I’m excited to share a sneak preview from a series of images I made with acclaimed violinist Anne Akiko Meyers for her website and upcoming album, due in September. The shoot, which features her extremely rare and valuable “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu violin, known to be the most valuable violin the world, took place at her home in Los Angeles. The instrument was lent to her by an anonymous collector to play for life after being purchased for north of $16 million. We had originally considered going on location, but the rarity of the violin, which is in pristine condition despite being constructed in 1741 (!), caused us to reconsider. So, we opted on setting up an outdoor studio on the shady side of her home, where we could ensure that the instrument’s perfect varnish would never see direct sunlight. Did shooting an essentially priceless piece of musical history on a live set make me nervous? Nah! Do it all the time. Did we quadruple sandbag any and every object within 15 feet of the set? Absolutely! Was I lying about not being nervous? Uh, yeah. Sorry. The winds did actually kick up a bit later in the morning, causing our backdrop to ripple, but my team had secured everything so well that it wasn’t a concern.
It was both a great honor and pleasure to work on this project with Anne. An experience I won’t soon forget. One of the highlights was realizing that we were getting a private recital part way through the shoot. Part of me wished I could stop clicking my camera long enough to really enjoy it. I can’t wait to hear the album and see the finished product. I’ll be sure to share when it’s out!
On a technical note, the scenes we were shooting for required multiple lighting sources, so we set up for a variety of scenarios that we could rotate through in order to create images that appeared to be in open shade, low morning sunrises and moonlight among others. To do this we started with a Profoto pack on a large Elinchrom Octabank to create a beautiful broad key light and then rotated through multiple variations using combinations of a soft box, beauty dish and 7″ reflector as back and side lighting. For fill we set up a Scrim Jim a couple feet from Anne, which was secured by multiple sandbags, clamps and an assistant to make sure it didn’t move an inch. We also added in a Reel EFX fan to create a subtle breeze and add movement.
Finally, I also couldn’t have done this without the great crew, listed below.
Assistants – Ryan Duclos & Jeremy Jackson
Hair/MUA – Courtney Hagen
Grip – Sync Photo Rentals
Stay tuned for the follow up in September!