For this assignment we will work in groups of two in order to create two assignments revolving around album art.
The first task is to create album artwork for a musical artist or band. The artwork has to feature a portrait of a band (real or fictional) as well as track listing and other necessary artwork. We have decided to take inspiration from the album artwork of Oasis' 'Definitely, Maybe' and Pink Floyd's 'Ummagumma' to create our own Oasis tribute band 'Mirage'.
The original album cover for Definitely, Maybe was shot by Brian Cannon, a well known and respected photographer responsible for iconic photography for other high-profile music bands. As can be seen in the original album cover there are many elements which make up the final image - most notable the arrangement of the living-room, various musical instruments, glasses of alcohol and of course the floating, spinning globe.
We want to use as many of these elements as possible - however we plan to add another twist to the image, this
time drawing inspiration from Pink Floyd's 'Ummagumma'. To the left can be seen a picture frame of the same scene but with some subtle differences - this stretches off into infinity. We plan to use the same effect for our final piece by using a mirror and superimposing a false reflection into it.
For the back cover we plan to make a collage of relevant parts of the original image, making particular use of close-ups and macro photography. Our equipment will include a Canon 40D camera, a 17-85mm lens (for normal shots), a 150mm lens (for macro photography) and a tripod to prevent camera shake.
Once we had captured the photos we set about editing them within photoshop and camera RAW. The camera RAW format allows for greater image quality and editing capability (e.g. contrast, saturation levels).
Our main photograph had the red colours selected using the colour range tool, whilst the remainder of the image was desaturated to black and white. We then super-imposed the false reflection onto the mirror, however we had to then layer it with the mirror texture to make it look realistic.
There are many elements that combine to make the entire image. Firstly, we arranged the room to resemble the same look featured within 'Definitely, Maybe'. Various instruments, alcohol and items of furniture litter a seemingly empty room (apart from the sad-looking dog). The band band members are actually featured within a 'false reflection' of the mirror playing the instruments. The main photograph is black & white, save the red guitar and bottle of spirit. The false reflection is full colour. The overall feel of the image is quirky and confusing, which is intended as the band is named "Mirage".
The reverse of the album uses different elements from the front cover, mainly in the form of close-ups and from different perspectives. These were joined together in a collage along with the track listing and barcode. These elements combined make this look like a professional album cover.
