ryan shupe

Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand Concert Photos from Sandy Amphitheater

It’s summer and that time a year again for outdoor concerts and relaxing under the stars while listening to the music of my friends’ group, Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand. I love photographing concerts, and for this event also shot a music video. We’re still working on the video, but I thought I’d share with you some of my concert photographs from that evening.

As the night progresses, the energy from the show grows, and the band begin dancing around more and more.

 

I always like seeing and capturing in motion all the broken fiddle bow hairs flying around in the air as Ryan jams.

Ryan Shupe shows are a blast. They really are perfect in an outdoor summer setting, and I can’t recommend them enough. If you’d like to see one of his shows, check out his tour schedule on his website at RyanShupe.com.

If you need some cool photos for your business and branding, give me a call. I’d love to create something amazing for you. 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Ryan Shupe Live Concert at Sandy Amphitheater, June 2018

Ryan Shupe just had his big outdoor summer concert here in Utah at the Sandy Amphitheater, and I was there again to photograph the event for him. His band, ‘Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand‘ puts on a great live show. The mix of great music, the cool night breeze, friends, laughter, and smell of popcorn and hotdogs from the concessions all come together for a wonderful night.

These images I shoot get used for his promotional materials, website, and even for album designs. The images I shot last year for him have been used entirely for his brand new album design, Live Volume II.

I hope you can feel the energy from the live show, just by viewing these images.

For one song, Ryan had me shoot some iPhone video for his Facebook live which included a wedding proposal at the end of the song. But during the song he has tons of children from the crowd come up and sing on stage with him.

Here’s the video. It starts with a few seconds of my face resetting the app, because the Facebook app crashed as soon as the song started.

And as the night gets later, the stage lights grow and you can see the energy on stage grow as they start rockin’ even more.

If you have a band or business or need some great commercial images to showcase what you do, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create some great images for you as well.

And until next time, America.

Concert Video and Photos for Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand Concert, Sandy Amphitheater June 2017

For more years than I can remember, warm weather here in Utah is marked by photographing outdoor concerts for Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand. They are always beautiful summer nights under the stars, soaking in great music. Just recently I shot Ryan’s big Utah show at the Sandy Amphitheater doing both video production and shooting photographs for the band’s promotional needs.

First, the promo video of Ryan just solo playing fiddle, mandolin, and singing along with a looper pedal. This was a huge project, shot with about 6 cameras, and included a ton of grading and editing to cut it all together with the right feel and storytelling. If you look closely, you can see me because one of my cameras catches me on stage at the very beginning and end of the video. Here’s the video. See what you think.

Bands are like any other business, they need great photos for advertising and promotion. Photographs are your storefront. People often say that a website is your storefront, because clients see that first and make buying decisions based on your site. But the truth is that your website is only as good as the photographs on it. Poor photographs – poor website. Great photographs – great website. Photos tell the story of your business, who you are, the show quality of what you’re offering.

Lighting is everything in a photo, and concerts are especially difficult with the constantly changing stage lighting. The values, intensity, and colors are constantly changing and the musicians are always on the move. There’s no redos. And that’s exactly why I love photographing concerts They’re an exhilarating creative challenge and I know that no one else can capture or get what I get. Hopefully when you see these images, it feels like you’re right there.

If your band or business needs some great photography to better showcase your brand, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.

Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand

Warm weather and summer in Utah has been marked for many years for me by outdoor concerts by my friend, Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand. Last week he performed at the Sandy Amphitheater and I was there to capture some new and energetic concert pictures.

I know that tomorrow he’ll also be performing in Layton Utah and the amphitheater there, and his full schedule for Utah and out-of-state gigs are all on his website at Shupe.net. Whether you’ve been to one of his shows before or have never been, they are always great. The concerts have energy, are full of heart, and attract all ages.
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If your band or business needs some great photography to showcase your brand, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.

Commercial Portraits of Musician Ryan Shupe

How do you relate the visual story about a musician that plays multiple instruments, is changing up his sound, while matching the album title, We Rode On? Creative commercial portraits that tell a story are some of the most challenging and fun images to create. That’s why I love photographing musicians, they appreciate and want these types of dramatic images, understand the time and work that goes into creating them, and these images get used in print and promotion for some time. They need to be powerful, professional, eye-catching, while telling the story of the musician.

Ryan Shupe has been a long-time friend, and I have done his professional photography for so many years, that it’s crazy to think about all of the shoots we’ve done and all changes that have happened in both the photography and music industries over the years. But Ryan has also helped me push my creative boundaries to continually create new and innovative images that have visual impact and commercial appeal, and this latest photo shoot is for his new album, We Rode On, is no different.

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For more information on Ryan Shupe and his new album, visit his website at RyanShupe.com and If you’re a musician and need some killer photographs that you can use for posters, CDs, media, and web use, give me a call at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Concert Pics from Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand Show

I recently shot concert photographs for Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand, and here are some of my favorites.

Concerts are a fun and creative challenge for me photographically. My specialty is lighting, and I don’t like creating normal images. I want images that pop emotionally and artistically, and that means controlling the lighting. But during a concert I can’t use custom lighting techniques and set up a portable studio on location like I might with other type shoots. Instead I have to use the stage lights which are always changing. Making that work means understanding what’s happening with the light and the show, and moving to make it all work from the right angles.

