Monday, July 14, 2008

Photo Shoot...At Last!

Our new album, Somniloquy, has essentially been done on the music side since April. Since then, we've been through three months of bizarre setbacks, delays, and general ennui - not on our parts, mind you, just from the Collective. We decided to take a relaxed attitude about it. There is no point fighting against forces you cannot control. Perhaps there are deeper reasons why the album wasn't ready to come out yet, reasons we cannot see. Or maybe it's just Chaos at work. Regardless, the album that was supposed to be released late Spring/early Summer is now looking at an October release date (exact date TBA).

One of the things that took a great deal of time to get accomplished was the album artwork photo shoot. We have had a very specific idea of how this album should look from the very start of the writing process. The look and feel of the entire album was influenced by this photo exhibit we saw at the Met in New York back in October of 2005. It completely permeates the thematic structure of the whole work, and we had to make sure that the artwork was photographed in a manner befitting that theme.

After a lot of searching and false starts, we found an excellent photographer in Lauren Noble, a recent graduate of Art Center in Pasadena. We knew that we were asking for a very strange shoot and the subject matter was not to everyone's taste. With Lauren, we knew right away when we spoke that we understood each other perfectly and had similar tastes in design and interests both Gothic and Victorian. David had seen her work at her grad show and was very impressed, and we are glad we were able to secure her services.

We've been crazy about the Pasadena Museum of History since we used it in our video shoot for Labyrinth a few years back. It's a big Victorian mansion with rooms full of beautiful original furniture and art. It is large, and dark, and dense. We knew that this was the perfect place for the new album shoot and were adamant about using the space for this shoot. With the wonderful help of our friend Mary, we were able to rent the space, and the big day finally went forward - just yesterday, July 13th.

I had my hair and makeup done by my own personal glam squad - my sister Victoria, before the shoot. She did some beautiful long wavy curls that instantly frizzed and fell in the heat oven that was Pasadena. We arrived to do the garden shots at around 2 PM and already felt we were going pass out from the heat by 2:15. We pushed forward, dodging emerging sprinkler near-catastrophes, and I think got some fabulous shots (which we hope you can see soon).

We then moved into the mansion and were joined by a select group of friends to photograph a good old Victorian seance, complete with ectoplasm. Everyone was incredibly patient as the lights were being set up, and they all looked fabulous in their old-timey outfits. Lauren then spent a lot of time with David and me getting our individual shots, including the one the will hopefully make the album cover. The groundskeeper of the house told us a great story about Vincent Price and a trained wolf that helped me know we were definitely on the right track.

It was an exhilarating day. To finally see such a long project come to its fruition is incredibly rewarding. This is a huge part of the fun of the creation, and we really can't wait to see what the camera captured. There's going to be a lot of post-production work to be done on these images, so it's going to take some time for them to be completed and then designed into the album artwork and the new website.

Next post: The Making of Somniloquy video was shot this weekend as well. See you soon!

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