Alvarez Kings - Sheffield Band Photography

Just after Christmas I was commissioned to do a promo shoot for the band Alvarez Kings, we were running on a fairly tight deadline but fortunately the bands’ manager secured us a great venue in Sheffield – an old school (and apparently an old mental asylum, although i can’t be sure) called Mount Pleasant (it certainly sounds like an asylum!) to do the shoot in. It was used not too long ago to shoot the TV series ‘This is England ’88’ – and some of the props were still around which was quite interesting!

The building was fantastic, it was huge and had a fairly eerie feel to it, but it is partially inhabited now so there were a few people inside who were fantastic at helping us out and passing the band bottles of beer when needed, all important work I hope you understand! The Alvarez kings are embarking on a European tour in March so we wanted to get some good shots for promo material, as well as some feature shots for legendary sheffield magazine  Toast ( http://www.toastmagazine.net/). I believe one of the shots is also being used as a cover shot but you will have to wait until the February issue to find out which shot made it onto the cover!

I wanted a caustic feel to some of the shots as the venue lends itself well to that sort of photography, and i also wanted to get the band doing something a bit different in one or two of the frames (the levitation shot being one of them) – as well as a few of the band in a more natural state. I had a friend help assist with lighting as we needed to change sets quickly and quietly, and he was invaluable, so thanks Paul – you can see some of his own photography here, along with a couple of shots from the evening: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peeandcat/. I have put some of the promo photographs below, just click the first thumbnail and scroll from there.

The band were great, the venue was great, and I hope the photos are great too. Good times.

Thanks for reading,

Justin