rico moran

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND; THIS IS THE REAL GOBBLE GOBBLE

These four boys have almost completed their infinitour and they have left a trail of blown minds all across the continent. If you don’t know of them already, Gobble Gobble’s jams are second to none on the dance-your-face-and-clothes-off-o-meter. Described by some as “flu pop”, “gay R&B”, or “day-care rave”, this is essential listening if you are a fan of fun. Check them out on myspace, twitter, or tumblr.

Producing and shooting these photos was so much fun; I think they do well to illustrate the chaos and energy of the music. The inspiration was one part post-Avatar 3D hype, two scoops all the wonderful gifs already on their myspace (thanks Leslie!), and a shot of human sweat collected from the aftermath of their live show.

Here you can see where it all went down. I commandeered this storage space behind the venue the band was playing at that night and set up what you see here. Just what the heck is all that stuff? The four buckets of liquid contain a mixture of water, milk, flour, and food colouring — after being splashed with this the GBLNs went straight inside to play their set. Later they said it was kind of like hair gel. A bubble mat served as the backdrops for the blue image and the other backdrops were made from a collage of stuff found at the Reuse Center. [nerd alert] There are two cameras with 50mm lenses attached to a rickety frame of L-brackets and then mounted on a tripod. Lighting was simply a medium softbox gelled to match the backdrop and an ungelled standard reflector, both fed by a power pack with a fast flash duration that could freeze all the little droplets of goop. Because the photos were exposed only by the flash, I was able to capture the exact same moment on both cameras without the need for a fancy remote/sync.

Since we only had enough liquid for two tries with of each colour, we had to learn very quickly what worked and what didn’t. While I was working the flashes there were four to five others delivering the splashes. It’s a good thing too, because the band had just drove eleven hours from their last venue and had to play this one shortly after arriving. Huge thanks to Kique, Maria, Giulliano, Megan, Aimee, and of course Gobble Gobble for helping me through the various stages of this shoot. Now I will leave you with a bigger version of one of my faves: