Photographer Tom Medvedich On Shooting The XXL Freshmen 2014 Cover

The photo shoot for the XXL Freshmen cover happens in one gigantic day, with the 12 artists, the XXL staff, each artist's entourage, and the people that make up the infrastructure behind the scenes that delivers such an iconic moment all running around in one building. That includes cover photographer Tom Medvedich, a seasoned professional photographer who, in addition to this year's Freshmen cover, was also the man behind the lens for the 2013 edition as well as XXL's most recent cover, with Eminem, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. During a day that stretched over 15-plus hours, Medvedich and his team shot individual portraits of each artist for their bio pages within the Freshmen issue—all of which were touched up with some pretty awesome lasers in post-production—before assembling the entire crew for the iconic final shot.

But the work doesn't start or end there—a month of preparation leads up to the day of the shoot, and a significant amount of time is spent afterward on computers touching up and finalizing the photos. For a behind-the-lens look at what the experience of the 2014 XXL Freshmen photo shoot was like, we spoke to Medvedich to get his own take on the day and all the work that went into it. —Dan Rys

XXL: What was the concept of this year's cover?
Tom Medvedich: Well this year, like every year, has to tie in with the school theme. Basically, this year we went with a muslin for the background, a muslin theme. That's the fabric, the old school kind of canvas-type look, almost a tie-died look. So that was in the background. And then we went with crazy '80s lasers for the portraits. We just wanted to keep the school theme, and it's something that we thought would be fun. And the kids had some energy, so it went well together.

Where did the lasers come from?
To be honest, I don't even remember. I know it wasn't my idea, but I can't remember who it came from. I want to say it was Vanessa's idea. I had no original ideas on this job, unfortunately. [Laughs] I'm just leaning on everybody else.

How much preparation goes into this kind of cover shoot?
As you guys know, it's pretty crazy, just based on getting everybody together. But as far as my end, it's probably a month out, just for something of this scale. We have to coordinate with the prop stylist; we have to sit down and talk about what the set will be, because obviously with 12 people it gets a little crazy. So we have to make sure that everything is wide enough to fit all these people in a frame. With one person it's easy, you just use a simple backdrop and there's no problem. But with 12 people, we have to figure out how to stagger them so they flow on the frame and they don't just look like six dudes across on two different rows. So we had to figure out how we could build a set that was stable and sturdy for 12 people to sit on and not get hurt or whatever, 'cause obviously safety is the first concern. So that's one thing.

Then we had to come up with how we were gonna get this much muslin background, because it's just such a big amount of space. So we figured out that we'd probably need three of them or whatever. So we got together, we figured all that out, we got all the props we needed, and then I just kind of email my guys what I want to do with the lighting. And that's one thing for the cover shoot, and then for the [individual] portraits, we had another set right next to our cover set so we didn't have to switch anything, we could keep two sets up. So I let them know what I needed for that.

And then I did some testing to see what would be the best background to do the lasers in post [production]. So basically what we came up with was a blue background, 'cause that's the main color of the background. I was promised this specific navy blue, but the studio ended up not having it, so we made it work with what we had. It was a little bit too much blue, but whatever. That's not even that serious. But I would say it's almost a month of lead time going into the job. And then the day is crazy, as you know, and afterwards we have to do our post thing. I'm just behind the computer for a while. This time I had some help with the lasers and stuff just to take the burden off me, so I had my retoucher doing that stuff, 'cause she basically set up the lasers for me and then I would move them and position them in different places to make them not look repetitive. Basically, I was retouching the cover, swapping out different heads and eyeballs and dudes—because sometimes you got the perfect shot, but two guys are blinking, or one guy is looking the wrong direction or not paying attention [Laughs]—so you have to put it all together and just make it look the best that it could be. We just all sat around trying to figure out which ones we like the best. So it was a lot of time behind the computer after the shoot to get it all dialed in and make it look right.

But it's fun though, man. It's a project, and everyone in the rap world loves the Freshmen thing, and it's such a coveted accolade for an up and coming artist. So it's fun to be a part of it.

How many people are on your team?
It depends. Usually for a shoot like this, we have our prop stylist, and then I have two assistants and a digital tech. And then I have my retoucher. So it's a good team.

Were there any funny stories that came out of the cover shoot?
It's a totally different vibe when the guys are all together for the cover shoot, because they're really serious and they're trying to figure out how to get right in the middle to have the best placement. So for that shot, there's not as many funny stories. I think all the funny stories pretty much came from the individual shots, which everyone was pretty cool for, so we had a good time. But Troy Ave was pretty funny; he had a stack of cash, and I ended up taking a picture with him and was like, "Yo, give me your money." He looked at me crazy and was like, "What?" I was like, "Dude, I'm not gonna steal your money, just let me hold it for the picture." [Laughs] So he was like, alright, alright, and we took the picture together. There was a lot of good photos with Troy Ave, because he has so much personality. [Laughs] It's always easier to shoot somebody where you don't really have to say much, they can just do their thing and it's not like pulling teeth.

Everybody was pretty cool. Rich Homie Quan was super cool, he was just lounging, posing. It's pretty easy when dudes are really feeling themselves. [Laughs] It's really helpful when they're not self-conscious. Jarren Benton was doing karate kicks and stuff—I don't remember if that made it in—but he was great, he was really energetic and super cool. Jon Connor was really friendly, we had a great conversation. It was fun, though, it was a good experience.

You shot last year's cover, too. How did this year's shoot differ from last year's?
It's different because this year, I don't know if it's me or what, but I didn't really know who most of these guys were. Last year, obviously, I knew who Trinidad Jame$ was, I'm a big Action Bronson fan. Joey Bada$$ I was a big fan of. There was more notable names, I felt like, last year. But again, I don't know if that's 'cause a few of them were from New York, and that's more familiar to me. A lot of these guys were from the Midwest this year, and I'm just so busy with work, unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to check out some of the up and coming guys. It's not easy. But I think that the vibe was pretty much similar, I would say [to last year]. Some of the guys, they're so new that this is their first photo shoot ever, so they don't really know what to expect or what they're getting into. So it's kinda cool to have somebody so green and you can kinda explain to them what to do and everything. So it's interesting.

I can imagine that's much different than working with somebody who has been through a million photo shoots...
For. Sure. I did that Dre and Em and Jimmy cover and it's like, they know exactly how they want to stand. They've been getting photographed for over 20 years, so they know what their favorite angle to stand at is, don't shoot me from this side, whatever. So it's totally different.

Anything else that really stuck out for you that day?
You know, honestly, it's just a really cool experience and it's nice to see such a big group of people... People might be seeing some of the behind the scenes stuff, but it's kinda like being at a sporting event vs. watching it on TV. Like, when you watch sports on TV you're like, man, that looks pretty busy, there's a lot of stuff going on. But you have no idea until you actually go there. So it's like, when you're at the shoot, you see literally 100 people walking around, all for one cause. So it's pretty cool to see all these people walking around, doing their thing. It's almost like a well-oiled machine. Everybody's just trying to do their job and just make everybody happy and look good, and produce some good content. So it's pretty cool to be a part of that, and I appreciate it.

And it's also interesting to see who ends up making it big out of all these guys and girls. It's interesting to see who makes it, that's pretty cool. I'm just happy to be a part of the collective effort.