finished CD designs in early 2012 and hearing the new album!

http://vimeo.com/34062983

For more information on Metro Vocal Group, check out their website here

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F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

We often get clients who want dramatic photographs with spectacular backdrops, but more often than not there can be several variables that make this style of shoot a mission impossible: The weather, the lighting, the fact that most people just don't have the time in their busy schedules to go to the locations, and we also don't always have time to scout the locations thoroughly in advance.

Therefore, we have taken a leaf out of Joel Grimes book, as we really like his style, it kind of fits with some of our other work, sometimes dark and contrasty images with funky lighting, so we thought "hey why not, lets apply these techniques to corporate and commercial portraiture".

So far it has generated a fair bit of interest from several of our big clients, so we will keep on building up our library of backdrops around asia and we can shoot the clients anywhere they want, in their office, in the studio, anywhere that's convenient to them, using a three point edgy lighting technique and a low compression HDR background, giving a realistic but edgy look to the portrait.

Here's a few of our test images, some look better than others, its a work in progress....but great fun and everyone who appears in these images absolutely loves them!

Special thanks to Geoff & Justine for being our 'guinea pigs' for several of the test shoots.