Album covers

ABBA Colour

ABBA Black and White

Evaluation

Evaluation

For our assignment we had to create an album or a book cover, I choose a music album as we already had a template to start on. At first I choose Katy Perry as I like her music as it stands out and also because she is very pretty so I could collect some nice images for the front, back and insides. I had found a few pictures but not enough and it wasn’t the rite style or image I wanted, I wanted to add an older style to the album. I kept trying to look for pictures that matched the style I wanted but I still couldn’t find any, so I decided to change the artist, as I wanted an older style I wanted to go for a older band. I decided to go with ABBA as I like their music and they are an old band, which will give me the certain style I wanted to go into the pictures.

 I done 2 versions I wanted a colour version and a black and white version. The first version I did was colour, for the front cover I wanted to keep it simple and I also want a picture with all of them. So I found a really picture with all 4 of them. I put the picture into Photoshop and added some little effects to make the picture look a bit old and for the colour to off faded a bit, so it looks like it’s been there a while. Once I had made the picture to how I wanted it I added some text, I added ABBA in gold writing, I had to take it from a different album, so I used the magic wand to cut all background colours, this left me with the writing. I then did the exact same with the name of the album “MAMA MIA” I used this album as mama mia is one of ABBA’s most popular songs. This writing was all in block capitals ABBA was written in gold and MAMA MIA! was written in a dark blue.

Once the front cover had been done I then proceeded to do the back cover, this had to contain the songs, name of the album and also the band’s name, I found a image which has all of this on and it went with the dark blue theme which is located on the front of the cover, I also took a liking to this picture as it had a barcode on it as well which makes it look more real, I didn’t change much to this picture all I did was darken the blue to make it match the front cover. For the inside cover I wanted to use a different photo but I couldn’t find anything unique, whilst I was looking for pictures I was listening to ABBA on YouTube and when I was watching the video I noticed a shot they used, they had all 4 artists in different corners singing, I really liked this so I had to print screen the image and pop it into paint, from there I could cut out the image and place it into Photoshop, I didn’t edit the picture as I didn’t feel the need to.

The last picture I needed to add was the CD itself, I really wanted something that would be bright and would just stand out when you opened the case, and luckily I managed to find just that a bright yellow CD, I didn’t need to do much all I needed to do was use the magic wand and cut out the background.

The next version I did I wanted a bit more up to date so I used some later pictures of ABBA together, for the front cover of the album I also wanted all 4 of them together, so I managed to find a picture with two of their heads high and the others low, I also added the band name ABBA in the background. For the back cover I placed a version of their Waterloo album on the back, once this was placed into Photoshop I dimmed the colour of the picture. For the picture in the inside cover I wanted a really up to date picture something that has been taken recently, I wanted this because it will contrast all the other photo’s, it will bring back memories and all their achievements. The last picture needed was the CD, this was hard to find a CD that I have not used so I had to find a picture of a ABBA button and create a hole in the middle. Once this was done I wanted these two CD covers to be different so I added a black and white effect to give both covers something different. I prefer the version with colour as its more vibrant and will stand out 10x more than the black and white version if published on a shelf.

Lauren Dukoff

Lauren Dukoff

Lauren Dukoff was born in California, America; Lauren has become famous for her work on celebrities and musicians. Her father is a commercial director and also a still photographer, which is where she found her love for photography. Shortly after she started to study photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography but she left after a year. Her father gave her, her first big break; she started by documenting the musical career of long time friend Devendra Banhart. Lauren was also mentored by music photographer Autumn de Wilde.

Lauren Dukoff has photographed a lot of famous singers in her time Katy Perry, Beyonce, Lady gaga, Adele, Lil Wayne and many more. Lauren Dukoff has taken many pictures for album covers as well as an example Katy Perry’s single E.T with Kayne west. She has also done photos on the front of magazines, the German and Japanese magazine called Rolling Stones also some of her photos appeared on Vogue. Dukoff has shot major ad campaigns for Nike and The American Red Cross.

Lauren Dukoff has also published a book, Chronicle books published her book in 2009, and her book has portraits and pictures of all her family. Lauren’s book is called Family as she relates to all her friends she has met on her way as her family. Lauren Dukoff has work exhibited all over America starting in Los Angeles, Paris, San Francisco and even Sydney.

