Photography: January 2011

‘What is advertising?

Advertising is all about getting you interested in the product or buying the product. ‘

For this years course I chose the title advertising. I chose this title because I thought it would be interesting to look at and also a challenge as it is something I haven’t looked at before. The advertising market is very competitive and you see many different styles and the advertising campaigns have a unique selling point.

Researching the world of advertising will be a good vehicle to develop my skills. The aim being to make my photographic work look more mature and professional.

My personal interests are:

Product advertising

Studio photography and portraiture

Posters

Film advertising and (cinematic)

Gaming

Fashion

These interests are all perfectly suited to the world of advertising and indeed initially I emulated a selection of existing advertising campaigns as a starting point

There is a wide range of advertising to look at, in my research I started off looking at product advertising the main advertising companies which advertise Clothing, shoes and etc.

The main brand I looked at was Nike; a very big advertising company which uses complex and original photography and a company which that employs many freelance photographers to promote the products. I also looked at Adidas and other main stream brands.

I have looked at a range of different artists, these include:

Michael Meyersfled and Simon Winall who produced some strange and surreal product promotions

Involving outsized products and or models in odd circumstances.

Lee Strickland Who creates huge staged shots with great attention to detail in the mis-en-scene.

This work I thought was most interesting because of the stage shots, from looking at the first image I found of work, fish and chicks advertisement, I thought I was well presented because it was all about location and how the people looked and the props used. These shots would be carefully planned out and probably taken several times to get perfect light is certain areas such as inside the car and the lighting on the man standing next tot a crash.

The images although contrived look as though they may be a still from a movie epic or a HBO

Easton Chang a superb automotive photographer who emphasises the though bred machine and the feeling of power and speed. This artist I thought was interesting to look at for ideas of advertising because I thought his pictures looked very high standard for commercial or billboard photography; I think his work stands out from the other automotive photographers such as Michael Meyers fled he work looked more simple compared to Easton Chang. The reason for this could because of the cars that Easton Chang has photographed is upper class market cars, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Ford GT etc.

Greg White, another photographer with a keen interest in the cinema re his Bravia add involved the use of an council estate in Scotland , the building being cannonaded with multicoloured paint and the world cup Nike promotions, the reason I like this photographer because I like the way he uses lighting in his work the way the person or object is represented also the main pictures I like he has created is the Sony Bravia advertisement, the bright colours and the paint shot into the centre of the image to create the England flag.

Jonathan Knowles more conventional product advertiser, this photo

In my research I looked at a range of advertising, I look at the many ways of promotion and also of course for inspiration.

One of the other sections of advertising I looked at was posters. I looked at the way they changed over the years from 1920 such as Saul Bass theatre posters, I looked at his film posters such as dawn of the dead and the man with the golden arm, also I saw how over the years there is a dramatic the change was over the years they have started to use more photography in the posters. Also I was looking at Russian posters and looked at how there were represented and shown what pictures they used and the effects of the colours on the image. I looked at artists such as Saul bass with his 1920s posters each poster he has created is quiet simple but effective, I also emulated couple of his pictures and look at the layout and the way he has arrange each shape and text. With looking at all of these features in his posters I created my own film poster. This poster I created i used my own photo and manipulated on Photoshop. I created a film poster getting some basic shap4e ideas from the other Saul bass emulations I looked at the 1920s poster the man with the golden arm. This emulation was the simplest out of all the emulations. The colours on the poster are bold and simple like the Saul bass emulation with the purple and the black shapes with the picture I have chosen I chose a picture i have recently done named the film iron man like Saul Bass has done other film posters such as dawn of the dead.

For one of my interests I thought it would be profitable to look at film posters not to just looking at the photography on the posters. I was looking at the layout as well the way it is shown the text to the audience. The genre I looked at was horror, looking at the horror posters they all have photography elements in common, most of the images taken for the posters are dark and gloomy they have high contrast, shadows and low lighting. Most of these shots would have been taken in a studio or they were taken out to a specific location. These shots were possibly created with studio lighting; the studio light is to create stronger shadows on the clothing or the props the character was holding.

