IN THE MUSIC STUDIO
Amanda MacEachen
Dear PRISMA readers,
Welcome to a brand-new issue of PRISMA! I hope everyone has enjoyed reading the photo articles every week from our incredible contributors. It’s been an absolute joy working with PRISMA this year and I can't wait for what we bring to 2026. Without further ado to kick issue 27 off, I thought I’d write an article on my recent experience of photographing a cover for a new music single. As a music photographer, getting the opportunity to work directly with artists on their projects is always an absolute pleasure and I love the journey it takes to get to the final result. My good friend and very talented singer Eilidh Hamilton released her brand-new single ‘freefall’ on the 19th of December (which you should go listen to now, it’s amazing and a beautifully written track!).
Eilidh came to me for some ideas, specifically on what we could do for this single creatively and for the digital promo. We had previously worked together on a shoot for her first single ‘right person wrong time’, where we opted for an outdoor location and a soft, natural aesthetic. That shoot leaned quite heavily into gentle colour palettes, natural light and minimal movement, aligning more with the feeling of the song. This time, however, the song carried a very different emotional weight, so we required something bolder and a bit more experimental. Because of this shift in storytelling, we decided to move away from location shooting and instead give ourselves full creative control by renting a photography studio. The studio environment allowed us the flexibility to experiment freely with camera techniques that wouldn’t be as achievable outdoors. The studio we rented was Eh3 Studios in Edinburgh, which I can highly recommend for any photographers in the area!
The space itself was incredible, very spacious, fully equipped, and incredibly versatile, making it ideal for a shoot like this. The studio had a wide range of professional lighting equipment, modifiers, coloured backdrops, meaning our setup time didn't take that long and we could focus almost entirely on the creative process and taking photos. Having reliable studio lighting also meant consistent exposure across the shots, which was essential given how experimental the camera settings would become! The main idea for this shoot with Eilidh was to use intentional motion blur within the camera to create images that visually simulated a sense of falling or losing stability, directly reflecting the song’s title and meaning. Rather than relying on post production effects, (and it being a lot less time consuming), I wanted the movement to be captured in camera.
To achieve this, my camera settings had to be vastly adjusted from what I would normally use in a portrait session. My shutter speed was dropped down to around 1/5th of a second, which allowed enough time for movement to register while still retaining partial sharpness. With the studio lights sitting nicely my ISO sat comfortably at 200, keeping noise to a minimum and I shot with an aperture of f/2.8. This setup was very much a process of trial and error, with constant micro adjustments to the shutter speed to fine tune the intensity of the motion blur. Even a small change in shutter length dramatically altered the result, so we spent a lot of time looking at the photos, adjusting, and reshooting.
We did a wide range of different poses for this, such as Eilidh standing on a stool and ‘falling’ off of it (in a very safe way). Other ones included lying on the floor where in post production editing I could make it look as though she was floating with the motion blur giving the freefall motion. Once the creative juices got going and the longer we were shooting for, me and Eilidh had a multitude of ideas and poses to run through! One of the key techniques we used involved physically moving the camera during the exposure. By making a sharp, deliberate movement away from the subject while the shutter was open, I was able to keep Eilidh relatively sharp while dragging the surrounding blur in a specific direction. This directional motion became a visual motif throughout the shoot and perfectly embodied the ‘freefall’ sensation we were aiming for. We explored this technique in several different ways.
One approach focused on facial motion blurs, where Eilidh’s face remained the central subject while the motion pulled outward. These photos were really interesting to work with in post editing! Subtle changes in for example the contrast, colour grading, shadows etc would completely alter the mood of each shot. Because of this I played around with a lot of different editing styles for each image, so that me and Eilidh both got a feel of what worked best for the track! I also did a mix of black and white edits as well as coloured ones, when me and Eilidh were discussing our thoughts after the shoot, we agreed that the best photo for the cover would be one that was in black and white. The reason for this was that we felt it visually represented the song the best, ‘freefall’ still had a soft touch to it, and the black and white effect gave a sense of loss that the song embodies.
A big issue we did have (as many photographers may be able to relate with), was my overshooting. It was very difficult to narrow down one hundred edited photos to just ONE shot for the cover. So me and Eilidh did this very bit by bit, it was first narrowed down to 10, then 5, then 3, and then we finally collectively agreed which one was best for the cover (after long deliberation). We went for a shot where Eilidh was leaning over in a falling motion, we both felt that the motion blur in this shot was perfect, it was the type of shot we were aiming for the whole session, and I remember both of us looking at the RAW file when we took it saying “this could be the one”!. I can't thank Eilidh enough for trusting me with this process and photographing for a song that has such meaning and raw emotion to it. It was a joy to work in a studio again and I would recommend it to any photographer if they are doing a shoot in need of lots of flexibility and range, especially for promo related shoots like these!
I hope you all enjoy reading this issue of PRISMA and happy new year!
This article first appeared in PRISMA, Issue 27.