Banging good times! How to shoot drummers.

So I had this idea....

A while ago I thought it would be cool to photograph a drummer in such a way that clearly illustrates just how active and dynamic he/she is behind the kit.

Yesterday I finally got around to fulfilling that intention.  I met up with Erik in his home practice/recording space (ie, his basement) and we got down to some musical and photographic business for a couple of hours.

The weird thing is that I had gone in with some preconceptions, some plans of how I was going to go about this to make a "lovely portrait of a drummer".  About 20 minutes into setting up my gear and arranging the drum kit and other stuff just right, I tossed my plan of attack and went rogue.

The resulting images were derived from my planned lighting technique combined with a blurring technique I had read about somewhere long long ago.  I think that the images accurately capture the dynamism that is a drummer going full throttle into a session.
Moreover, the green cap adds so much as it makes him just pop out from the warmth of the surroundings.

Here's the tech stuff:
Nikon D800 hand-held, shooting at 1.5seconds, about f11, iso 280.
A single Nikon SB900 flash on a stand to camera right, tethered to the D800.
The flash is set to "repeat" mode, shooting 4 blasts during the exposure.
To camera left is another lightstand with an old-school hot light (Mole Richardson - Mini Mole) set at narrow spread. It puts out about 250watts of tungsten light.

The tungsten light makes some of the scene register through the 1.5 seconds, while the 4 pops of the flash capture 4 instances of movment. 
On top of all that, as I exposed the scene, I either zoomed the lens in or out.
Lots of unpredictable fun.

It is my understanding that we will be gathering again in the future with the rest of the band. I may need some ear plugs.