Boil, Boil

Just finished with the cover for the August issue. Our feature story is about how some breeders have a formula for predicting yearling sales success, so art director Gena Gallagher really ran with the "formula" theme.

For the cover, she envisioned a scientist-looking character mixing chemicals to create the perfect horse. Inside the story, this scientist would be writing out the formula on a chalkboard.

That scientist-looking person turned out to be me.

This wasn't my first cover shoot, mind you. I'm sure you remember my foot and gloved hand on the cover of the December 2008 issue, right?

Gena secured a labcoat and some beakers from a friend who works as a chemist. Photographer Mark Hall picked up some dry ice from Graeter's Ice Cream. We were ready to go.

Mark colored some water in the beaker, and dropped a piece of dry ice in. Soon vapor was pouring out of the beaker, so it really looked like I was cookin' somethin' up. Unfortunately, there was too much vapor at times, so Gena had to keep fanning it away so Mark could get a good shot of what I was doing.

After two separate shoots (Gena and Mark wanted to change some lighting, and my beaker, after the first shoot) we got what we needed, and made it into the cover. I can show you the photo that we used, but you will have to wait for the cover to be released Aug. 1. Stay tuned next week for a video on how we put this all together.

Cheers, T.J. Burkett