Jeremy Charles Photography + Design

My favorite subjects are bands. Especially the avant-garde bands. Ptiaradactyl, above and below, are one of those, their shows are performance art with elaborate handmade paper mache helmets. They have developed an entire folklore surrounding the band, a story too complicated to begin to explain here. Suffice it say, the shot above is a scene from this fictional legend – the characters are worshiping a giant magical jewel in their ruby cavern… We built the cave (crumpled paper with glued glitter)  in Erin’s basement studio, a tiny stage to pull off the idea. I got my hands on one of those goofy starlight filters to make the scene sparkle. The jewel was backlight with an old speedlight.

Local music producer Damon Banks of Swahill Studios was my subject for this shoot for the cover story of the Urban Tulsa Weekly several weeks ago. It was a misty morning, but luckily it was warm enough, and we beat the rain.

The band Ithica needed a shot quickly to accompany an article in the Urban Tulsa. I plainly had no ideas, which is not how I like to operate these days. But things seem to always work out. There was an enormous pool of water that band member and photographer Travis Hall thought might be useful. I had a friend’s 300mm 2.8 lens in my car, so it got the tap. Finally inspiration struck – what if we caught a splash in the foreground. It took several attempts, but we finally got a frame to work. Done and done in about a half hour start to finish.

Eric and the Adams have become friends of mine. We came up with the idea to paint a wall so they could overlay their logo over it for posters, etc for South by Southwest promotion.

I shoot LOTS of live shows, but rarely make it a priority to show them off. This is RJD2 performing at Cain’s Ballroom back in February.

Below is Christian pop duo Dean Williams. Simple and classy.

Below is another one-and-done assignment shot – the Tulsa Rock Ensemble. These guys are players in the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra who do special collaborations with local bands. It’s a pretty cool thing they are doing. And since they don’t get the chance to cut loose often, I wanted them to feel like rock stars for a change. Walk into the shot, squirt some smoke machine, give me some attitude. Bang bang done.

I have a couple more special band projects I’ve been holding onto for timing reasons. Keep an eye out!