A Different Kind Of Street Gang

We've done enough commercial work with musicians to know that those jobs usually come with a big caveat: time is of the essence. Promotional deadlines. Tour deadlines. Print deadlines. Release deadlines. Deadlines for deadlines. You get the idea. So when we were first contacted by Cincinnati-based gospel recording artists, Faith Gang, we only had one day to design, organize, and execute a full photoshoot involving four artists who are spread across three cities...plus, we only had a couple hours of solid shooting time...plus, we needed to edit and deliver the images before they all left for a nationwide tour...a few days later. Yup, time was of the essence.

Since they're a new rap group that's taking off quickly, we wanted to focus their photoshoot on building facial recognition with their growing fan base. Building notoriety is all about recognition. So we decided to photograph their faces breaking through a sea of darkness (insert appropriate religious analogy here). But with such a short time crunch we needed to cut our editing time, so for the individual portraits we used careful light placement in a dark room and a tiny bit of vignette, without photoshop, to float their heads in a dark frame and create texture. The goal was to help them tie their sound to their faces so that it wouldn't matter if you heard them or saw them...you'd know exactly who they are. Add in the right touch of grit and character, and you have the makings of a great shoot with an even greater group of men. 

Check out Faith Gang on Facebook and on Instagram.