For years I made a living shooting environmental portraits for various magazines I was an editorial photography machine. I still enjoy photographing people they just don’t take direction as well as a motorcycle in a studio setting.

This past weekend my friend Natan invited me down to the Boston Tattoo Convention to hang out and take some photos.  Everyone can take a photo of someones tattoo while they are standing there on stage, that’s not challenging and in my opinion that’s not art it’s merely acting as a photo copier. The real fun in taking photos at a tattoo convention is in telling the story of the moment.

Boston Tattoo Convention 2009

Tips to taking photos at a tattoo convention

1. Available light at tattoo conventions sucks so bring your own or learn to work with what you are given.  And remember the artist is working so if you are going to use flash ASK FIRST.

Ink in the dark

A little fill flash (-2 stops) brought this scene back from being far too dark.  I could have used a bit more but I wanted  to keep the depth, moodiness and available light feel.

Enjoying the ink

2. Take the time to talk to your subject and build a rapport

JaySki at work

3. Work the angles.  The above photo is a great example of angling your photo to take advantage of  what is going on in the foreground, middle and background of the scene.

4. It’s about the people. In addition to vending some of his wares Scott was shooting some video and I took this photo of him enjoying the show.

Working hard?

5. Sometimes even an artists down time tells a story.

Michah

5. Try and capture interesting moments in the tattoo process.  I came across Jae Audette, freehand drawing a traditional American tattoo outline on a client with a sharpie.

freehand traditional

6. Even when shooting wide open and with a high ISO blur can still happen due to the bad lighting in most convention locations.  Know movement will happen and use it to your advantage, by showing the artist plying his trade.

Natan tattooing

7. Space at a tattoo convention is always limited so you will tend to see the same photo time and time again.  Stations are laid out so an artist can best work on someone and not for optimal photo taking.  If you see a setting that works good for a photo keep an eye on it and like waiting for the right light when shooting a landscape, sooner or later it will pay off for you.

some detail work

More photos from the 8th annual Boston Tattoo Convention can be found on my flickr page.