The work I started off with was studio photography. Most or the products are taken in studio based rooms. The products are displayed with many different ranges of lighting to make the product look more professional and attractive. I had some difficulties for the first time trying with this type of technique, to create the lighting effects I wanted an image I was emulating which didn’t turn out so well. The second set of images I tried out I just tried out different places of lighting. I don’t particularly like this part of my work because I know I could have done better with the shadowing and the range on lighting in the image also there was a lot of noise in the photo.

This year my work has developed my understanding of advertising and looking at all the types of advertising it has shown my strengths and weaknesses. All my work came from inspiration e.g. the blue shoe with paint, one of my strongest pieces of work in my book, that piece I emulated came from the idea of Adidas.

How I created this image.

I got one of my old shoes and threaded string through the hole on the front of the shoe so I could tie it to surface. To create the paint effect on the shoe first I painted the whole shoe blue and then poured the paint over the shoe to make it drip like the original photo, couple of changes made on Photoshop with brightness and contrast. This was a simple idea but also quiet effective. This image is bright and has a lot of light shining on the left side of the image which makes the image stand out more and look more professional.

The emulation of the painted shoes I liked the most because it looked more artistic as well as the photographic side to the project, this image was based on the same emulation from the Adidas brand the research I uncovered earlier.

This was relating my photography to still life emulations of Michael Meyersfled the original was on his website of silver spoons and the sieve on a coloured background.

Still life emulations I started off with simple still life photography. The emulations I was looking at were a close up of sweets on a coloured background. His work was simple but effective. I tried out emulations of close ups of sweets, this part of my book didn’t go as well as the other photos because theses images were out of focus. The images were out of focus because I had the wrong type of lens on the camera I was using I needed a macro lens and had to make do with a 50mm.

The message I’m trying to bring across is the Adidas shoes has a range of colours in stock and you can create the product. The white back ground represents the product it wants to self its self on the market, the white background makes the product stand out and look professional in the high end of the market. Moving on with other product advertising I took photos of actual products such as Xbox controller, Nike basketball, I Phone and created simple advertising with a simple colour background to make the product look appealing using Photoshop to change the contrast and brightness slightly on the image.

The next advertising section I looked at was automotive photography, I looked at other car advertising posters such as Audi and Renault, and then I took my own photos of a Audi car relating it to my artists in still life photography Michael Meyersfled with the Audi in the studio shot and I created a few simple emulations with a dark background. The reason for the dark background because to make the car come more to life, it has more than just a meaning of a car I was showing that the car is mysterious and also is the animal with the headlights on the car beaming it is showing that the beast is emerging from the darkness.

The next advertising I did from looking at horror film posters, I would create zombie faces using portraits of people I would change there faces into zombies using Photoshop, which each image in my work I used a different way to make the person or face look old or worn away. With my images I started off with my face and I created a face and took a photo of it to create a zombie image, with all these images I had to change each skin colour to a pale colour to give the effect that the person is dead or came back from the dead and also using Photoshop I created high contrast around the eyes like you see with most zombie pictures you see around today.

The third most successful pieces in my book were the Wayne Rooney England flag. I liked this image because I thought it looked creative and also I thought it would be a great picture to emulate. The Wayne Rooney image has different connotations, it’s not just a representation of the England flag from other people views it may represent religion, the cross. With trying to produce this image I had to get a person prepared for the shots.

Using Photoshop, I thought using my Photoshop skills is the strongest side of photography for me because from looking at my work I can create realistic images for the film advertising section. Also I used most of my Photoshop for the cinematic shots I looked at, I looked at some Photoshop tutorials online to help me with some images in the past and I thought using these types of skills would be useful in my work, with my cinematic shots I used the day images I took of buildings and made into a night time image. The message I wanted to bring across for this image was a creepy, spooky look to it, relating this to my film posters I looked at I wanted to create more of a cinematic shot in a scene a location where the film is set.

