First things first. The title of this blog post is a bit misleading. So let me clear this up for you: Steve Oundo is a MULTI-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, arranger and producer who hails from Uganda, but now lives here in Boston. I couldn't put all of that in the title.
Steve is a humble guy, so he'll blush when I say this, but anyone who knows him and has played music with him will tell you that he is a KILLIN' musician. He plays keys and guitar, but his primary instrument is electric bass. And singing? Yeah. He's equally skilled there, too. I'm gushing about Steve, because I know him personally and have played with him myself. I can attest that these things are true.
His new album, "The Traveler", drops on May 23rd. It's world/fusion/R&B.
The shoot.
I work on location, as opposed to in a studio. This means that me and my (wonderful & amazing) assistant are constantly lugging around my lighting gear to different shoot locations. Most of the time, I won't know exactly what I'm walking into before hand at any given location. I won't necessarily know much about the space or the quality of the ambient light before I arrive. As such, my shoots tend to be very think-on-your-feet type situations.
We started off indoors at a home that Steve shares with some roommates. I looked at a few different rooms within his home, but I really liked the color of the walls in the dining room; Steve's skin tone and white clothing would look nice against that color, so I decided to do the indoor portion of the shoot there. It was a small space, but we made it work.
When we were finished with the indoor shots, we packed up all of the gear except for one light and one soft box on a stick.
We wanted to change it up and get an urban look for some of the images. I'd spotted an office park close by on the way to Steve's home, so the three of us walked the short distance there and came across a loading dock that wasn't in use.
Congrats on your new album, Steve! See you at your CD release party!