Back in June I was tapped to shoot editorial portraits of the five finalists of Tidal’s Unplugged grant program. Tidal narrowed down thousands of participants to five talented musicians from Detroit and gave them the means and opportunity to expand their musical careers.

In preparation for the shoot, the art director sent me five pantone colors that are specific to Detroit, such as Detroit Lions blue or Detroit Tigers orange. Once the artists arrived with their wardrobe, we decided which artist would work best on any given color. After shooting some “clean” shots of the musicians they had requested that I would “do my thing”. I decided that my thing would entail adding a blue-gelled accent lamp to shots that were a warm-colored sweep, and a red-gelled lamp on the cool-colored sweeps, which would be shot with a slow shutter speed and camera shake to get colored light trails.

Thank you to Tidal for the opportunity and thanks to my wonderful team:

Seth Moses Miller- assistant

Andi Summer- hair/makeup/grooming

Matthew LaVere- digital tech