Jana's CD Design Project

Project: CD cover design for music featuring flute and piano. The title is "sparkle and wit", and I began listening to the music while I sketched out ideas. Remembering my grandmother's costume jewelry, I fished it out of my closet, and with my camera, tripod and a piece of white foam core, headed out to my patio picnic table a.k.a. table-top studio. The time of day was about 3:30/4:00 when the direct sun is off of my U-shaped backyard patio, but still has lots of light. I "tossed" the jewelry onto the board and began shooting tight, macro images. My goal was to create bright, sparkling images of the jewels with small areas of focus, lots of white, and shallow depth of field. Using these settings: F8 and shutter speeds ranging from 1/6 - 1/10, I began to shoot down on the jewelry, while standing on a small step stool. I used the tripod for some images, but not for others. I also used forced flash for some. I tweaked the images a bit further in Photoshop, and did some layering of several shots for the red jewels. These are a few of the resulting images and the final published (by Azica Records) cover design. Of course, this could not be possible without my bedazzled photo assistant, my miniature pinscher, Dirk.