Lauren mainly works with medium format camera. Mamiya 645 is her favourite choice of camera. Dukoff currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Iain Macmillan

Iain Macmillan

Iain Stewart Macmillan was born on October 20^th 1938. Iain was born in Dundee Scotland and he was most famous for taking the picture of the Beatles album cover Abbey Road in 1969.

Iain Macmillan started his photography in London in 1958 when he moved from Dundee. He studied photography at Regent Street Polytechnic. His first job as a photographer was as a cruise photographer, that didn’t last long as he went back to Dundee in 1959 to photo street scenes. Iain did very well for himself and this earned him The Sunday Times and the Illustrated London News commissioned him in the early 1960’s. Once he started to make a name for himself in the mid 1960’s he worked on an exhibition catalogue for the sculpture of David Wynne. He also photographed The book of London in 1966.

1966 to 1969 where the best years for Iain Stewart Macmillan, in 1967 Iain Macmillan met John Lennon, they got on really well and the next year John Lennon asked Iain Macmillan to do one of his biggest jobs yet and that was to photograph the beetles on Abby Road for their new album, Iain was thrilled and jumped on the opportunity. Iain was given a sketch by Paul McCartney a couple of days before the shoot, this picture showed were everything needs to be, the Iain Macmillan done his own version of the sketch. Iain Macmillan on the 8^th August 1969 Iain took 6 photos

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->1. John leads the group from left to right followed by Ringo, Paul and George. They kept this order throughout all the photos. There is a Mercedes pulling out of the studio behind them. John is looking away from the camera and Paul and George are in mid step. Paul is wearing sandals

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->2. They walk back in the same order. Good spacing but only John has a full step.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->3. Left to right again, full steps this time but they are all too far left. There is now traffic back up. There is a taxi, two vans and a double decker bus waiting to come forward. Paul is now barefoot.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->4. Walking right to left, once again Paul Ringo and George all in mid step. The traffic has gone through but the bus has stopped to watch. This photo is the cover of Abbey Road by Brian Southall.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]--> <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->5. This photo was used for the cover of the album and is the only photo where we see Paul smoking. The only one with their legs in perfect formation. The three men on the left above Paul's head are Alan Flanagan, Steve Millwood and Derek Seagrove. They were interior decorators returning from a lunch break. On the right side between John and Ringo's head is Paul Cole an American tourist.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->6. Ringo slightly too far behind John.

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->After the shoot Iain went off to find a road sign to use on the back cover of the album. The picture was taken on the corner with Alexandra Road, during Iain photographing the sign a girl with a blue dress walked through the shot. This made Iain angry but that shot was chosen as the back cover as the company thought it worked well. The wall with the sign was demolished several years later.

Once Iain completed this photo shoot this made him very big he then continued to do a lot of work;

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->The cloud on the album cover for Live Peace In Toronto

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->Photos on the album Some Time In New York City

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->The wedding cake in the Wedding Album

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->Yoko’s book files

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->The cover photo on Yoko’s book Grapefruit

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->The merging heads label of John and Yoko’s Vinyl single Happy Xmas

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->The merging heads label of John and Yoko’s album Some Time In New York City

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-         <!--[endif]-->Kenny Rodgers and The First Edition Cover Photograph of Something’s Burning.

In the 1970’s Iain decided to pass his traits onto other people and started teaching at a college in Stoke-On-Trent, in 1980 Iain took another album cover “Hinge the Bracket” at Abbey Road which was a parody of the Beatles photo. His work was on an exhibit in the US, Britain and Europe, also the BBC used some of his photos in the series “Rock and Roll Years”. On July 22^nd 1993 Iain photographed Paul McCartney at Abbey Road on the Zebra crossing, this time he did something different and added an Old English sheepdog, This photo was used on the cover of Paul is Live album.

 
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Eminem Album Artwork

Eminem "Recovery"

This album cover is very simple but it has some really good photography techniques, as you can see apart from Eminem himself and a little bit of the yellow line, the rest of the picture is out of focus, this is feel works really well within the cover. Eminem is pictured to the left of the cover and there are certain objects in frame. On the left side there are telephone masts and there are also signs which are blurred out which are hard to see. The picture and the name of the album have the same meaning the album is called Recovery and Eminem is on a road. The message they are trying to send out is Eminem is on the road to recovery.