Documentary Series - O'Littleblood

O’Littleblood is a dark-psych band from Melbourne, Australia. Combining a love of gloomy lyrics, heavy drone noise and minimalistic structures, the band formed when Adam Bennett and Samantha Arthur decided to create a side project from their previous bands. Their songs are dark and loud, layered with swelling guitars, heavy repetitive beats and floating lyrics.

I wanted to combine staged portraits with action shots and environmental shots from when Samantha and Adam were rehearsing in this series. I wanted to mix the different styles in order for the viewer to get a sense of their music and style from just looking at the pictures. Since their music is quite dark and gloomy I decided to keep the aesthetics and colour palette dark and moody.  The band obviously had their own ideas and wishes for the photos that were taken into consideration and discussion when preparing for the shoots. The series was shot in two separate stages, the portraits were shot around Melbourne close to dusk and the action shots were shot in the band’s studio as they were practicing the night before one of their gigs.

For inspiration I had a general browse around the Internet for music related documentary photography and band photos. I found the work of Steven Bush and liked his simplistic aesthetics.  I also found an artist called Ben Blood that I liked as well that had shot quite a few location shoots with bands. I had both photographers’ images in fresh memory when I framed and positioned my subjects during the photo shoot, but not so much for the actual editing of the photos.

Rasmus N

Steven Bush Photography 2011, ‘Steven Bush Photography’, Viewed 25 September, <http://stevenbush.org/>.

Ben Blood 2013, ‘ Ben Blood – Documentary Photographer’, Viewed 25 September,

<http://blog.benblood.com/>.