19/52 Slava Balasanov

A couple weeks back I had the pleasure of meeting up with an old friend, grabbing a beer, and taking his picture. We did the shoot at Danny's, one of his favorite bars, and I kept the lighting pretty simple. 

Slava Balasanov is an electronic musician currently based out of New York City. I met him during his tenure in Chicago, unfortunately right before he moved out east. He and his friends Garo and Josh formed their own label, Moment Sound, and ran a monthly night at Rodan of the same name. Since moving on to NYC,he and his Chicago-based buddies are still working together, releasing works on vinyl and on the web. One cannot write a bio about Slava without mentioning his extensive collection of sweaters, a sample of which he is wearing in the photos I took. Slava is a great guy, much missed by the Chicago scene and yours truly. Hopefully some time we can coax him to move back to the windy city and play music for us on a more regular basis.

As I said before, we shot in the back room of Danny's, more or less with permission.

"We're going to take some pictures in your back room. We won't hurt anything."

"umm... ok."

I lit Slava from high camera right with my favorite, a 32" white-over-silver reflective umbrella. I gelled the flash 3/4 CTO, and left the final images a little warm to reflect the vibe of Danny's. The room is also lit by a single teal colored light bulb, and I experimented with using a kicker gelled to come close. The orange and the teal didn't play too nice together, and so I had to scrap it, going with just the simple umbrella.

We did a couple different looks, riffing on the same light sources. Here are some outtakes:

Half way through the shoot, a few strangers wandered up and asked if I would take their picture. I did, telling them they'd have to check out the blog to see it. Let's see if they find it, in which case I will gladly email it to them.

Strobist Info:

SB-800 camera right with 3/4 CTO gel through white-over-silver umbrella

Camera Settings:
1/50 f/3.2 at ISO 800
Nikon 17-55 f/2.8