Album cover Tips / Suggestions

Hi everyone. My Grandpa is going to have a cd come out, And he wants me to shoot a album cover for it. Do you have any tips or suggestions? My equipment is Eos 350D, Canon EF S 18-55mm Kit Lens, Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro, A poloriser and a UV filter.

What type of music is it? What instruments etc etc. We need details!

Mint_Sauce wrote:
What type of music is it? What instruments etc etc. We need details!

I agree. Style of music etc is needed before you can decide on the cover. CD covers aren't realy about music it's about marketing. You need to convey the mood of the music with an image. An image of a heavy metal rock singer will not suit the cover of a classical music cd etc etc.
You can get very creative with covers though.

i agree... you'll certainly need to feed us more details before we can suggest any thing at all

It's just some old country stuff or something. Just him and his guitar.

Old country stuff, with just him and his guitar?

Well, then get him and his guitar in the picture, for sure. Most "old school" musicians don't go for conceptualized album covers like many modern bands do; They want it straight.

There's a lot to consider. First, what's the printing on the cover going to be? This could impact how you compose the shot. Also, don't pose all of your shots. Will you be shooting for both the front and rear covers? Shots for the liner notes? You could run all of those shots together, thematically.

Take a lot of candid shots of him and his guitar. Check out some of the stuff by Henry Diltz. The guy has shot some of the most famous album covers ever. A lot of those were just quick, off the cuff shots that weren't posed...

I'm not sure Steve what the printing and stuff will be. Not sure if im doing back cover aswell. But thank you for the tips.

Don't forget to visualize a square crop while you're shooting?

i imagine, your grandpops in a barn of some sort, do you have any lighting equipment? even if you don't, i always think of a barn or a wooden building of somesort.

or you can always put him in front of a building or in a pub with his guitar and blur out the background. if i has a nicely blured neon sign, that's cool too.

pit him in front of a wall when the sun is directly above you. it'll create less shadows but small harsher shadows. pose him according to your taste. leaning on the wall with one foot up on the wall, guitar strung on his shoulders or next to him. if you can get someone to help you, just go to your local stationary shop and buy a white poster board and bounce some light to his face if need be

don't forget to leave some space around him. enough for a crop for the title of the album if need be. this sounds like a fun little project ^^ gl have fun. let your creative mind go crazy

Wow... EXCELLENT point!

For old country/guitar music, something like Steve Parr's avatar might work, if not for the front cover then perhaps for the back cover. There are certainly a number of good album covers that don't include the artist on them. Don't forget to play around with things like sepia toning in post-processing, too. It sounds like a fun project.

Hehehehe... I don't think that guitar's ever had a country song played on it!

Oh when I read this I instantly thought about a sepia pic with him looking down at his hand picking the guitar, sitting on some old porch steps or something. Oh next to an old wood fence. Since he's a grandpa, I'm assuming older gentleman, Correct? I'd even like to see just a picture of his hands strumming or picking the guitar. Just a close-up. ya know? Hope that helps.

Definately show us some pics when you get them done!!

grandpa is finally doing that rap album , huh Just kidding, I agree with E3 on the sepia tone. Let us see it when you get it done.