The Dears

I recently had the opportunity to photograph The Dears during their recent press tour to Toronto to promote their new album, "Degeneration Street".

I was feeling a little uncertain about this shoot for a few reasons:

1. This was my first time shooting a famous band,
2. Posed group portaits are generally outside my confort zone (I'm more about candids), and
3. My wife is a longtime friend of Natalia Yanchak (keyboardist) and the possibility of disappointing them runs a serious risk of personal torment from my better half.

This is my personal favorite photograph from the shoot.  It could have done with a bit of bounce fill to lighten up under their chins, but there's only so much you can do sometimes.

We did the shoot at the posh hotel they were staying at.  This made it easy for the group as they were already doing numerous interviews there and they were justifiably tired due to the hectic schedule of the press tour.

I was thrown a bit of a curveball when, 5 minutes before the shoot, we were told that if any of the artwork hanging in the halls was visible and recognizable in any of the resulting shots, they would have to pay a royalty.  It would have been nice if I had been told that in either of the two visits I paid to the hotel during my location scouting, but now I'm just being nasty (and I should be very aware of other artists' copyrights anyway). 

No harm... we made it work.  But just so you know, there's more artwork than plaster on these walls.

Many thanks to the band for giving me this opportunity.