With this cinematic shot this is how I did this:

First I looked at the image I thought I needed to change the sky into more of a night time sky (another way to get clouds instead of getting a separate image off the internet filter, render, and clouds)

Then you cut out with the polygonal tool the cathedral on a separate layer (layer 0 (unlock the layer hold alt and double click on the layer)

After when you have cut out the cathedral paste the second image in

According the your version of Photoshop you have with Cs3 you have to copy the image and then press Ctrl + V but if you have Cs4 or 5 you can drag and drop the image in

You should have the layer on top of the cathedral drag current layer down in the tool bar in the right hand corner showing layers 0 drag the layer under layer 0 and the image should be the background. Behind the cathedral

Scale the image to the size of the picture or how you want depending how big the clouds you want in the image

To make the image look more cinematic create a new layer and to create rectangles on the top and the bottom of the image, use the rectangular tool and then use the fill tool and fill with the colour black or #00000 (each rectangle is the same shape Crtl + C to copy and then Crtl + V to paste the rectangle to keep it the same size)

To create the rain effect on top, create a new layer name the layer Rain or keep it as layer 3, fill the layer with shade of grey

Add noise to the layer: filter, noise, add noise amount about 127.13 % pixels

After that you desiderate the layer 3 ad then add motion blur filter, blur, motion blur. Distance around 710 and angle varies on how hard you what the wind to look or storm.

Last of all change the image to black and white. Image, adjustment, black and white. (You can change the variance of colours so you can make different sections darker or lighter).

This image that I created on Photoshop was based on the film advertising posters I looked at in my research. I looked at more of location than the people or the props in the photograph mainly for the reason to look at what kind of location I could use in my final piece. Each cinematic shot I have done in my book, each shot I created I used the same technique. The reason of the picture being in black and white is because it gives more of a creepy effect and also it shows it is in a scene from the past a scene from a film set in the 1960s.

Conclusion for the final piece, for my final piece I have decided to look at the artist Lee Strickland. I thought his work is unique and also creative. The way I will be creating these shots is i will be using specific locations, but studio using studio lighting. These shots that will be taken either by a house so it is easy to I like his work because I thought it could be a great way to bring all my development of advertising all together. The work I would bring together would be automotive photography, still life and also zombies. With bringing these topics together I thought I would create a scene which I have setup, for one of the scenes I have setup (zombie trying to attack the human in the car). I have included a range of skills I have shown in my coursework. I have included automotive photography, zombie emulations fashion shots and cinematic photography. With my final piece I used a range of different lighting to see which angle it looked best at.

With these lighting effects I have created I used studio lights and also car headlights. The reason I used car head lights was because I didn’t have enough lighting around the person in the car. With the man sitting inside the car a with full lighting and the zombie outside the car only has lighting on his face and front part of the body showing that he is appearing from the dark.With the first idea with my final piece it didn’t turn out as well as I thought because it didn’t have enough lighting, didn’t have enough studio lights to light up the inside of the car

for the final piece i have used the best picture in my book, with this image i thought it was the best one to choose because it was the most effective. the reason i think it effective because of the more of the side its more arty

First hand information from artists:

Michael Meyersfled

Dear Mr Meyersfeld ,

I am at present in the process of producing a thesis on contermpory advertising campaigns and the artists who create them. I have for some time admired your fantastic photographs centred on the promotion of motor advertising and the fashion photography. Would it be possible for you to shed any light on your thought processes i.e. how you go about formulating your inventive and inspiring imagery?

I am mainly looking at your automotive photography and also liked your other work you have done on the website i have seen. the questions i would like to ask you is about your work and your photography life.

Also the questions i would like to ask is what inspired you to automotive photography

Yours in anticipation

Adam Rush

My interest in photography started at a very young age, about 6 or 7 years old.

After school and university I entered the family business, and during all these years I was very active in Salon photography. Essentially Black and White print.

When the business got sold I took the leap into commercial photography.

Automotive Photography has its own special appeal. Cars, in varying degrees are really mirrors, and this makes for very challenging photography.

I think this is what first drew me to automotive photography.

With the advent of the computer a lot of the challenge has been taken away, as so much can be corrected in post.

In spite of this I still love the challenge of cars but prefer the creative options of studio work.

Also what inspired you to become a photographer and what makes you so successful today

I constantly try to reinvent myself and am always excited with the project on hand. Perhaps the single most important factor is a love and enthusiasm for what I do.

Hope this is what you need.

Lots of success in your career.

Michael.