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.