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If you need some images for your business, give me a call. 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something great for you.

Band Portraits for Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand

This week Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand put on a show outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, and we used the opportunity to shoot some new band portraits. These kinds of images are used for posters, marketing, web sites, and overall band promotion.

Band portraits need to be iconic, visually interesting, they need to show the vibe of the band so that you know what a live show will be like. Band portraits need to show personality, they can’t be mundane or normal. So all of that means that band portraits are no different than any other portrait I create for people – they need to have exquisite lighting and emotion.

For this image, I envisioned the band on stage with Ryan up front looking right into the camera. I wanted instruments showing and also all the feel of the stage with the stage lights and smoke – except it’s not possible to do a shot like that during the show with an amphitheater full of people. It had to be shot during the day before the show. So I set it up, lit the scene, and shot it knowing I’d be recreating from scratch the entire “feel” of the stage later in post production.

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Above is the final version after all the digital work. And below, is an animation of my progress. In the animation it may come together in just a few seconds, but it didn’t take seconds to make.

Notice how in the first and completely raw shot, the skin tones and lighting on the individuals is perfect, but it’s in the middle of the day. It doesn’t look like night and there are no stage lights. From there I slowly build it up, painting in from scratch the stage lights, the atmosphere, the smoke, as well as the effects of the colored lights on Ryan, his jacket, on the band, and on the walls. I’m constantly asking myself, how would this light affect the scene? Where would it be visible? Because of where Ryan is standing, he is being lit with the most diverse set of colored lights from various places. How those lights all skim across his black leather jacket have all been painted in.

The result is something both real and natural to the eye, but also is a shot that could not have been created otherwise. It’s an impactful image.

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This second band portrait was created to look real and natural, to be impactful, and to also show the energy of the group. But it wasn’t originally shot like this either.
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To create it, I individually lit and shot each band member separately. I then took the best of each individual and put this together, lining up each brick and line in the background to match the bending perspective shift created by my camera’s angle and lens choice. I really liked the wide angle feel and the bending of the bricks created by that. There was a lot of very small and detailed painting needed to get all of these image to seamlessly blend together, and for shadows to fall where they should, and for the creation of shadows and mixing shadows. But the end result is a really cool and iconic band picture.
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Here it is in color too before the final conversion to black and white. This color image could work for a lot of purposes when color is required, though in the black and white I did multi-tone it so that it grabs the eye even in b&w.
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I was also hired to shoot some concert images during the show later, and I’ll get to posting them soon too. But for as much time as these took to create, I wanted to post today about these these band photos and what really goes into sometimes just one or two commercial images.

There are lots of commercial needs for great photos, some that require almost no Photoshop and post-production and some (like these) that require a lot. My specialty is lighting and emotion and I’m on the Adobe software team training photographers all over the country on advanced clean and natural Photoshop techniques. So for all your commercial imaging needs, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Tell me what business you’re in and what you’d like and let’s make it happen. Let’s create some iconic images for your business that make you shine.

And until next time, America.

Concert Photos of Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand, Sandy Amphitheater

This week I photographed Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand at their Utah summer concert at the Sandy Amphitheater. I’ve created images for them for years, and I always look forward to this show in particular. It’s outdoors with a mix of chair and lawn seating, and the feel of the place is great for the show Ryan and his band put on. There is always a lot of energy here at this show, and I work to capture that energy and emotion in the images.

As a musician myself, I’ve always loved concerts and I think that makes it especially fun to photograph them. I work hard to create images that do more than just capture the night for the band, the images should also make a viewer feel like they are there. That means images need to be timed to catch the right split-second motion, must show attitude, but must also be technically great with color, exposures (during rapidly changing lighting), and have a good, artistic composition –– and I have to do it all while being sneaky so that I’m not obtrusive to the audience’s experience. That’s always the challenge of photographing a concert, and I think these images do that. See what you think.

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Ryan is a songwriter, and all of his music is original. His shows have a bluegrass/rock flavor, with a set list of up tempo and loud songs mixed with more mellow ballads. If you’ve never been to one of his shows, you really should check them out.

And if you are a band and need great images on stage, in studio or even on location, and want images that look great no matter what, than give me a call at 801-728-3317. You can also check out my portfolio website at BryCox.com.

Until next time, America.

Happy Anniversary, Ashley and Ryan Shupe, Wedding at the Denver LDS Temple

I can’t believe that it’s been that long! Ten years ago today at the Denver Colorado Temple, I photographed the wedding of my close friend, Ryan Shupe to his beautiful wife, Ashley. Today for their anniversary, I pulled a few images from the archives to post.

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It was such a beautiful and warm day that day, and I remember mixing video and special effects together with their album images for a very unique slideshow – a very early concept at the time. I also remember that after the photo shoot at the temple, the couple and I were starving and ate fried chicken on the hood of our rental car before I took Ryan on some errands before the reception as part of my Best Man duties that day as well.

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Ryan and Ashley are a happy and inspiring couple and they now have four cute little children that seem to be growing very fast. Below is our most recent updated family portrait, taken in the canyon near their home, and you can see more details and images from this shoot by clicking here.

Cox_RShupe-F-140bHappy Anniversary, you two!! It’s been an honor creating portraits of you and your extended families over the years.