a veil,

a prism

Album by alone-a from Bumpy Records

Songs: Alana Horton
‍ ‍ Producer: Christian Erickson
‍ ‍Illustration: Alex Newby
Layout: Adam Wish-Werven,
‍ ‍ Alana Horton &
Michael Wellvang
Photo & Video: Michael Wellvang

ALONE-A is an ambient music project from Alana Horton, a Minneapolis-based artist. For her debut album, A Veil, A Prism, I art-directed the photo and video assets.

Alana had three stipulations for the imagery:

  • Represent her home, Minnesota.

  • Reflect her instrument’s difficulty (a custom-built synthesizer).

  • Produce it in the way music is played:
    on the spot. That means doing it in-camera. No CGI.

Shooting photos with prisms matched a lot of the qualities Horton was looking for——chaotic, unique, and very analog.


Press Photos

Prisms throw light in dramatically different ways. While taking Alana’s head shots, I found they work best when used in tandem with another, or filtered through a transparent material like cellophane. These methods spread the prism effects across the image while also tampering highlights.

What is a prism?

It’s just glass cut into a shape. Most people see them in science class to make rainbows.

They have four visual effects:

  • Turn light into different colors

  • Stretch/distort an image

  • Reflect

  • Diffuse (soften)

Finding the Look

The next challenge was to complement Alex Newby’s abstract illustration, while also repping Minnesota.

Native plants like bur oaks and tallgrass would be fitting, I thought, because their textures and meandering shapes contrast with the illustration’s clean lines.

The old grasslands are nearly gone, however. Few bur oaks can be seen today in their natural biome—greatly limiting my options. But weeks of searching, I found a place.

Socials

I restyled Alana’s looks from her press shots for her “talking head” videos with more saturated colors, because her Instagram algorithm was favoring brighter palettes.

For balance, we chose simple overlay footage from one of my location scouts.

Concert Visuals

I gathered hours of footage over the course of three months from Southern and Central Minnesota, building up a library of clips that were narrowed down to just thirty minutes (her set length) for Alana’s album release at the Cedar in Minneapolis.

Seen below is the prism setup I ended up using most, for both its efficiency as well as adaptability to different light sources.