Rangefinder Magazine
April 2005

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Anatomy of a CD Cover Shoot by Gene Martin
Front Cover, Back Cover and CD Booklet Cover All Created in Under 15 Minutes!

I recently got a call from a record company to shoot the packaging for a live CD of legendary jazz alto saxophonist Frank Morgan. I was no stranger to Frank since I had photographed him for the cover of JazzTimes magazine about 14 years ago. The CD had already been recorded at The Jazz Standard, a beautiful club in New York City, but the record company was still in need of the cover art. Frank lives in the Southwest but was making a return engagement to the same club, so this was a most opportune time to get the needed images.

Based on my reputation in the music community, the company gave me carte blanche as far as concept with little interference. My idea was to get an image of Frank out in front of the club for the front cover, an image of him inside with the empty stage in the background for the back cover, and a thoughtful, somewhat moody image of him alone in the dressing room for the CD booklet.

The night Frank flew in, he was immediately whisked off to WBGO Jazz Radio in New Jersey for an interview, so that night was out for shooting. At 70 plus years old, Frank was rightfully more concerned with feeling well for his four-night engagement than for my photo shoot, but we agreed on the early evening of the third night (the pressure’s on). That afternoon, a call to his hotel revealed he was not feeling well, and the shoot was pushed back until the last night. (Now the pressure was really on, as he was flying out early next morning.)

Showtime was 7:30 that evening, and after some wrangling, Frank agreed to be there at 6:15 p.m. Doors opened to the public at 6:30, so I had only 15 minutes of uninterrupted shooting time. In my 20 years of doing this kind of work, my workflow usually consisted of shooting at least three rolls of 120 transparency film plus Polaroid test shots for every setup (perhaps more depending on the complexity of the shot). There was no doubt about the need to shoot this one “down and dirty”—in other words, fast!
Keeping my lighting gear simple was a start, and shooting digital capture was another no-brainer. I was a film “holdout,” only switching to digital capture early in 2004 (see “Anatomy of an Editorial Shoot,” Rangefinder, September 2004). I’ve since become a strong proponent of digital’s advantages, especially in tough situations.

My assistant Dan and I arrived at the club early to scope it out and come up with a plan to get all three shots done in as little time as possible. We made the decision that all three shots could be captured with the same simple lighting setup. After a short time, thanks to Selby and Kyle, managers at The Jazz Standard, the plan was complete.

Since the cover was most important, we tackled that shot first. We also wanted to be done before too many people arrived at the door to the club. My Nikon D1X’s matrix meter easily gave us the ambient reading of the neon signs. We adjusted our exposure by interpreting the histogram and highlight display. It was important not to blow out the neon “Jazz” sign for the cover shot. After determining that exposure, we knew what f-stop we needed to match to get a proper flash exposure on our subject. We set up a Norman 200B and a Quantum radio slave on a stand with a small 32-inch silver umbrella as the main light and put it out on the sidewalk to the right of the image so the light would cascade across Frank’s face. I wanted a soft, directional light, like that of the ambient streetlights, with no fill light added.

The farther back we could get our umbrella (and maintain the desired f-stop reading) the better, because we wanted to light The Jazz Standard awning as well with our one main light. (I knew I wanted to incorporate the club logo on the awning in the type.) I already knew through experience that the Nikon’s “canned” white balance for flash was perfect for the Norman. Any color shift in the neon was inconsequential to us. After a reading or two of the main light with my Minolta Flash Meter V, the camera was set for 1⁄30 at f/5.6 (ISO 125), and my assistant sat in for the test shots. In New York City a permit is needed on public space any time you set up a stationary object, like a light stand or tripod. An inquisitive bystander stood in to hold the stand if needed since I didn’t have a permit for that day.

Nikon’s 17–35mm f/2.8D AF lens was the perfect choice for me to get the perspective I wanted in a tight space. (I didn’t want to back up into the street!) A mailbox to my right goboed my lens from the main light. (Convenient, eh?) We were now ready for Frank’s arrival.

