Shooting The Wombats album cover for A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation
Published on Tue Oct 10, 2023 by David J Colbran
In 2006 Liverpool based band, The Wombats released their debut single, the Japan-only issued "Girls, Boys and Marsupials." Soon after I was contacted by a design agency here on Merseyside to help them photograph their forthcoming debut album cover. Exciting times !
Rather than the usual people portraits of a band looking moody they had decided to represent their music using found items and various junk, built in to a small model. Each item related to a particular track on the release. The model itself was to be the album cover and the items within needed to be shot individually. These became stickers which were included inside early copies of the album and also distributed as a guerilla marketing campaign tool.
Arriving at the designers to collect the model, I had to photograph and take notes on the positions of the various items. Then it was a task of carefully packing everything away in bubble wrap and taking to my studio to get the job done. After some experimentation with a multi-light set up I had a good selection of images of the completed model and these were sent to the designers and the band for approval. Next up was the more straight forward product style shots of the items for the stickers. I also supplyed cut outs of the item images with a pure white background.
Several singles followed before the release of the band's 2007 debut album, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation. Back then it was heavily promoted around the UK with a major billboard campaign and various promo features in the music press - NME remember them? Also the album featured for a while in the Museum of Liverpool as a reference to new music and artists that the city was producing - it's not all about the Beatles lol. Below is a small selection from the archives from a really interesting commission back in the day soon after I moved to Liverpool.
Author: David J Colbran
- < Previous news post
- Photographer for Labour Party conference in Liverpool 2023 Next news post >
- Portrait featured in Australian newspaper
Aintree Grand National Liverpool PR Photographer 2025
Currently available to take on commissions for events, PR and celebrations at the Grand National meeting in Aintree 3rd to 5th April - get in touch ASAP - it is a very busy time for me and I get booked up quickly
Roy Ayers RIP
American vibraphonist, record producer and composer Roy Ayers has passed away aged 85 - RIP. I was lucky enough to see him perform three times. I raided the archive for some live images at Womad in 2009
Lend With Care
I've been using Lend With Care for a while - it is a microfinance lending website from CARE International UK. It allows individuals and groups to make small loans to entrepreneurs in low-income countries, helping them improve their lives through business
"As a new business, it was very important to me to get the right publicity photographs for my marketing materials. When I met David, he listened carefully to what I was trying to achieve with my brand, and then produced fabulous photographs that were exactly what I needed. He was extremely professional throughout but also nice and friendly. Myself and my clients found it easy to relax with him, which was essential to create the right vibe for the shoot. I would not hesitate to recommend him to anyone."
