To be honest, this photo is in no small part inspired by the cover of one of my photography books, The Elements of Photography, with my own personal take on it. Placed a flash in a shoot-thru umbrella behind and above the camera, and another flash inside my old guitar, on full power. Click thru to read more:
The texture comes from some random photographs I've taken of concrete surfaces and other patina-laden elements I've encountered. I recently finished the artwork and design for The And Company's upcoming release, Look Up, and I used these textures in some of the album packaging, so I thought I'd play with them some more. The artwork came out nice, the band is very happy with it, and I'm excited to have been able to create the compositions entirely from my own library of images, with an interesting combination of urban and landscape photos throughout, many of which I've posted here before. Here's the cover and back panel:
The rest of the artwork, inside panels and booklet, doesn't necessarily follow this theme, at least not overtly, but we are all happy with how it still all works together.
-llg