Though there are all manner of cool ways to fire the shutter of your camera with triggers like the Triggertrap and ioShutter, fashion shoots are traditionally still done with the old-fashioned finger and button combo. Not so at a recent shoot for an Australian retailer, in which 42 customized cameras were automatically triggered by frequencies in a live musical performance. Is it time to fire the photographer and hire a drummer?
The team behind the ShotBySound project – which saw a live performance by musician Daniel Johns used to take marketing photos for retailer David Jones to use on social media – says it's a representation of the way in which fashion and music are intertwined, and that musicians are style icons. All we know is it's a rather cool project which is powered by some interesting tech and a smart idea.
The setup, which used 200 m (656 ft) of cabling, took four weeks preparation and 10 hours to install on the day. There were 42 Canon EOS 1100D DSLRs positioned around a crane and metal scaffolding rig which was used as the setting for both the musical performance and fashion show photo shoot. The sound from the musical equipment was fed into a PreSonus 32.4.2AI mixing desk, and from there into a custom-built Arduino system.
This system was used to detect when certain frequencies and thresholds were reached by each of the various audio input sources and sent trigger impulses to the wired camera system, firing off different combinations of single or multiple cameras and flashes. As such, as Daniel Johns performed We are Golden from the album TALK, the band effectively took photos of themselves and the fashion models who were doing their thing in front of the cameras in a semi-choreographed routine.
"We took the music as an input and programmed it to take photos based on the frequencies and amplitudes of Daniel’s music," said Matt Brown, electrical engineer for the project. "It’s never been done before but who knows, this could become the future of music videos."
In total, over 1,500 images and videos were taken during the performance, the best will be used on social media, and also feature in a music video for the song, which was filmed during the fashion shoot performance.
You can check out the music video photo-shoot below, followed by a behind the scenes video.
More info: Sheindressau.com