The Stories We See : The Artwork Behind Where I Am, Still Here and Carry On

An album cover is the first point of contact. It appears before the music begins. Before a listener hears a melody, a lyric or a vocal performance, they see an image and form an expectation.

I have always felt that artwork can act as a doorway into a record. It can establish a mood without explaining everything. It can suggest a setting, a feeling or a question. It can create a visual thread between songs that may explore different subjects but share the same emotional world.

Across Where I Am, Still Here and Carry On, the artwork seems to form a journey of its own. It begins with a figure facing something vast and difficult to understand. It moves towards a child standing at a microphone, exposed but ready to speak. It ends with a castle on the horizon, distant but visible.

That progression can be read as moving from being trapped or searching, through finding a voice, towards continuing into an uncertain but hopeful future.

That is my interpretation. It is not a statement of hidden meanings that I have confirmed. The images can belong to the listener as much as they belong to the music. Different people will see different things in them. That is part of their value.

Where I Am: facing the stone faces

The artwork for Where I Am presents a lone figure standing before a large formation of stone faces. The setting feels empty. The scale is severe. The person appears small against the landscape and the monument-like faces.

The image immediately creates a sense of pressure.

The stone faces can suggest identity. They can also suggest the difficulty of understanding identity. The figure is looking at faces that are recognisable as human, but they are fixed, weathered and unreachable. They cannot answer back. They cannot explain what they want. They simply remain there.

I can read them as different versions of the questions that sit inside the album: Who am I? Where do I belong? Why do I feel this way? How do I understand what has happened to me?

The faces might also represent isolation. They are present, but they do not offer comfort. They seem to surround the figure without providing a way out. Their open mouths could suggest anger, fear, pain or words that have never been spoken. They could be external pressures, buried emotions or thoughts that have become too large to ignore.

None of those readings is definitive. They are the responses the artwork creates in me.

The title Where I Am feels connected to that uncertainty. It does not promise that the answers have already been found. It sounds more like an acknowledgement of a position. This is where I am now. This is the landscape I have to face.

That feels important when the music deals with struggle, mental health, reflection and the parts of life that are difficult to explain. I did not begin The Buey Project with a formal musical background or a clear professional route. I began with a personal challenge to write one song. The project developed from there.

The artwork reflects that beginning for me. It feels like a person standing in front of something they did not fully choose and do not completely understand. There is no obvious escape route. There is only the act of looking directly at it.

Still Here: finding a voice

The artwork for Still Here changes the focus. The landscape remains dramatic, and the stone figures are still present, but the central image is now a child at a microphone.

That changes everything.

A microphone is an instrument of expression. It exists to carry a voice. Seeing a child standing at one creates an immediate sense of vulnerability. A child at a microphone can look exposed, uncertain and too small for the space around them. At the same time, they can look courageous. They have stepped forward. They are choosing to be heard.

I can interpret the child as a younger self. That reading connects with the album’s themes of memory, family, emotional development and the experiences that remain with us. The child may represent innocence, but not necessarily comfort. Childhood can contain confusion, fear and feelings that are not yet easy to name.

The microphone suggests a possible change. The feelings may still be difficult, but they are no longer completely silent.

The title Still Here carries a similar tension. It can mean survival. It can mean endurance. It can also mean that the past has not disappeared. People can move forward while still carrying old wounds, memories and questions.

For me, songwriting became a way to express things that were often difficult to put into ordinary conversation. The image of a child at a microphone captures something about that process. The voice may not be perfectly controlled. It may not have all the answers. It may simply need to exist in the open.

The surrounding stone figures make the image more complicated. They can be read as witnesses, pressures or echoes of what came before. They might represent voices that make it harder to speak. They might also represent the weight of expectation and the feeling of being watched.

The child is still standing there.

That detail matters. The image does not remove vulnerability. It places vulnerability at the centre and allows it to become a form of strength. Speaking is not presented as an easy solution. It is presented as an act of courage.

The songs across the project explore love, loss, family, friendship, dependency, mental health and the effort required to keep going. The artwork for Still Here feels connected to the point where those experiences begin to move outward. They become songs. They become something that another person can hear.

Listeners can bring their own younger selves to the image. They can see someone trying to speak after years of silence. They can see a performer preparing to begin. They can see fear. They can see hope.

Carry On: looking towards the horizon

The artwork for Carry On moves the eye further into the distance. A castle sits on the horizon beyond a bleak, open setting. The image retains the desolation and dramatic atmosphere of the earlier covers, but it introduces a destination.

The castle can suggest many things. It might represent protection, security or somewhere to reach. It might suggest imagination, especially when viewed through the eyes of someone who has spent time looking for a place where they feel safe. It can also appear unreachable. A destination is not the same as an arrival.

That uncertainty feels central to the image.

The horizon is visible, but the path is not completely clear. There is distance between the present position and the possible destination. The journey still requires effort. The future has not been guaranteed.

I can read the castle as a symbol of resilience. It is a point to move towards when circumstances remain difficult. It does not need to represent a perfect ending. It can simply be a reason to take the next step.

That connects with the title Carry On. Continuing does not mean that everything has been resolved. It does not mean that loss has been erased or that difficult experiences no longer matter. It means choosing not to stop because the route is uncertain.

The image also leaves space for hope without making hope seem effortless. The landscape is not suddenly bright or safe. The mood remains grounded and slightly threatening. The destination remains distant. But it is there.

That balance reflects how I understand resilience. It is not constant confidence. It is often a small decision repeated over time. Continue. Try again. Say what needs to be said. Stay present. Keep moving.

One visual journey across three records

Viewed together, the three covers create a clear visual progression.

Where I Am begins with a figure facing stone faces and trying to understand the forces surrounding them. The central feeling is searching. There is isolation, pressure and buried emotion.

Still Here places a vulnerable figure at a microphone. The central action is expression. The voice is not presented as perfect or protected, but it exists.

Carry On looks towards a distant castle. The central movement is continuation. The destination may be uncertain, but the horizon has opened.

This is not a fixed interpretation. The covers may communicate something different to other listeners. That openness is important. Artwork should not close every door before the music begins.

The images can establish a shared atmosphere while allowing each song to remain individual. They can connect themes of struggle, love, family, loss, hope and resilience without reducing them to a single message. They can also show development in the project itself.

I started The Buey Project without formal musical training. I learned by doing. The songwriting grew from an attempt to express real experiences and thoughts that had not always been easy to communicate. Across three albums, the music has continued to develop through that process.

The artwork reflects a similar movement. A figure confronts something overwhelming. A voice begins to emerge. A distant destination becomes visible.

That is the story I see.

The final meaning belongs partly to the listener. If someone looks at one of these covers and recognises their own isolation, their own younger self, their own reason to continue, then the image has opened the right door.

If my interpretation misses the intended meaning of any cover, I am happy to correct it. I would also welcome the chance to add anything I have misunderstood or left out. For now, these are the stories I see in the artwork behind Where I Am, Still Here and Carry On.

Explore the music and the wider journey on The Buey Project’s YouTube channel.