Tamron Blog: Angle of View

Anatomy of a CD cover design and shoot: step by step.

By John VanSteenberg

 

I’ve been photographing musicians forever. Recently, I was asked to design and produce artwork and the cover for a CD for a very talented emerging artist and soundscape designer. I always spend time listening to the music before I meet an artist, to make the cover fit the artistic style of the music and to discuss how to approach it visually.

In this case, musically, the work turned out to be an extraordinary spiritual album from a powerful artist named Emmanuel. The music was so unique and different that I had to ask him what genre HE thought it belonged in. “The closest I can come is that it is Christian ‘soul’ music. It’s so different with flavors of soul, gospel, rock and rap that I can only let people tell me what to call it.” When asked where he thought he wanted to go with his music, he said that his goal is to become a pastor and minister to kids and others in need on the streets where he grew up. So, the cover had to be attractive to young people.

Planning the design:

We spent time discussing the visual concept for the cover. Emmanuel is very artistic, and not just musically. We decided on something that identified him as contemplative and spiritual and even a bit mysterious, moody and beyond worldly.

CD covers are barely 4.75” in size. That means that the image elements are VERY small. So to provide impact, something about the image has to stand out and call out to a shopper or radio DJ looking for what they want to play in a crowded often chaotic store and radio studio.

Since the songs on the CD are about the real life situations that he and his friends survived growing up, we chose NOT to go with a typical “face shot” approach, but show a more serious moment and person. We also chose to deal with the theme of ‘Pain & Release’ on an additional more symbolic level, evolving from ‘pain’ to ‘release’ by bridging the physical and spiritual world by warping the worldscape.

To do that, we first posed Emmanuel by a large window in a contemplative, serious pose. The pose alone is very important in this case because it uses much of the available space on the cover to set a mood. Here, the dark almost obscure pose is naturally designed to be ambiguous: Is he in pain? Is he praying? Is he thinking? Is he just exhausted?

I used my SP 17-50 f/2.8 for the portrait. The lighting is 100% window light.

We also had to consciously plan for space for the typography, leaving some very dark areas in the upper right and lower left to contrast with the type.

Now that we had the image basis for the cover, we had to meet the additional goals of the project and produce the typography and create the extra-worldly visual impact. That took several steps. As a product, CD covers also have to have a certain visual uniqueness to be easily seen on store shelves.

First, I solarized the raw file in Bibble Labs Bibble Pro software. Doing this in the raw file state added far more color tones and exciting transitions to the final solarized image. It could not have been achieved in jpeg file format where a lot of data is discarded.

Solarization changed the window light from a conventional sensation to a fiery yellow/green light, and created the step gray shadows, the blue shadow flares on his shirt and the color swatches on the window sill and his fingers. While it also altered his skin tones to appear somewhat more green looking, I was able to minimize that shift and considering the apparent light source, it was an appropriate shift.

Then, I embedded the title and some additional typography (the “Create” logo on his shirt, and the window decal) the ‘create’ as a personal statement for Emmanuel and the window decal for commercial reasons. Finally, I did some localized retouching and dynamic range adjustments to raise the whites, give more tones and ‘pop’ to the image and the result is as shown.

Emmanuel’s CD should arrive in stores about July 20TH and I thank him for permission to use these images for the blog. Look for it online at iTunes, CD Baby, etc.. You can also look him up at www.icreateent.com and on youutube.com. Also, special thanks to Jeff and Jamie Brown of the superb “Incognito Portrait Design” studio for the use of their spectacular studio facilities

Always on the look out for things out of place

By Jillian Bell

 

These photos were taken in Berkley, California. I was out on the west coast helping with a hands on seminar, taking in the warm sun. I could not help but notice this sun was just low enough to cut through the park we were walking around in. The first photo shown I consider a sunset shot. However, it's not the setting sun that's my subject, I liked how the bright blown out highlights broke up the pattern of the tree branches. F5.6, 1/25th of a second at 100ISO - using the Tamron AF 18-270mm VC PZD.

