As we work on each new issue, many photographs pass through the Design Department that are enjoyed but not ultimately selected for inclusion. Certain unused images become favorites. This month I thought I'd create a little detour featuring some of those shots that wouldn't have gotten in otherwise, letting them have a discreet (and somewhat slow-loading) presentation here.

Starting in on the April issue, just to get warmed up in early March, I gathered images that related loosely to the name "Old Crow Medicine Show." (I found the plane on this German site.) In the long run, we only used the birds: they fit into the illustrations without drawing too much attention away from the musicians and they seemed somehow in keeping with the band's sound.

Making little multi-picture portraits of 10 musicians (five in each band), I had to lose a lot of other information in the shots I picked--like all the beautiful steel in the foreground of this photo of BR549's Shaw Wilson.

But my favorite unused photo of the band members is the one of Shaw shooting hoops in his cowboy boots. (That's what I call country.)




Although we went with the close-up of Annie Gallup for her review page, I kept wishing we could use this one too. Cool the way that abstract white shape behind her turns out to be a horse.     continue