Press Photos for Queer as Funk

It’s any creative’s dream to be able to have the freedom to come up with concepts for clients. I had a lot of fun working alongside Lise of Good Digital Creative to come up with local Vancouver band, Queer as Funk’s press photos and portraits.

We started with some ideas for a group portrait which led into styled portraits for the entire group of 8 plus guest performers. To align with a performance theme, I sourced curtains to create a stage vibe for each portrait. I didn’t want the curtain to be the typical red so I picked up a coral coloured one instead. I did some test shots from home followed by further test shots on the day until we landed with our final look.

After the main sets were done, we also had a bit of fun capturing some natural light portraits using a prism to cast a rainbow on each performer which was a huge hit and a perfect set of portraits to celebrate these beautiful people and the Queer Community.

Scroll down to see how the session came together.

Thank you to Lise and QAF for having me be your photographer for your 10 year anniversary portraits!

Band: Queer as Funk
Creative Agency: Good Digital
Assist: Sophie Phan
BTS: Lexa Bergen

Session Breakdown

Creative direction

I wanted to give that performance feel to the formal portraits since QAF are performers. But I didn’t want the traditional bright red curtain and opted for something a little muted which after a few months of researching fabric, decided to go with some curtains from IKEA that fit the bill. After a bit of discussion with our Creative Director, we decided that having instruments would make for a unique portrait so we photographed both with and without instruments.

Lighting

I had one large light on camera left. I use a Godox Pocket Flash in a 7ft parabolic umbrella which disperses the light nicely. On camera right, I had a Godox ML60 continuous light raised above the curtain to give the curtain a bit more light. It also acted as a hair light to give some separation. Between person and background. 

Trying different lighting

We also played around with some LED lighting using RGB tubes which can be connected together to lengthen. I have 4 Ulanzi VL110 tubes which are magnetic, can be connected and come with a few setting options.

Rainbow Portraits

After we did the curtain portraits, I had an idea to do Prism Rainbow portraits for the band. The idea was to cast a natural rainbow using sunlight and a prism. We had each band member sit by a window that had some early afternoon reflected sun shining through. Lise from Good Digital helped with holding the prism to the window and once the rainbow landed where we needed it, I created the portraits. It was awesome to see everyone get excited about having their portraits taken with the rainbow. 

In the age of AI when doing something like this could technically be done in post, it’s the in-person interactions and excitement about the process that really make photography special. You can’t fake human connection.

We had a third light on camera left near the backdrop which was originally pointed up towards an 8”x8” mirror which I had mounted to an arm in hopes of casting a harder line. We scrapped this idea and went with the continuous light instead. The beauty in working through process is being able to research, test, and make decisions for what is best come session day. Sometimes, some ideas don’t work and that is ok!