I was so inspired by the setting sun in front of me, that by chance I looked up... Here, high above in the branches was the most unusual sight. A pair of sneakers perfectly tied just hanging there. "How did they get up there?" I asked. Clean enough to be a new addition, I wondered if the person who these belong to brought a second pair, or if they ran home in socks. Either way, I liked the human element in nature and how the red bark in the background really makes the green branches pop.

  

State of Maine, Is a State of Mind Part 1, Always be Ready

By Ken Hubbard

For the past few years my family and I have been taking vacations together the first week of July, this year was no different. We decided to head up to Maine and rent a few cabins on the Blue Hill peninsula overlooking Penobscot Bay, this is a very low key and quiet place to escape to. It is always nice to travel and spend time with family, but as a photographer it can be a test of patience at times, considering all you have to take into account when traveling with so many people. From experience, I've learned that these trips will yield very little in the way of "fine art" images, but that is OK. I've also learned to appreciate taking fun pictures of family and the places we go together without worrying about having to get the perfect image to use somewhere or print and hang for a gallery. With all that being said, my camera bag that usually weighs in at about 35-40 lbs is cut down to about 15lbs with only the minimal amount of gear being packed and brought on the trip. One of the ways I kept weight to a minimum was packing the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens, I ended up using this lens for 90% of the images I shot while in Maine.

Even on trips with the family I am always ready to take a picture, many times while driving you pass something that will make a great image but your gear is packed away and you convince yourself not to stop and you keep on driving to your destination. I always keep my camera bag open on the back seat of my car and the camera set with either the 18-270mm (for the APS-C sized D7000) or 28-300mm (for the full frame D700), this way I can pretty much stop the car, pick up the camera and start shooting. In this image I came across an antique (it seems everything is an antique these days) sign shop on the side of the road, I quickly pulled into the parking lot grabbed my camera and started shooting. I wanted to keep a straight on perspective of the outside wall, so I lined up my back bumper in the middle and then climbed onto the bumper to gain some height. I positioned myself as close as I could to center both top to bottom and left to right, keeping all lines as straight as possible.

CREATING A LOGO Photo: for a creative company.

By John VanSteenberg

 

Recently, in addition to a CD cover, I was asked to create a company logo for Emmanuel’s music and custom sound production business. Let’s look at designing an image for his company logo.

Planning the design:

The design goal we agreed on is: a radical, fun and interesting image of Emmanuel and his tools, an array of keyboards.

Elements to consider:

1. Unique fun portrait of him.
2. Lots of energy and intrigue.
3. Keyboards.
4. Visually exciting.

Decisions:

To include an array of keyboards and to avoid triteness, we decided to go for something rather unique and fun rather than E just playing the keyboard. We decide to have Emmanuel ‘surfing’ the musical landscape on one of his keyboards. But, we also wanted more than one keyboard and we wanted a fun mysterious and rather exotic memorable portrait.

Implementation:

In order to accomplish this I knew we would need both careful optical selections and digital post production technologies. So, here is the step by step of how the plan unfolded:

1-Chose a very high angle, very wide angle for the portrait. (Shot from a low ladder with my SP 10-24). This accentuates the keyboard and distorts Emmanuel's head and body proportions adding intrigue and energy.

2-Chose a very unique pose with E holding the keyboard in a very unconventional manner and riding a second keyboard, like a skate or surf board. (Since standing on the instrument was not possible, we would have to do that in post).

3-Make the separate image of another of E’s keyboards for insertion later as the skate board. (This was made with the SP 17-50).

4-Then we would go into post production.

Here are the images as they were created and modified:

• Overhead portrait. First, I shot Emmanuel on a green screen so that I could control and easily drop out the background and add elements to the scene. I wanted the image to be visually unique and somewhat distorted in perspective for interest and to emphasize the keyboards and make E’s head quite large (implying a big brain) with very direct eye contact. Therefore, the SP 10-24mm was used with it’s extreme wide angle and huge depth of field. The scene was lit with a 6’ round soft box with checkerboard louvers and a hair (rim) light. I was about 2 feet from E’s head when I made the image.

