Through Nikki Frangakis, I had the opportunity to meet and photograph, Ted Hu. It is always, a treat to work with talented, creative individual. They both have brilliant minds.
Ted is an incredible pianist and vocalist from North Andover, MA. After releasing his first studio album in 2011, he was back to work for his second, "Path to War," and was in need of a few images for the album design. I'm thankful that Nikki liaised and that I was able to be of help.
Be sure to:
- check out Ted's Tumblr site,
- listen to his work on SoundCloud
- see his collection of work on iTunes and grab a few tracks,
- or head over to Amazon if you prefer to get your music that way.
This was one of my favorite sessions because of the open creative atmosphere: something that usually happens when working with Nikki Frangakis. We each brought our own unique perspective to the images. They knew the concept, I knew the camera, and it all meshed. For a lot of the images, Nikki was off camera speaking to Ted casually about life and an expression would come across his face.....*click. It was a nice way to work. Also, Nikki styled Ted's looks for the shoot. Be sure to check out her blog: style.me.nikki.
After shooting inside Nikki's apartment, we went to a back hallway in Nikki's building that would eventually lead us to an outdoor patio which was the shoot's final location:
Lastly, a fun behind the scenes image:
Back in the hallway, I was trying to get Ted to do the deadpan, stoic thing that you saw earlier. On one take, he was in it......focused....and then Nikki jumped out to scare him. Classic:
While I was putting together this post I thought, "It might be nice to actually include the final album design the contains the images from this shoot."
I had ordered my own copy of the album, and on the inside flap Ted gave credit to the album's graphic designer: Angelica McFarlane.
If you are in need of some graphic design work, please be sure to visit her site: Angelica McFarlane - Graphic Designer.
She made great color and font choices. I really like the red theme:
(front/cover)
(inside right)
(back/tracklist)
