Audra Mae

I had the pleasure to do a quick photo session and extensive interview with Audra Mae at SXSW. Audra Mae is a uniquely gifted singer/songwriter signed to OneSideDummy Recorders, who happens to have signed another of my favorite bands - Flogging Molly.


Audra Mae gained much notoriety last year when her haunting and soulful cover of Bob Dylan's Forever Young was featured on the Fox series, Sons Of Anarchy.

This shot is the perfect example of shooting on the fly. It was taken in the hall outside of Audra's hotel room and I used a camera mounted Nikon Speedlight to give me nice contrasting bounce light off of the left wall.

We did a quick series of ten shots and then Audra was on her way to perform a riveting set to an eager SXSW crowd.

Audra was truly delightful to interview and she is a stunning natural beauty to photograph.

Post production on the above image included some slight feather retouch on her cheeks, with little to minor retouching under her eyes to help enhance their sharpness.


For the image below I did two extremely high key exposures and shot in RAW format black and white.

Session 2 with The Pretty Black Chains

Two weeks ago I was in Oklahoma City to do a 1950's inspired session with the staff of Oklahoma Film & Music.

While there, I had another session with The Pretty Black Chains. I recently went to Cain's Ballroom to embed with PBC's for their groundbreaking performance opening for the Smashing Pumpkins.

Out of the many Oklahoma bands I have covered of the past years, The Pretty Black Chains are without a doubt the band poised to break through into the national market.

Their sound, and stage presence invokes the feeling of MORE, that they are more than a band who has only been together for two years... that they are more than a band in Oklahoma City. The Pretty Black Chains have the IT factor that is going to land them in the rare group of bands who make it out of the local scene and into rock history.

I started documenting the Pretty Black Chains at South By Southwest, in March of this year. Since then I have been following their rapidly changing sound, flourishing from British inspired pop rock to heavy guitar driven rockers.

Here are a few of my favorites from my latest session with the Pretty Black Chains.