At the end of 2019 one of my oldest clients Victor Escoto, scored an endorsement deal with Soultone Cymbals.  Once he announced the deal we immediately began talking about doing a promo shoot for Soultone’s webpage and Vic’s social media channels.  

I first met Vic when I shot a band he was in,Trophy Wife, years ago.  It was from that series of pics I got my first album credit and launched me into the world of music photography. 

We arranged a date in the beginning of February and booked in at my favorite studio, Mystic Rhythms Rehearsal Studios in Langley, BC.  Shooting took place on the afternoon of 8th.  Sean (owner of Mystic) prepared studio 3 so I could set out a backdrop and lights.  Vic brought his natural finish Yamaha kit which worked well with the backdrop.  After I had the background up, Vic unpacked and set up the kit on the black fabric.  While he was doing that, I set up a 5 point lighting system that incorporated 3 LED video lights and 2 strobes I could trigger from my camera.  Once we got going, I dialed the lighting in and we played around with different poses/lighting.  

Some of my favorite shots were from misfires of the strobes, as the LED sources gave an interesting effect.  I’ve been doing different shoots lately using just the LED lights as the primary sources.  Why am I wanting to go LED? Well, I found that portability is much more effective with battery powered, smaller panels.  Although I am still packing my strobes to most shoots, I find I go with the LED’s much more these days.  

We shot for about 4 hours at the studio which is about par when the owner is a drummer and you bring in another drummer with shiny new things! The shoot realistically takes about an hour to set up, hour for shooting, and an hour for tear down.  In this case there was a whole lot of conversation which accounted for the additional time.  

Checkout the pics below and you can find Soultone Cymbals at: https://www.soultonecymbals.com/

Follow Victor on Instagram @vescoto_drums

Book your next rehearsal or photoshoot at Mystic Rhythms Rehearsal Studios https://mysticrhythms.ca/

At the end of 2019 I was called by Bonnie Scott guitarist, Steve Ricardo, about doing a photoshoot for his new endorsement deal with Prestige Guitars out of North Vancouver.  I was honored to get the nod for this shoot as Prestige has some amazing artist listed in their camp such as Todd Kearns, Devin Townsend, Eric Bass and Cory Churko to mention a few.  Steve was looking for shots both for his social media and also for Prestige’s site/catalog.  The first thing was to figure out where to do the shoot.  Having been over to Steve’s house you would understand why I chose there as it has some really visually cool and funky things that we could utilize in the shoot.  I wanted to use elements that would create the mood of who the artist is and not just be a plain stock shot.  We did a couple of different concepts, the first being in the living room with an oversized leather chair.  The second was just at the dining room table using a couple of props along with the Prestige DC guitar.  

Checkout Prestige Guitars and their roster of players at: https://www.prestigeguitars.com/artists

Back in June of this year (2018), I had the honour of photographing a 7 piece funk band out of Vancouver called Air Stranger.  I had photographed their performance at the Blackbird Hall earlier in the year and can’t say enough about how great this band is!  All the members are extremely talented musicians and performers.  I wanted to capture the fun loving nature of this band that comes out when they perform live.  After some standard shots and we found a rhythm, the band members felt relaxed which allowed their individual personalities to emerge in the shots. In the end we created some serious shots, fun shots, and some just plain playful ones that the band could use for social media and promotions.  If you ever get the chance, check them out live as you won’t be disappointed!  https://www.airstranger.com/