• Shot of the keyboard. A simple straight green screen easily manipulated into the final image. (Shot with my trusty SP 17-50).

• Combined the two images:

1. In Photoshop I dropped out the green screen, cleaned up the rest of the background and retouched the selection of E and the keyboard he is holding.
2. Then I put the second keyboard under E’s feet. To do that, I:

rotated the image and

transformed the shape for perspective, remembering to distort it.

• I added drop shadows and streaking and an offset blur to add energy and imply movement.

1. Drop shadows on both the portrait and the keyboard shots.
2. Blur on E’s portrait.
3. Streaking in the drop shadows and blur to imply movement and direction.

• Wrapped everything in plastic to distort and add mystery and kind of a cocoon around E and his keys. Since I couldn’t really do this without suffocating him, I knew that I would do this in post production work to make the image unique and tie the design elements together. (The key to this step is selecting the best effect and adjusting the opacity and blending between the image and the effect.) Create a duplicate layer of E and dodge out the plastic directly over half of E’s face (somewhat randomly) so that his face is at least partially exposed and direct eye contact is enhanced.

• Retouch and clean up elements and flatten the image into one final grouped set of elements.

And this is the final result and LOGO image Emmanuel will use.

I converted my RAW files in Bibble Labs Bibble 5.0 PRO software to adjust exposure, density, contrast and color to precisely what I wanted and matched to each other. Then I used Photoshop to composite the image and add effects and typography. The lighting was a 6’ round soft box with checkerboard louvers and a hair light.

Thanks to Emmanuel for his creative ideas and the most interesting new album I have heard in years and for allowing me to use these images for the blog. Special thanks to Jeff and Jamie Brown of the superb “Incognito Portrait Design” studio for the use of their spectacular studio facilities (www.incognitoportraitdesign.com).

John

Grand Teton / Yellowstone

By Ed Heaton

I just got back from a great trip out west, Wyoming to be specific. I spent five days in the Grand Tetons and one day in Yellowstone fine-tuning the logistics for my fall Photo Tour. I spent six days working from 4am to 10pm each day and at the end of each day I was beat and ready for bed. When I did have a few minutes of down time it was spent writing notes on the different locations documenting the best times to visit the various locations and how long it took to get to various areas.

As a professional photographer these trips are not just mere fun with an occasional photo op here and there. They are working trips and you need to have the right tools with you to get the job done. For me the right tools are a number of things which include camera body, lenses, tripod, filters, cable release, pano equipment, etc…. Let's break it down to just the lenses. I needed a wide angle, medium range lens and a longer tele-photo to make sure I could cover all the ranges that I was presented with. This meant that I had a packed camera bag full of Tamron lenses and other equipment which equal "HEAVY". I never check my gear when flying and the airlines allow you to carry two items and those two items for me was my camera bag and tripod. I can always buy clothes if they did actually lose my luggage but luckily they didn’t.

Ask any craftsman and they'll tell you, having the right tools makes all of the difference in the world...

Best of Light,

Ed

Tamron, Frank Gehry & the Space Needle

By Ken Hubbard

I just got back to my hotel room after taking a walk around Seattle after sunset. I've been here a few times but never went by the Experience Music Project building designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry, who is well know for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and many other buildings. It is located next to Seattle's Space Needle who's observation deck is 520 feet above the ground. The two structures are of conflicting forms, one as fluid as a river and the other as sharp as a granite mountain face but together can make a very interesting image. The exterior of Mr Gehry's buildings are very reflective and after taking a few minutes to position myself, I found a nice set of curving lines and a great reflection of the Space Needle on the Experience Structure. I originally shot this image about 3 hours before this final photo, but after getting off the monorail on the way back to my hotel, the light was much better about an hour after sunset. The sky was a nice rich blue and the lights on the Space Needle were turned on, the combination of the two made for a much stronger image. This image was created with the Tamron SP AF10-24mm Di II lens.