My shoot last week with Dream Theater singer James LaBrie was normal in every way — except for the fact that the location was haunted.
The band was playing at the Asbury Park Convention Hall on the Progressive Nation tour. I arrived at the venue with my assistant early enough so we would have plenty of time to scout and set up. When we got there, the tour manager told me I’d have 5-10 minutes with James instead of 30 as promised. I had to find a location quickly.
The backstage area was small, with just a couple of narrow hallways and stairwells. I talked with a security guard (always be nice to the local staff!), and he mentioned that I should check out the fourth floor because they were doing some construction up there and it might look cool. And by the way, it was haunted.
Huh?
He said the building was inhabited by ghosts. There had been reports of weird noises and doors opening and closing by themselves. Apparently another security guard was working the overnight shift after a Bruce Springsteen rehearsal and heard screams in the basement even though nobody else was in the building.
The good news is that there was plenty of space up there with a bunch of distressed walls that had great texture. Haunted or not, I couldn’t pass that up.
I set up my lights so that I could quickly get two different looks. When James arrived, we chatted for a minute and then I got to work.
For the first shot, I put him up against one of the walls and lit him with two SB-900 strobes in a large softbox on camera right. I also bounced an SB-800 off the warm colored floor for fill. I shot about 20 frames until I was comfortable and moved on.
(Nikon D700, 70-200 lens, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640)
I then put James in front of some old windows with only one SB-800 strobe and a Honl snoot. I dialed it down one stop to pop a little light on his face. The rest of the image is lit only with available light. I framed it so the reflection of one of the overhead lights was right over his head.
(Nikon D700, 24-70 lens, 1/20 sec, f/2.8, 1600 ISO)
I shot a few more images, thanked James, and let him go. Final tally? Thirty-five frames in 5 minutes and 38 seconds.
I didn’t see any signs of ghostly activity, but just to be safe, we packed up and got out of there as fast as we could.