Frank arrived promptly at 6:15. We asked him to take his saxophone from the case and stand at our previously determined spot, and the shoot was in full swing. After reviewing our first 10 or so exposures on the D1X’s LCD screen, I felt secure the shot was in the bag. Thanks to digital capture, the need for those three rolls as insurance was a thing of the past. We thanked our bystander for his assistance, and we proceeded to enter the club to finish the shoot.

For the back cover shot, I had Frank sit at one of the tables with his “ax” in front of him and the empty stage behind him. I asked the club’s lightman to turn up the gelled stage lights to my satisfaction, highlighting the club’s logo on the wall behind. Using the same setup as outside, I used the Nikon’s matrix meter to determine the exposure (1⁄30 at f/5.6 again), and my assistant, Dan, quickly put the stand with the Norman 200B and umbrella in place in the isle between the rows of tables (image left with the light coming across Frank’s face, once again with no fill). We set the power on the Norman to match our needed f-stop, and shot number two was underway. At this point, we were about 10 minutes into the shoot, and I got the word that the club needed to open the doors. Upon quickly reviewing my images on the monitor, I decided we were ready to retreat to the dressing room for our third and final shot. We had Frank sit on the couch in a thoughtful pose. Dan quickly moved the Norman, stand, and umbrella into the cramped dressing room and butted it up against the wall to the right of the image with the light once again coming across Frank’s face from just slightly behind the 180° point. I switched the lens from the 17–35 to Nikon’s 16mm f/2.8D AF fisheye to shoot through the doorframe. This time I used Nikon’s SB 800 flash set on the automatic (AA) setting at -3EV for just a “kiss” of fill. We used the same shutter speed/f-stop combination as before. Frank gave us a big smile when, after a handful of exposures, I called it a “wrap”—patrons had already started taking their seats.

In between setups we were literally running, but by making the most of our concept with simple lighting and the help of a good assistant and digital capture, I managed to pull off the entire shoot in under 30 exposures in just over 15 minutes! I wanted all the images to be square format, so I did the entire shoot with the camera tripod mounted in horizontal position using the autofocus spots as cropping guides.

(Tip for D1X users: When holding the camera horizontally, if you picture an imaginary line top to bottom along the outside edge of the left and right auto focus sensor spots, it’ll give you a near-perfect square). We captured all our images in the RAW setting for later conversion to 16-bit TIFFs in Nikon Capture 4’s 10MP setting and then importing them into Photoshop CS. (As of this writing, I’m getting better color “out of the box” with Nikon Capture than with the RAW converter in Photoshop, but I’m in the process of working out those settings.)

We set up our Apple PowerBook G4 in a corner of the club, and during Frank’s first performance, we viewed all our RAW images in Photoshop’s browser. I selected one image from each setup and proceeded to “mock up” a cover, dropping type where I intended it to go so Frank would have an idea of the look I was after. By the time his first set was over, I was showing him the sample cover with type in place. After thinking back on how long our shoot lasted 14 years ago, he gazed at me with a look of astonishment. I told him we’re living in a different world… and it’s called digital!

INGREDIENTS:
Client: HighNote Records
Camera: Nikon D1X
Lenses: 17–35mm f/2.8D AF Nikkor and 16mm f/2.8D AF Fisheye Nikkor
Meter: In-camera Matrix and Minolta Flash Meter V
Media: Delkin 640MB CompactFlash
On-Site Editing Platform: Mac G4 PowerBook running OS 10.3.4, Nikon Capture 4.1 and Photoshop CS
Tripod & Lighting Gear: Tiltall tripod, one Norman 200B with LH2 flash head, one Photek 32-inch silver umbrella and Stand, Quantum 4 Radio slave and Nikon SB-800
Exposure: 1⁄30 at f/5.6 (ISO 125)
Subject: One sax legend!

Award-winning New York-based photographer Gene Martin is best known for his conceptual portraiture of celebrities and music personalities for the record company and editorial markets. Besides photographing the likes of Bill Cosby and Cyndi Lauper, Gene’s colorful portraiture of famous jazz musicians has been much heralded. For JazzTimes magazine alone he has shot over 50 covers since 1988. His portraits have appeared in mainstream magazines as well including Time, Newsweek, US, People, U.S. News & World Report, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and many others worldwide.