Beach House Live at Magnolia By Strange Exposures

With Strange exposures

Smiles had the opportunity to shoot their favorite band Beach House, during the band’s most recent stretch of Southern California shows with opening band, Sound of Ceres. Beach House, a band known for dreamy melodies, guitars that feel like teenage heartbreak, and velvet album artwork, performed at the band's “ideal venue”  Magnolia Theater in EL Cajon. Bathed in fleeting lights, their silhouettes swayed against a starry backdrop transforming the crowd into wide-eyed stargazers. The band’s faces never showed for more than a milli-second of a strobe light, and their ambiguous presence posed an initial obstacle for capturing the performance.

Undressing the expectation of taking crisp and clear images, Smiles leaned into the shadows and play of illusive figures to create dreamy, dazzling double exposures. Double exposures are one of Smile’s favorite film techniques and one of their signature styles. This technique requires the photographer to take a photo, then trick the camera into thinking it has advanced to the next frame, allowing a second photo to be taken, producing a singular blended image.  Smiles packed 3 cameras, a Nikon FG 35mm camera, an Olympus Om10 35mm camera and a Nikon D7800 DSLR, which the security guards for the venue found rather excessive and comedic. Mid show one of the film cameras jammed and the excessive amount of cameras became the lifeline for shooting the rest of the show. Smiles prepared for the show with 4 rolls of film, 2 rolls of Cinestill 800 and 2 rolls of Lomography 800 film, both of which Smiles prefers for live shows due to their ability to function in low lighting and their vibrant coloring. The luminous sounds, diffused vocals and celestial performance are echoed in Smile’s photographs. More of their photos can be seen on their website strangeexposures.com or on their instagram @strangeexposures.