Lizzy Ross, my sister and an amazing musician, needed an album cover with more edge and energy than the “sweet” look of her current cover. The deadline was the end of September, and we had one day to shoot.
It’s hard to picture her as anything but sweet, so we needed a way to bring out the edge in her. We met up at the Southern Rail in Carrboro, NC, for a couple margaritas, and to use the restaurant as a background for our shoot. We figured we only needed one good image, so we tried a variety of situations until we ran out of battery power. As they recharged, we reviewed our progress on my computer, pointing out what we liked and didn’t like. None of the pictures really stood out and said, “pick me, pick me!”
I began to worry. The deadline was tight, the sun was setting, and this was my last chance to come out before the end of September. Would we get something we loved?
In the back of my mind, I had an idea involving sunshine and the Volvo. On our drive back to her house, I spotted a wide, open field with the sun’s rays shining golden across the land. We veered to the left and situated ourselves in a random driveway. With Lizzy in the back seat of the volvo, playing her guitar, and the sun coming in from behind, I shot until the sun went down. It was our last chance, and there had to be a winner in there somewhere.
Driving home, late at night, down Crawford Dairy Road, I had a vision of the album cover design. What if I made rows of the shots from the Volvo, like a film strip, and added text? I had always loved U2′s Achtung Baby album cover with the pictures lined up in a grid.
I spent the next day at the Morning Times, putting together the cover with Adobe InDesign. Lizzy loved it. It worked. It embodied so much of the energy she wanted to convey. It was edgier, yet still warm and friendly. I sent the final arrangement to Lizzy, and she did the typography. There we have it, a real family business!
Listen to her music at http://www.lizzy.net.
