Album Design
Towards the end of 2020 I worked with Singer/Songwriter Matt Jackson on photographs for his new EP album GROWTH 101.
I got to pour potting soil all over his face and stick plants into his mouth. It was a fantastic session for a fantastic guy and a really excellent grouping of songs that Matt wrote.
Read about our session after the cut:
Read More
A few weeks before Covid-19 closed down the world in the spring of 2020 I got together with singer/songwriter Liz Simmons to make photographs for her first solo album in 15 years: POETS
An in-depth blog post covering the process from shooting to album design after the cut.
Read MoreCubicle Zombies and war paint and time machines. Since 2012 Weather Mcnabb and I have been trying to work together. In 2018 we finally got to create images for her 5 song EP “Cubicle Zombie”
Read MoreI’ve known Liz Simmons for close to a decade. When it was time to create images for her newest album release with her band Low Lily, she got in touch.
More after the cut.
Read More
an homage of Donald Byrd’s “A New Perspective” cover
I love record and album design. Part of what I hope to do as a photographer is make images and help musicians design album covers for their releases. I love the square format of album covers. And nobody has made better album covers than the jazz music label Blue Note Records. There was a period in the 1950's and 1960's where Blue Note was producing what I consider the greatest album design in history. I wanted to share a little bit about it and why I love it so much.
Read More
I’ve recently dug out my old record collection, moved it to the studio, and have been doing something I haven’t done in decades: spin records. Music moves me in a way I can’t explain. I have it playing all the time. I spent my 20’s working in record stores. I love photographing musicians that need images for things like album/cd covers and packaging. After the cut, I’m going to do a bunch of talking about my history with them, their importance to me, and why I won’t ignore my records again
Read More
I love album art. I love the square format and I love making album covers. It started when I was a kid in high school. I had a big audio cassette collection, and I'd make mix-tapes for my friends. Not one to be satisfied with simply making a mix tape, I'd make jacket artwork for the tapes as well. I'd clip things from magazines and comic books and I'd run down to the public library and I'd shell out a few dozen dimes on their photocopier and I'd layer and copy and layer and copy things, until I'd have a multi-fold tape jacket with song tiles and odd credits and I absolutely loved every moment of it.
When I started getting more active with Photoshop and computers, I started making fake cd/record covers.
When I work with bands and musicians, I'll spend a little extra time with some of the proof images and I'll make very small cd-cover examples; things I can show the client to give them an idea of what they can actually do with the images we've created together.
I've had the pleasure of working on album covers with some local musicians and it makes my heart happy when I get the chance to do so.
For me, when I get stressed out and need to relax, I'll sit down and open up some photographs and I'll mock-up some fake album covers. It brings me great pleasure to do this.
There is an example of a recent little "Moment of Zen" when I needed to tune out the world and just relax. I grabbed a video-still from when I worked with Michael Bellar a few years ago, and I made this. I love it.
Make sure you give yourself brief little "Moments of Zen", where you can just spend a little time doing something you absolutely love for no other reason than to make yourself happy.
I've been developing a relationship with the band HOT MESS over the months, and they were so happy with the work we've done so far that when a new member of the band came into the mix, Jason, the head of Hot Mess, contacted me asking if we could create some new head shots for Lacy, but he also needed one other thing: he wanted a photograph of Lacy in the style of the group shot we did months ago so that she could be inserted into the group photo we had taken months before.
Let's give it a shot.
Read MoreLadies and gentlemen, meet Tim Paul Weiner.
Tim is a bass player, employee of Berklee College of Music, and member of HOT MESS. Remember them? We also have a mutual friend, Elise MacDonald, former owner of Studio 99, who introduced us. Tim liked working with me when we created some images for Hot Mess, so he booked a solo session with me. He needed images for a revamped website. I love working with musicians, and with Tim, it was so easy since we had already worked on the Hot Mess session together.
Read More
Hannah Sanders continues garnering acclaim for her debut solo album "Charms Against Sorrow" which I photographed and designed late last year. Leading UK folk magazine fROOTS just featured a review of Hannah's album, and generously giving the photography a paragraph of mention:
"The visuals, I comment are very striking."
"I'm very moved by how photography describes time - it shares a place with traditional song in many ways. I had the pleasure of working with great photographic artist Sid Ceaser. Sid and I decided on something really direct and honest for the album, and I think he captured it."
"Direct, empowered, Hannah stares out from the cover of Charms with an almost tangible mixture of determination and steel, it's the sort of cover you can't ignore."
Thanks to Simon Jones of fROOTS for mentioning the artwork. I love that this album is being listened to and seen all over the world.
