Namaste HIVE!

Let me tell you the story of how my band - Alif's - 4-part album - Siyah - got it's album art. (Fun fact: Alif had more than 1 million streams on Spotify in 2021!)

But first, lets have a look at it:

Here is the album proper album cover that was released:

As of now, two parts of the album have been released.
You can check them on Spotify or YouTube by clicking below:

Spotify Links:
Siyah - Part 1 | Haal
Siyah - Part 2 | Maazi
YouTube Links:
Siyah - Part 1 | Haal
Siyah - Part 2 | Maazi

Well, the story goes like this - We were rehearsing in a jam room in Mumbai, India.
Now jam rooms are usually closed off dark, dank places... air tight and filled with a strong stench of sweat from the band who jammed before you.
But this particular one was nice and brightly lit. Not smelly at all!
It had a small window from where the sunlight peeped in.
And because of the opaque glass and a filter, it gave off a nice soft light when the sun was up.
We were taking a 10 mins break in between the rehearsal.
I switched off all the lights in the jam room.
Only the soft light from this window remained.

Then I took this photo of the vocalist of the band:
00100sportrait_00100_burst20190202173314995_cover_2.jpg

This is taken with a Poco f1 smartphone with a Gcam mod.

And I edited it right there and then in Adobe Lightroom for mobile app.
The result of which is the first photo you saw.

Immediately all of us in the band were like "thats it. We got the album cover!"

People couldn't believe the difference between the original and the final output.
I ended up making these edits as a preset in my lightroom app.
Took a couple of pic of myself as well 😄