Making Glimmers in Atlanta
On May 12th, my good friend Maggie Schneider messaged me on Instagram and asked me for my rates and told me she had a project she wanted me to work on.
She told me all about “glimmers”, her new idea for a band that would be taking over the music that she had previously produced as a solo artist. Her new endeavors would all be as an ensemble, and not as a solo artist, and needed to get a bunch of promo shots for the band and be able to use them for all of the new branding and social media plans she had.
I was delighted. Maggie had been one of my favorite Atlanta artists to watch develop and grow into a fan favorite, and I was friends with a few of the people that performed with her, and seeing it grow into a bigger vision and plan was so exciting for me.
I have a background in marketing and working with bands to create promotional photography in the past, but it had been a while since I had to help really execute a creative vision and convert it into imagery. Since COVID-19 has really ravaged Georgia, I met with the band over Zoom to plan the creative. Maggie had made an inspiration board with the band to show me what they were hoping to do, and we talked about how to execute it, who would need to bring what materials, where we could shoot, and what to wear.
After having been cooped up in the house for a few months, it felt good to finally have something music-related to be able to work on.
We met at the location, I wore PPE, gloves, and brought a bunch of hand sanitizer with me, which was not too fun in the summer heat - but we do what we have to to make sure our communities stay safe!
Some of the promo shots we took while working to put together the imagery for “glimmers”.
We spent about 4 hours building sets, clipping bushes with craft scissors, and taping together pipes and lights to make the outdoor set. It was truly a DIY set. We were fighting with natural light the whole day, wrestling with the heat and trying to dab dry with towels to make sure we didn’t have any other kinds of “glimmers” in the shots, and trying to stay hydrated for a very long and humid afternoon. But, with a small budget and a big dream, we were able to make some really great photos.
I hadn’t had much time to talk to the rest of the band before the shoot, so this was really my first time meeting the other performers. Jeremy, the drummer, and I met when I first moved to Georgia, and he was the one who introduced me to Maggie in the first place - but the rest of the band (Alex, Alex, and Ari) were more or less strangers to me. After getting to know them, I was even more excited for the future of the band.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic is settled and we have a vaccine and the venues across the nation open back up, one of the first things I’m excited to do is go and see glimmers live.
Glimmers signed with Common Ground Collective, and is releasing their debut single as a band, “Don’t Tell Me” on Thursday, July 30th. Also, you can watch Maggie and I chat on the Masquerade’s new web series, Mugs with Mags, on Instagram.