Along with the beautiful concert photography being captured at the annual iHeartRadio Wango Tango Concert, the iHeartRadio social team wanted to take their social imagery to the next level at the 2018 event. The goal was to increase social engagement and provide a unique look for artists backstage at the iHeartRadio Wango Tango Concert.
After discovering his work on Instagram, the iHeartRadio social team reached out to light photographer Jason D. Page to see if it was possible to collaborate at the iHeartRadio Wango Tango Concert. Jason was excited for the opportunity and the two teams set up weekly meetings to storyboard for each musician and celebrity guest.
Light painting photography is the art form of using handheld lights to paint and/or draw in a scene while the shutter of a camera is left open during a long exposure photograph. By shooting in a dark location and using the technique of long exposure photography, the flashes, streaks, colors, textures, and trails of light created by light painting tools and modifiers can be captured in photographs without the use of any post-production. Knowing this, iHeartRadio had to set up a completely dark studio backstage at the event so that no light was exposed.
When artists and celebrity guests arrived, iHeartRadio's social team explained the idea of the portraits. Each musician and celebrity had to remain completely still while the light painting process was happening to not affect the long exposure photograph. After about a minute, the photo was taken and the portraits were stunning. The iHeartRadio social team also made sure to capture reactions of the musicians and guests seeing the finished product. Artists like Shawn Mendes, The Backstreet Boys, 5 Seconds Of Summer and Sabrina Carpenter were amazed at the results and shared their portraits across their social accounts.
The light painting portraits scored over 113K engagements during the concert weekend and generated over 93 million impressions. The strategy and photos were a featured topic in multiple photography blogs and magazines, and the photos contributed to the 9 billion impressions for the iHeartRadio #WangoTango over the weekend.
