Working for a record label is quite strange. For one, the inner workings of a record label are not glamorous, despite everyone expecting them to be. I sit in a windowless office with plain walls that is very cold. If you had to guess from walking in off the street what I did upon inspection of my office, you’d probably think I was a poorly dressed accountant (creatives are allowed to come to work looking like  homeless bums, right?).

This is where I spend roughly half the year doing random things like fixing the printer, setting up free download pages, updating our newsletter server… all stuff that is super exciting. Then December hits. We go from 0 to 60 in 1 second flat. Inpop tells to me that we have 4 new releases coming out around roughly the same time – late spring/summer. I’ll be doing the photography for some and full packaging and everything else for the rest of them.

In early December we immediately start work arranging the photoshoots. I’m working on finding locations for Jimmy Needham and after hours of driving around, googling and planning we spend an entire day doing nothing but taking photos (see my previous post for those!) It’s fun, but exhausting. The next few weeks I spend editing and organizing those photos and then I start on album cover comps. We meet with Jimmy and his manager to discuss ideas, and after a few weeks I submit some comps. Weeks and weeks of revisions and scrapped comps later, we arrive on a final. Here is a peek at just some of the comps we went through to get the final: http://gallery.me.com/breezy421#100159 (don’t distribute these, please!).

Amid all the Jimmy Needham chaos, we have the newsboys AND Article One photoshoots. Both in the first weeks of January. I did the Article One shoot with just me and the guys down by the river in downtown Nashville. It was probably the best photoshoot I’ve ever done because I’ve done so many shoots with these guys we’re so comfortable with each other now that we knock it out of the park right away. It was super fast and simple and everyone was happy.

Here are some of those pics:

Then came the newsboys shoot. I got to assist a photographer I’ve long admired on this shoot – Mr. David Molnar. My main contribution was getting catering. When I brought it all back I realized that the dude at the burger joint didn’t label any of the 16 different meals so everybody just started eating everybody else’s food… we were way to hungry to care.

After that I began newsboys cover comps. First for the EP, then the full album. All the while doing Article One EP comps and packaging and Jimmy Needham comps. Oh not to mention a big load of freelance projects on the side, like this photoshoot for Alissa… she’s an extremely talented artist that the one and only Paul Colman is working with & producing.

All of February was a huge blur. I finished the newsboys EP and Article One EP packaging and I really liked how they turned out.

Then it was time to work on Superchick packaging. Which I did in one night. Over at Max & Shara’s house. We started at 5pm. Ended at midnight. Max had already completed the cover which is 1/2 the battle. Early that week I think is when we finally settled on the final newsboys and Jimmy covers. I’m getting my time all screwed up but that’s what happens when you don’t really know what day it is to begin with because you go to bed at 4 or 5am every night and wake up the same day a few hours later. It also really throws you off to sleep for an hour on your lunch break which I do regularly. Ha. I love my life, I really do.