A couple of weeks ago I talked to my friend Brian about photographing his band Disappears in the studio while they worked on their new record. After deciding on a day and my window of time I got a train ticket, packed my gear, and last Wednesday I spent about five hours with them in the booth and control room in Sonic Youth’s studio (their drummer is Steve Shelly of Sonic Youth) in Hoboken, NJ. Although many would argue that the recording process is boring, I found it interesting to just be a fly on the wall while they worked. I love watching the process of really talented people create things.
It was also a great opportunity to put my new D7000 to the test. The booth was a dimly lit space and I had to crank the ISO up to 12,800 and shoot wide open at between 1/80 and 1/125. I’m pretty pleased with the results. The images are noisy, but no more so than pushed 3200 speed film, which I love the look of so I’m happy. I intended to do some portraits with a Speedlight and umbrella, but just ran out of time. They started to get into a groove and were experimenting with a couple of ways of working out the ending to a song, which I didn’t want to interrupt, so I’ll just try to get those shots the next time they come to DC.
If you are unfamiliar with Disappears you should check them out. Big thanks to Brian, Jonathan, Damon and Steve for letting me invade their space for a couple of hours.
