mima-EP Cover Art for Ellery

In October,

I had the amazing chance to shoot for singer and songwriter, Ellery. In this particular EP, she sings about the struggle of living under someone's idea of her, and she wanted the cover art to convey that. When we connected, we immediately started to bounce ideas off each other, and when the day came to shoot, we tried a little of everything. When I say everything, I mean like...we even got in a pool and shot underwater! We got to laugh at ourselves, learn from mistakes, get excited over cool shots, and it was awesome! There is a special experience when two creatives come together.

Both of us had never done this before, and it was very tricky. The thing about shooting underwater is you have to discuss in detail how you want your model to pose before you go down. The model also has a tough job. They have to relax their face even while water may be going up their nose. They have to keep their eyes open even if they sting and also try to use movement to style their hair. Ellery did a great job. She didn’t have weights on her, so she had to slowly let air out through her nose so she could sink a little, and then she would pose. By the end, we got into a rhythm and felt comfortable with what we had to do. Here is a shot we both really liked- 

Now, ready for the raw image?

(Editing this was really fun. It was different, and it presented good challenges.)

After drying off, we got ready for the second part of the shoot. Ellery had brought her projector, and we experimented with different visuals to see what looked best. Throughout the shoot though, she gravitated toward the symbolism of water. So when she put the water effect on the projector, it just fit and looked REALLY cool. Thankfully, I remembered that I had a crystal in my camera bag, and I used it to create wavy distortion at the bottom of the frame. After more editing, I had the finished products. The first image on the left is the one you’ll find on Apple Music and Spotify. 

Thank you, Ellery, for trusting me with your ideas.



mima is now streaming on Apple Music and Spotify.