Meet ... 'The Entertainer' (northern hemisphere version)

[Donald]

With respectful nods towards my elders and betters in the southern hemisphere, whose territory this is much more than mine, a friend asked me to be involved in a project that is about raising money for charity. He's making a CD (he's a Blues singer) and asked if I'd make images for the sleeve (front cover, back cover and inside).

He and the former magazine publisher who's doing the graphic design for the CD cover, are now going through what I've given them from the shoot yesterday.

All exterior shots. Used one 580 EXII Speedlite mounted on a stand and a 5-in-1 reflector, in various combinations together and separately. Flash unit needed to get light under the brim of the hat.

The hat is an essential element to it all, as his stage name includes '(The Hat)'. It's interesting composing with the awareness of the need to have an area for the text to be inserted on the finished product.

Be kind, I'm in new territory here.


40D, EF50mm f/1.8 II. 1/60th@f16. Manual Flash

[FrankMi]

Hi Donald! Please forgive me, this is not an area of my expertise so my comments may be way out in left field. The image is a compelling one and compositionally and technically (for as little as I know about B&W), it's great!

Because he is looking directly at the camera, I get the sense that it is a 'posed' image, rather than one of someone playing for pure enjoyment.

For a CD cover, I would expect a more relaxed feel, the kind of smile that you see on someone who is thoroughly enjoying themselves, and the eyes either almost closed or gazing fondly at the instrument would convey more endearing warmth. I hope I haven't wasted your time with my inexperienced comments.

[Kaclarity]

Donald
What a great capture. Your B&W always leave me with , I wish I could do that. One question was your choice of background a part of the graphic artist's request? To my nobee eye it seems to take away the power of the musician. But as you usually say, what a PP gem. I have been playing with it over the last hour. All i can say is, I wish I had your eye for B&W. JimC

[Donald]

Because he is looking directly at the camera, I get the sense that it is a 'posed' image, rather than one of someone playing for pure enjoyment.

For a CD cover, I would expect a more relaxed feel, the kind of smile that you see on someone who is thoroughly enjoying themselves, and the eyes either almost closed or gazing fondly at the instrument would convey more endearing warmth. I hope I haven't wasted your time with my inexperienced comments.

Thanks Frank.

Interesting point about what sort of look to go for. This is a charity fund-raiser that's being made. So, it's not aimed exclusively at hard blues fans. If it had been, I'd have been thinking about something much 'harder', grungy, gritty etc. But this has got to have a more 'general' appeal as well. But as you can see below, I've tried some different options.

They were also thinking of maybe focusing in on the instruments for a faded image on the back cover, which would be overprinted with text.

Finally - because the hat is central, I tried some selective colourisation, just to give another option to look at.

Donald
What a great capture. Your B&W always leave me with , I wish I could do that. One question was your choice of background a part of the graphic artist's request? To my nobee eye it seems to take away the power of the musician. But as you usually say, what a PP gem. I have been playing with it over the last hour. All i can say is, I wish I had your eye for B&W. JimC

Thanks Jim. The location comes from my friend, Sandy. He wanted to do the shoot in his own garden.

[speedneeder]

Donald, they look pretty good to me! Personally I would shy away from the colorized hat - looks gimmicky to me.
The first image you posted is pretty darn good. I might try to dabble with some darkening of the belly though If I could take this photo again, I would have him turn the guitar just a tad more toward me.
How did you add the vignette to the last one? This is something I still haven't found a good way to do with GIMP.

[Donald]

Thanks for your comments and ideas Brian. The idea of the darkening is good, because if they do go with this one (which I like) then either his name or the album title is going across there.

Re the last one, I did start the conversion process with one of the presets from Silver Efex Pro 2 (having said a few days ago that I find myself going to those presets less and less these days). This is the 'Film Noir 1' preset and it lays in that vignette and the grain. It also applies a border, which I remove.

[speedneeder]

Thanks for the info Donald.