Part of my business is made up of licensing images to various people, things like album art and book covers, and I absolutely love that part of it – I get to create what I love and then hope that someone else likes it enough to buy it. Sounds pretty simple, and in execution, it isn’t too hard. But of course, as with all things in the arts, it is about getting your work in front of the right people. Which I am distinctly not good at, because I do my best not to worry about hustling in that way.

Though miraculously sometimes my images do sell, and it’s always a thrill when that happens. Along with licensing already-made images, I also create new content for book covers, album art, posters, etc…when the time comes. In this case, I was approached by Penguin books and they liked an image I had done previously, but thought it was too dark for a young adult fiction novel. They asked if I could recreate the image but this time a little bit softer, adding some color into it and making the expression less pained.

I have a rule for myself that I will not shoot something if it is far outside of my vision. So if they had asked me to recreate the picture but with the girl smiling and wearing a rainbow hoodie, I would have had some serious reservations. But instead, I could envision this cover coming to life and could see that it really wouldn’t be very far outside of something I might create. Heck, I had already created it once! So I went to work.

I hired a model and two assistants to help (the model is Brittney Panda, and my assistants were Bryce Rankins and Devin Schiro). We got to the beach one evening to begin shooting, and it went rather smoothly! The water was frigid, but that was nothing new. We shot first in a calm body of water and then in the ocean for the real chop, which I ended up preferring.

Working with a company on an image requires a few changes in mindset. First thing to remember is that they hired me for a reason, therefore I should shoot what feels right…to a point. The other thing is that I also need to keep in mind some specifications since this is not, in the end, going to be my picture. This picture will represent a book that I did not write, so I need to keep the wishes of the author in mind, too. I bought several wardrobe options based on their suggestions and sent them pictures, at which time they all agreed on this purple shirt. I asked about hand positioning and facial expression, and did my best to pull those things out of the model when the time came.

I ended up sending in a few different edits, and we went back and forth on a few matters – adding more hair, taking away some hair, changing a hand – these types of things which I was happy to change until they were happy. It is a true honor to be asked to shoot for Penguin, who publishes books that are engrained in my childhood, and I feel very fortunate to be in this position. It doesn’t come along every day.

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I teach all about image licensing at workshops if you are interested in learning more about the business. I’ll be posting new workshop updates in April.