What´s going on in the studio?
Its so hard to describe an idea of a picture with just words. I try it occasionally. And it often shows up that I gave the wrong explanation, or simply the client visualized it another way. Then its nice to have some kind of visual idea of what a picture would look like. To be in sync with the client, even a loose sketch on a napkin can make the two of us think the same way. And I am not depending on the clients ability to interpret me.
This is a project I did a couple of years ago. It became actual again since the client needed it with a slightly new layout to use on an exhibition on Gothenburg Motorshow. (April 22-25, 2010). This is an example on how to use the camera as a sketchup tool:
Some time ago one of our customers needed an instruction to show customers how to mount one of their products. Since the instruction needed to be visual, clear and should be printed on paper and board, an should be easy to view on their website, we chose to illustrate it.
Traditionally. Black and white with outlines. To reduce time effort I sketched up the layout with the camera. That way I got the form and perspective right without too much effort. The pictures are really ugly but they fulfill their purpose.
After choosing and printing the photos I threw them into my absolutly fabulous, lifesaving, drawing machine, the Liesegang (more on this in an upcoming post), and sketched.
After some proofing with the client it was time to draw the original with black pencils, scan it and put some grey fields in it to increase the contrast and visibility.
194 pictures! Great news for us living in Sweden/Scandinavia! The Grand Opening of Fotografiska in Stockholm will be May 21 and Annie Leibovitz and her exhibition “A photographers Life 1990-2005″ will be opening the museum. Many of the pictures are showed for the first time.
The exhibition takes about 1000! square meters and is organised by The Brooklyn Museum, New York.
I really like to shoot products on white. No clipping paths. The shadow shall be real. I like to set the lightning so it just needs a little fix in photoshop to be really white. A swedish customer, SBM Fordon, needed some of their products shot for advertismement purpose.
OK! It´s for nerds! I know! But it´s fun! Here is a lighning scheme!
I love pictures! I believe we all do! Pictures are everywhere, all the time! Champions and masters in memorizing recommend us to visualize in pictures to be able to memorize strange combinations of numbers and such things. Then pictures simply must be good for our brains! Just think of all pictures that have been made since the beginning of picture (when was that?). Everybody is sometimes drawing and photographing something. Sometimes I think everything has been drawn or photographed already, bearing in mind how many pictures are being made each day. By amateurs and by pros. 24-7! But I may be wrong.
Often when starting a new photo or illustration project for a client I check up whats available on iStock or Shutterstock or maybe I Google it. First impression is often that everything of that topic has been covered. (When designing a brochure or similar for a cost sensitive client its often sufficient with some good stockphotos.) But taking a closer look of whats available it shows that there is always a need for one more picture. A search on a stockphoto site for “woman, bicycle, outdoors” can give 2 000 – 4 000 hits! That´s a lot! There is a picture for most needs. But if I want a specific environment, color of the bicycle, clothing on the woman, lightning situation or anything else specific, it may have to be one more picture made! Luckily!
Do we need more pictures? Of course! Definitely! Let´s go on and make pictures until exactly everything is pictured!
Torbjorn
Well, according to common knowledge it may be a photo, an illustration or some kind of reproduction or this or that and so on. In communication we don´t analyze this much, do we? We see pictures and images everywhere in our everyday life. A photography can be digitally altered or not, it can be black and white, it can be lightened with virtually thousands of lighning modifiers including available light. What we see is a picture. An illustration can be made in thousands of ways on thousands of materials, and we still recognizes it as an illustration – or simply – a picture. That´s nice! (A Google search of the word “picture” gave 532,000,000 results. Thats a lot!)
In a small design studio we have to deal more with what kind of expression we want to give the product than should it be a photo or an illustration. It is often no borders between brush and ink, illustrator/photoshop or photos taken on location or in studio. Its about to choose wich manner that suits the project.
Since this is the first post on this blog, this is an explanation of the mix of photos, pictures, images, layouts, logos and designs that will show up on the theme “what is going on in the studio. I try to erase the borders between illustrator/photographer. I make pictures. Hope it will be inspiring!
Torbjorn
