Spielbergian Skies

The drama and power of dark storm clouds overhead never ceases to fascinate me. This collection was taken in early August as a front swooped down quickly from the north while I was at work. When the afternoon light grows dark I always grab my camera and run out back to a field with an unobstructed view of the horizon in hopes of capturing a few shots of the ensuing tempest before the first raindrops fall and the lightning flashes. Many of these photos, or pieces of them, end up on book covers or other photo collages.

Just imagine a huge spaceship rolling out of one of these. Now that would be the shot.

The Scarlet Letter Revisited

Organizing my photos recently and I came across my collection of The Scarlet Letter images for the Prestwick House Touchstone Classic edition book cover I photographed last fall. So many excellent shots of my model, Stephanie that I couldn't resist processing one of my favorites in the series. I plan to crop it, drop in the logotype and propose it as the new cover when they reprint in the next few months.

"Like dragonflies they have filled the river"

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The Hesitant Storm

This storm seemed to be hesitating at the shoreline before continuing his journey out to sea. Dipping his toes in to test the waters if you will. Knowing full well that if the water is cold it will sap his pent up energy, he pushes forward, unable to slow his suicidal momentum.

Minutes after taking these I was blasted by 40 mph wind gusts mixed with stinging, exfoliating sand. Somehow I managed to throw my camera into it's water proof bag and then under my shirt for a mad dash back to shelter...

Is that a bearded profile I see?

Transparent Design

Invisibility as a super power, according to H. G. Wells, may have some, well… "side effects" associated with it. Insanity would be the number one, but I would guess hypothermia would run a close second. Taking this into consideration, next to flying, it still has to be one of the more popular super powers that, at one time or another, most of us have fantasized about. On a design level, I can attest to the madness associated with this ability.

I was assigned the task of creating a cover image for our Literary Touchstone Classic edition of Wells's classic novel, The Invisible Man. Definitely a challenging and creative assignment, but with some Photoshop skills under my belt I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to pull off the whole invisibility thing. This is where the madness sets in.

I never realized how difficult it would be too render an invisible person with even a slight degree of realism. Oh sure, I could have made it easy and photographed him in a dark room with bandages wrapped around his head like a jazz-age-mummy but I wanted the classic Hollywood still effect with dramatic up-lighting and maniacal hand gesturing — I would need lighting for that. Specific lighting. Casting eerie shadows on the wall.


I could visualize the image, and my next step was to set about lining up a model, the clothes, and a location. The model was a no-brainer. My first and only choice was my younger brother for a couple reasons: one he is an avid fan of the 1930’s classic horror movie genre and everything associated with the era; he's a ham and has no problem whatsoever putting himself completely out there for the sake of "art;" and finally, he's my brother and he agreed to work for free! (I had him sign a model release just in case he changed his mind.)


For the location all I really needed was a space where I could shut out all light (except for my direct source), and preferably a blank, bare wall against which the subject might stand to capture the shadows smoothly and without distortion. My brother's basement fit the bill perfectly (and again, no charge).

My vision was to photograph him from the waist up, so I only needed a jacket, shirt, and scarf in a style that would have been used in the 1930's. My brother borrowed a jacket from his wife's grandfather and the warm, brown tweed set just the right nostalgic tone. The scarf and shirt were easily found around the house. The last but most important prop was the glasses. They couldn't be just any ordinary sort of glasses and needed to have side covers (preferably leather) and appear almost goggle-like. Sure, piece of cake, just pop down to Target and pick some up on the 9.99 carousel — hmmm, no such luck. I visited a few antiques stores. Nada. So my brother ended up borrowing a very expensive pair of military issue goggles from a local Army Navy Store connection for the weekend. They looked amazing. (Okay, in retrospect, perhaps I should have paid him). The last prop was an Ace bandage that I picked up at a local drug store.

The shoot went off without a hitch and I ended up with more images than I needed. Here's a short video made with some of the photos:

The difficult and most time consuming part of the process turned out to be working in Photoshop. I had to “clone” out the model’s actual head yet leave the wall and the shadow of his partially wrapped, partially transparent head, bandage and hands casting the shadow they would have made had he really been invisible. After many, many Photoshop layers and countless hours of “cloning,” I managed to pull off the effect at least to a degree that was acceptable. Mapping a Victorian wallpaper pattern on the wall helped to break up the flat planes of color so that some of the tougher cloned spots would be less discernable. The wrists proved just as problematic but again, with some cloning and many layers I was able to achieve the desired effect.


Here's where the real insanity kicked in. While working on the cover image, I had the idea that it might be cool to have the chapter heads show Griffin fading into invisibility and, of course, into madness. Similar to the Crackerjack flipbook prize we coveted as kids, I felt it would add drama and movement to the book. The "animation" effect doesn't quite work in the printed book, as there are just too many pages in between to give the required "persistence of vision" effect needed to create the illusion of animation, but the idea that the reader might slowly discover the transformation of the novel’s protagonist without being told about it beforehand seemed exciting — something I would have gotten a kick out of when I was in school.


But now, as if the invisibility effect wasn't difficult enough, I needed to slowly fade the head, wrists, and their shadows in stages. Yikes! If I would have had this brainstorm prior to photo shoot, I might have tried to photograph the model’s jacket separately with the wrists and neck areas empty with the exact same lighting. This would have added considerably to the length of time it took for the actual shoot, and the idea of reshooting was logistically out the question.


