Before The Coffee » Photography

Rapper Does His Thing

When Breezy the rapper called me to photograph him for his CD cover I wasn’t really interested in doing anything more than a documentary shot of him. Mainly because he didn’t have any ideas except that he wanted to wear a suit and his CD was going to be titled “Billionaire Dreams.” After some brainstorming I started to get an image of what could be a fun shoot. I imagined a person that acted like they have it all yet their surroundings say they don’t. I liked the contrasting ideas so things started to gel and I felt the Henryton Facility would be a cool backdrop.

On location Breezy was a little stiff, he needed lots of encouragement and instructions before he found his groove. He liked to point at the camera a lot, which works for the first 5 shots, but you have to mix it up a bit. I told him “Breezy, forget the camera, forget about getting your suit dirty, forget about answering your phone and forget the cops could show up here and arrest us.” I walked over to the scene and pointed to the ground, “here, right here, dance like you LOVE your life and you LOVE what you are doing. If you can’t convince me right here you’ll never convince your fan club.” Breezy laughed, then pulled it off very nicely.

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Here’s Breezy in the burned out floor doing what he loves.
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  • Sharon Sefton - August 12, 2009 - 10:01 pm

    Love the shot of Breezy dancing! Where’d you find this place? It’s perfect!!!

    This is the Laundry room at the closed down Henryton Hospital. Thank you, FerrellReplyCancel

  • planetcity1 - August 13, 2009 - 12:42 am

    Yep, that first shot is perfect, as it totally illustrates a guy who is breezy, who is definitely cool under pressure.ReplyCancel

  • Nadia McIlhany - August 13, 2009 - 8:16 am

    I love it. I know how great it feels to see an idea work well. Nice job – as usual – Ferrell!!!ReplyCancel

  • Tommy Lynch - August 13, 2009 - 8:18 am

    Oh yeah…..this work really well for this CD……way to gel Ferrell!…..lightning work is awesome!ReplyCancel

  • Big John - August 13, 2009 - 8:22 am

    Fantastic Ferrell! You are the creative genius dude. So did you get arrested?ReplyCancel

  • MEM - August 13, 2009 - 10:44 am

    i really like this shot – the contrasts shout out still in “cool” ways, which is a perfect rap to me on the old “to get clean you gotta get dirty”…ReplyCancel

  • ellery - August 13, 2009 - 2:35 pm

    Way cool Ferrell…ReplyCancel

  • Karen Messick - August 13, 2009 - 6:41 pm

    Really nice work, congrats on the CD cover job. Were you using some lighting here? Its pretty dark in that place…ReplyCancel

  • Chuck - August 16, 2009 - 5:56 pm

    That is too cool! I knew that place looked familiar! Next stop, F.H.?ReplyCancel

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