How I created the LE52Weeks-9: CD Cover

LE52Weeks-9: CD Cover, originally uploaded by Jon W. Howson.

The specifics for this assignment was as follows:

The music group is a String Quartet. The music they are playing is this piece:

String Quartet in F, By Maurice Ravel

This image will be a square... as CD's are square.

You have two options:
1. Musical instrument on location. (Violin, Viola, Cello)
2. Musician with instrument on location

Yes, I know most of you do not have a spare cello sitting around for a prop... So we will make a third option:

3. Get creative... How would you make a CD cover without a quartet, or the instruments? I can think of a few ways... can you?

How I approached the shot

I knew just before the deadline for this assignment that I would be attending a residential orchestral weekend away so I knew that I had access to a number of instrument and players. I choose to work with a cellist that I had worked with before, and decided to go for a close in shot of the instrument with the idea that it could imply any of four instruments within a string quartet.

I decided to approach the shot with a single light source to have a dark and mysterious feel to the image. To narrow done the beam of light from my off camera flash I decided to go with a black straws snoot grid with the aim of targeting the light solely around the bridge area of the cello. The resulting shot is as seen below.



From here it was a matter of selecting a crop, obviously square, and then processing it in photoshop. The part where the image really started to come alive with more contrast and bringing out the colours was when I converted the image from the colour mode of RGB to LAB. From here I chose to apply the image, changing the blending mode to Soft Light and experimented with the different channels. Finally a text layer was applied to complete the CD cover.

What do you think to the final result? How would you have done things differently if given the same assignment?

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52 - A Project For Photographers

Recently I have been looking at pushing my photography a bit further, hopefully into the realms of paid work and assignments. With this in mind, the appearance of Don Giannatti, of Lighting Essentials, and his project for the year, 52 A Project For Photographers: Assignments, Discussions, Critiques, and Portfolio Building seems to be right up my street.

The structure of the project is that there will be a new assignment each Monday. The list for January is:

Assignment 1: Mission Statement
January 3, 2011

Assignment 2: Portrait of a Stranger
January 10, 2011

Assignment 3: Still Life
January 17, 2011

Assignment 4: Environment and the Weather
January 24, 2011

For more details about the particular assignments, head over to Lighting Essentials

So, be on the look out for my first assignment, the mission statement, in the near future. It would be appreciated if you could leave encouragement, advice, constructive criticism to help push me to be the best photographer I can be. Thanks!

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Please subscribe to the blog by using one of the links on the right hand side of the page to be kept informed of my photographic activities and interests.