With a little luck and some serious “cloning” and “duplicating,” I managed to pull off the effect I wanted without a lot of compromise to the quality of the image. The relatively small format of 6 x 9 eliminated the need to worry about superfine detail, and gave the desired effect.

So in short, The Invisible Man cover took longer than the some other covers in the series, but in the long run, I feel like it was worth it. Who would have guessed that designing a cover around something that can't be seen would be so labor intensive?

The Iliad Revisited

I created a cover last year for the Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classic series of The Iliad. Never completely satisfied with the results, I've begun working on a revision so when it's up for reprint they may exchange it out for a new, improved version. I felt the first edition lacked the "eye contact" that the other titles in the series so successfully employ. At the same time, I wanted to keep some elements from the first cover intact to continue with the established brand of the series.

First step: find a pair of eyes that could very well launch a 1000 ships. As it happens, my beautiful niece fits the bill perfectly. With a hint of Greek features and a Grecian style prom dress from her high school days, she made the perfect model–no tantrums or outrageous demands either (just kidding girl). The results above speak for themselves.

Step two will be pulling together additional images to create a number of rough compositions to submit to the editors for review. I plan to add them to this blog as I create them. Stay tuned.

First rough concept of the new cover

There Goes the Neighborhood

Note the skull on the log

Unused cover concept

Upon archiving my photos last night I came across some out-takes from last year's Prestwick House Frankenstein: SAT Words from Literature photo shoot. This series was photographed by my older brother, Steve who is quite capable behind the lens. The photos were taken in Blackbird State Forest–a fairly remote tract of state park land far off the beaten path. It has a stunning section of pines on a slight rise of land that I thought would give a perfect old-world european sensibility to the images. With no low branches to obscure the view the tree trunks create the illusion of columns in an ancient temple. I go there often for inspiration. Many of my wooded images have been photographed there.

I had never seen another soul in this area prior to this day. Of course the moment I'm draped in black wool robes, sporting black Darth Vader pants, face make-up, all while running, sweating and growling through the stands of trees, we see 2 rough-looking bearded backwoods campers come strolling down the trail, gathering firewood. As I recall, they stopped dead in their tracks with mouths agape when they spotted me some 20–30 yards off into the woods, breathing heavy as I tried to catch my breath after another run through the brush. My brother quickly fired off an "obvious" explanation before they could ask any questions. "We're on location photographing a cover for a book" he offered. He also commented on how beautiful the area was and a perfect backdrop for our "subject matter".  Casting suspicious eyes my way, they nodded in agreement and slowly continued on their way, mumbling how, up to this point, it had been one of their best kept secrets. There goes the neighborhood.

Cities in the Sky

Floating City 222

Tower of Babel

The only photoshopped elements in this work-in-progress series are the satellite shots from NASA which I screened into the existing blue sky and clouds.


The Gift of Fire

Adding the "human" element to give scale.

The Curio Shop Cat

Taking advantage of a rare, relatively warm day in February, I took my camera and did a lunchtime walking photo shoot in the small town near where I work. Stopping at a small curio shop I took a moment to gaze at the unusual items on display.

The shop was closed for lunch. Who does that anymore?

I was suddenly startled by some movement deep within the shadows of the shop. It was a cat gracefully making his way around the inconsiderately placed items on display. Oblivious to me or my prying camera, he proceeded to find the warmest location in the window and plopped himself down unceremoniously, closing his eyes in buddha-like feline bliss.

I especially like how the swan appears to be preening a creature who in real life would most likely be stalking her as prey.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Assignment

I was given the plum assignment recently to design the cover for Prestwick House's Touchstone Classic Edition of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I created one a few years ago, for a different edition, but I was never completely satisfied with my depiction of Nick Bottom (the peasant in the play who is transformed into an Ass). It seemed a bit too easy to simply place a donkey's head onto a model's body (although many engravings and paintings illustrate his "condition" in this way). Today's high school students (the intended audience) expect something a bit more sophisticated in this age of digital film effects. A "morphing" image between a human and a donkey would work much better I thought, if I could find the right models for the job (man and donkey).

My first attempt in 2004 – a little too pasted-on looking for me.

I sketched out a thumbnail and decided that it needed a few woodland faeries flying about his head to add movement and color.

Enlisting the help of some willing co-workers as models, I rented 2 faerie costumes and purchased a few inexpensive props such as silk flowers for the headbands, Halloween close-out faerie wings, and a roll of burlap from the local hardware store.

Assembling a few lights and a fan I photographed all the subjects separately keeping the same settings in the camera to ensure the exposures would be consistent. The models were wonderful and posed their hearts out. Thanks Paul, Kathy, Annie, and Jen.

The CD of "Faerie music" played during the shoot helped put everyone in a magical mood.

Paul H. The perfect model for Nick Bottom. A good sport too as he knew I was going to transform him into an Ass.

Annie looking wistful.

Jen about ready to take flight.

Kathy taking direction like a pro.

Annie from the finished cover.

...and Jen, the green faerie.

Kathy whispering "faeriespeak" into Nick's ear.

The completed cover.

Inside spreads.

All images Copyright 2008 by Prestwick House, Inc.