An Irish Dance Music CD: Champtrax by Mark Arrington
Recently I had the honor of working on an album design for an Irish Dance musician in the Langehorne, PA area named Mark Arrington. Please visit his website http://www.markarringtonmusic.com/home.html and check out his new CD Champtrax. All of the photography on the album as well as the design were done by McMasters Photography. In the end it took a 2 hour photo shoot in the Northeast Philadelphia region and about 2 weeks to finish the album.
This type of project usually starts with brainstorming over the phone and in person. It’s important to decide what type of feeling/ mood/ personality the musician wants to convey with their album design. It helps to narrow down in some degree the types of locations, poses, shots, and props to be used so that you can focus on a more specific mood with the photography. Mark had definite idea’s regarding what he did not want since he has other albums with pictures of him on them.
One of the important points that he conveyed to me was that he wanted people to be able to see him on the cd and recognize him. So we needed to take 3/4 shots of him instead of full body shots or more scenic pictures. Knowing that I was able to focus specifically on those types of shots and not waste our time with random images that he wasn’t going to use.
So after discussing in depth what types of images he wanted we got together on a Sunday afternoon in the beautiful golden light around Langhorne Pennsylvania. Generally I like to wander around within a pre picked location and let the surroundings inspire my creativity. We chose a convenient location to meet at and walked around taking a few shots trying to establish some interesting ideas and photos. We actually ended up with a lot of wonderful pictures that he can use on his website. Thanks Mark and keep on fiddlin!
