Meet Me At Mardi Gras

I wish I could say I’ve made tons of money doing stock photography but I’d be lying.  This year I was lucky enough to get a call from Rounder Records, who were looking for packaging art for a new Mardi Gras compilation CD, Meet Me At Mardi Gras.  The cost to produce new photographs along this theme would be prohibitive so I dug through my archives of existing (aka “stock”) images and presented them with a selection of possibilities.  Fortunately, one of my shots worked beautifully for the cover.

The process of fulfilling a stock request starts, naturally, with the phone call or email.  In this case the call came from someone who has been one of my best friends for thirty years, Scott Billington, the multi-talented record producer/art director/executive/A&R guy at Rounder.  So, yes, Virginia, it often really is ‘who you know’ in the world of business.  (I only wish I knew a couple dozen more Scotts!)  Then I start looking through my digital catalogs for “mardi gras” images.  I take those images and build a “web gallery” or browser mini-site of lo-rez images from which the client will select finals.  The final hi-rez files are then sent electronically using FTP (file transfer protocol).  Its often quite interesting to see how a designer will crop or manipulate the original image to fit the requirements of the layout and packaging.  Here’s the original uncropped shot that was used on the cover:

I seldom shoot on-camera-flash photographs at a high shutter speed.  I tend to slow it down and let some of the ambient light shake ‘n bake into the image.  Some photographers might be offended that their work of art was manipulated by a designer or end-user.  I’m not one of them, at least not when its a commercial use and the original is a stock image.  Some of the other shots were also changed up to fit the design.  When type has to be knocked-out over an image its not uncommon to make the image darker for greater legibility, etc.

Some of the other images didn’t make the final cut.  Designers like to have a few different things to work with, as they see which ones will fit, which colors match or compliment.  It’s always nice when they can establish a theme in the piece using color, type, and other elements.  It brings the disparate elements together to create a real “package” that can help sell the record.  Of course, it also helps to have great music and this compilation has some really choice Mardi Gras cuts, including one of our Creole String Beans faves, Go To The Mardi Gras by Professor Longhair.  I get to whistle on that one