I had the chance to do a post-soundcheck portrait with Puddle of Mudd last week before their gig at First Avenue here in Minneapolis. As I was wandering around the venue looking for a good spot to shoot, I decided to keep things simple and not go for an interesting environmental shot like I usually do. With one or two subjects, integrating backgrounds into a good composition and lighting scheme is doable; but when shooting a five-member band with a few minutes to do so, I’ve never had much success. So I picked a basic black background and let the band make the portrait interesting, which, as you can see, they did.

The lighting here is incredibly simple: a speedlight on either side of the subjects, almost directly to either side to give a nice hard sidelight effect. Each speedlight was bounced off a white umbrella and otherwise unmodified. I stood on a step stool, zoomed my 14-24 out as wide as possible, and got this shot.

The band gave me some pretty good live shots as well, although with First Avenue’s high stage, I wasn’t able to get many shots with more than one band member at a time. Below are a few highlights; the full set is here. Also be sure to like my page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter for more!

Black Tide and Throw the Fight opened; the former had this dude, who gave me some amazing shots: