Advertising photography
The re-creation of reality
Advertising photography has many aspects, above all the transmission of all the characteristics (and more!) of the product you are looking at / shooting at / representing, and then the preparation of it, the love that has to be conveyed through your image.
Details, sensations.
Most exciting of all, is the challenge of the impossible task: the egg that breaks, the trays which float in the air, new worlds out of ugly parts.
All pre-Photoshop era work, when problem solving was paramount.
Anyway, my acquired skills to achieve solutions are now recycled on PHOTO RETOUCH.
Having to deal with different realities, clients and situations is indeed high adrenaline. Every project becomes exciting and new, even if (in the end) it really is not.
And being able to see a certain kind of industrial reality from the inside is always a plus when you are in the process of creating the communication needed to show the company's image, your process, your accomplishments.
Each product has its own personality, and photography is called to show it, most of the times to exaggerate it.
I like to keep it simple, but moody also, to play with background materials, giving contrast to the product, dimension, light.
The rendering in the color has always to be as faithful as possible and the disposition as harmonic as possible.
Mechanics, plastic, parts of different kinds and shape are fun to photograph.
The challenge here goes from the too much reflectivity of steel and the deep black of rubber.
Objects have a soul and they have a world of their own, it's up to the photographer to let it loose ...
Food photography always needs a food stylist on stage. But most of the time the photographer has to do without one, the reason being budget, etc. You learn by doing.
And wine photography is where you can see how a good photographer knows how to deal with reflection and refraction, the right tools to feel the magic inside a wine bottle, and we want to get some of the transparence of the wine, right?
We're entering the cavern of the monster here, the misterious and forbidden realm of an advertising photographer.
Nothing so special, though, my studio was quite well equipped with first class cameras, lenses and lights, but quite small. After all, most of my work I was doing on location.
It started its activity in 1980, and ended it in 1994, I had moved to Brazil, in the meanwhile.
It was a small place to get things done which, occasionally, was doubling as a darkroom, party location, music studio for practicing my saxophone and having fun with my friend and the band.
All images & texts: Copyright Roberto Delpiano - 1997-2024
CORPORATE photography
Cover images of products with in-camera superimposed glowing logos, no digital tricks
Floating mechanical objects, and the industrial fans were quite big and heavy
Some 200 meters of paper-making machinery, I had to provide the extra illumination
Broken egg picture for an accident prevention products company
The 'egg that breaks' may seem a simple picture to take, but it was not, especially without the computer retouching!
There was only 2 milliseconds from the 'broken' to the 'splattered' egg look, and we're talking late Eighties technlogy here.
I ended up having a rotten-egg-smelly-studio for a couple weeks
Mixup of new and old technologies. The computer eroding power from the manual design
Product cover for locks producer Product Catalogue
The locks are really floating, sort of.
They are supported in a very unsteady balance, no way I could fix anything with retouching or post-production, needed to be clean and ready for print from the camera.
I did a few of these sets at the time, for different lines of product, including a 'Flying Safe'
Should have a slide of it somewhere in one of my 'works of the past' boxes
Working with steel, no prepared composition, looking around in the workshop ... digital!
Catalogue covers: Spring and Easter are coming, let's enjoy them
Images convey the idea of Easter, product and sensations. Logos will do the rest
Fantasy table-top compositions for catalogue covers
All in-camera compositions, creating a world and a story from mechanical parts
11 colors on plastic and aluminum foil for this ice cream, cookies, candies packaging maker
Prunotto wines, Alba - Italy. Catalogue page and product picture
Hard work was to take pictures where there was no existing light, and there was no space where to place camera and lighting equipment
Leikam factory: airview of quite a paper production plant in Austria
Conditioning air equipment for salami processing
Getting the right lights was the usual challenge, and also the narrow complicated wet environment too ...
Photo posterizations for a Bank Yearly Prospect
All darkroom process here ...
Industrial ice-cream sticks + background for a Food Products Catalogue
Ice-cream is really in the air, under hot lamps, melting fast ...
No Photoshop involved, of course
All images & texts: Copyright Roberto Delpiano - 1997-2024
PRODUCT photography
Experimenting with light with my saxophone
The tulip was supposed to be black, but impossible to find ...
The light flares are not Photoshop, nor a filter, but a special 'penlight point technique' that I had developed from scratch in early Nineties
Skillets line photo for catalogue, all 4x5 inches work
Different shapes, lines, for a main product catalogue cover and product lines.
Guardini pans, Torino Italy
Regalvini wine - image taken inside the 'Museo Contadino' in Piemonte, Italy
Italian craftmanship decorative product line and decoration handmade bust statue
Catalogue work is usually boring.
But if you tackle it as a challenge, it can be real fun
Advertising page and Catalogue cover, work of atmosphere
The Critelli company, Fairfield California, USA, Italian ideas that make it good abroad, and the usual bottles and presents flou Christmas atmosphere
Some nice salami and yummy specialties: Salumificio Bertoletti, Graffignana (Lodi) Italy
Test for the 'new technologies', creating light out of nothing
Carnival masks done by a Venetian craftsman - all digital photo + enhancement
I also had easy assignments to do in my life as an Advertising Photographer.
And one thing that has always made my day was color. How to render it at its best, how to express shapes and emotions
Tools for your kitchen from Vietnam, Korea, China, whatever. Late 1980, more or less
Fancy small catalogue work for a craftsmanship jewels maker
Classy necklace with gold, gold earrings are enhanced by the matte background, light and background choices the real challenge
A zemi was a deity or ancestral spirit, and a sculptural object housing the spirit, among the Taíno people of the Caribbean
Unique idol of the pre-Colombian era, made in cotton around a skeleton, spooky and very valuable.
He's sitting on one of my expensive Hasselblad lenses, just the right height to make it comfortable
Catalogue images, usually taken with the 4x5 view camera
Special aluminum paper for cookies, ice-cream, printed in rich eleven colors and one of the old joystick technology application
Plastic Oscar I won for the 8mm movie 'The Barboon' I was acting in + doing. Plastic, ok?
Two lines of Christmas cakes, for two different marketing segments
I usually ended up having panettone to eat for a couple years, and it was still good.
Panettoni La Torinese, Torino, Italy
All images & texts: Copyright Roberto Delpiano - 1997-2024
MECHANIC photography
Working Area of a Hanwha Swiss Type automatic lathe
On-site production documentation digital photo - Alpha Grainger Manufacturing, Franklin (MA) USA
Swiss Type automatic lathe. Digital photo + retouching + Photoshop contouring
Round perspective of hydraulic brake parts and a world of flying gaskets, catalogue covers
Worlds need to be created to give some punch to a cover, even when products are not so aestetically gratifying ...
Inside view of a Swiss Type automatic lathe
Water treatment system by Tecn.A., Beinasco (TO), Italy - digital photo
BEFORE and AFTER my Photoshop processing
Mechanical lathe important precision parts for a Poster - Injector landscape. All in-camera composition & effects
Taking pictures of steel is always a challenge. 'Reflexion' is the word you have to keep in mind all the time
Mechanical parts produced with Hanwha Machines, Automatic Lathes imported + managed by Utimac, Robassomero (TO), Italy
Utimac CNC Multi Spindle Automatic Lathe - working area view
Mechanical lathe important precision parts for a promotion poster
Just the usual mechanical parts. Composition for brochure and web page
And then Photoshop came, and it allowed us poor photographers to put stuff together on a screen, to clean it up, to make it shiny and make it seem as they were all on the same table.
Bless its soul
On-site production documentation - digital photo
Photoshop cleanup and Photoshop contouring on a Tecn.A. water treatment system photo
All images & texts: Copyright Roberto Delpiano - 1997-2024
FOOD & WINE photography
Bottle group shot. Difficult thing is showing the right transparency in all bottles
Panettone products for catalogue: La Torinese, Torino, Italy
As much as the product was made the last minute for my pictures, looks were enhanced with pins and glue ...
Some nice salami and yummy specialties: Salumificio Bertoletti, Graffignana (Lodi) Italy
Product line photo for the Scanavino wine company, somewhere around Alba (CN), Italy
Casa dei Cappelletti, Venaria (TO), Italy: product sheet photo composition
It would be nice to have a food stylist in the studio, but it is usually not the case mainly for budget reasons.
So the photographer has to improvise, making sure the food doesn't stay out too much under the hot lamps, but there is a reward at the end: eat everything.
I used to make parties to to get rid of all the 'left over' food products
The cake was freshly made and the cream ... real cream as in the best Italian tradition
Salami product line shot on location. Portalupi Salumi, Guardabosone (VC), Italy
My photo studio had to be re-created on location, in this case.
All in one of the cold rooms in the Portalupi company.
But the advantage of having all the necessary products - and labels - and competent people to help and judge results, right at hand, compensated the stress of having to work in the cold room for many (too many!) hours a day
Regalvini wine - image taken inside the 'Museo Contadino' in Piemonte, Italy
Salami been cured, usual documentation work on location
Christmas gift box, and Spumante/Champagne atmosphere
Lavatelli Christmas boxes catalogue cover - Perlino 'Asti Spumante' advertising campaign
Studio shot, localized flou filter to give 'vintage' atmosphere
All images & texts: Copyright Roberto Delpiano - 1997-2024
THE DELPIANO PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO
Set is ready, lights are organized, 4x5 view camera is ready to shoot
On the ready-to-shoot set you can see the TV monitor which allows to view through the ground glass viewfinder + point light equipment I created - 1990
Entrance/Office of the Delpiano Photographic Studio - notice the computer system I used for my accounting (Commodore 128! green led monitor!) on the lower left
Organization in the Delpiano Photographic Studio
Mounted set for the 'Breaking the Wall' cover - 1989 - Honoring the fall of the Berlin Wall
Close-up of complex photo shooting set organization: cables and lights organization
What's behind all those floating images (pre-Photoshop!) is something you could know only if you have been there.
Everything seems so simple but ... it is not
Graphic support items for Advertising Photography in the Delpiano Studio - late Eighties
Studio is a mess, cables everywhere. Regular working day
Close-up of complex photo shooting set organization: weird props and extras to create shadows and reflections
Cables, and cables and tight spaces. Everything is hard to reach and tripping something by mistake is a prelude for failure.
I had a small studio, but it wouldn't have been different in these kind of situations
Shown here is the 'Entertainment Area' so the photographer doesn't go crazy after so many hours of hard work