Michael,

Thanks ever so much for offering us this first-hand insight into James Russel's work on the Phase project. That, combined with studying the fabulous images and interesting commentary on his website, shows truly remarkable imagination, skill, dedication and organization. I have often asked myself what it takes to get to the top in commercial photography and this answers that question. Wow.

Mark

Ditto!

A wonderful piece, great writing: very informative and one of the most entertaining pieces on photography that I've read in a long time!

Eric

Thanks James for a great and insightful read.

I also found this article from James provided a fascinating insight into the hectic life of a professional photographer working in advertising.

In particular, the nature of the advertisement, suggested by Phase, and their selected shot from the many James took, is quite amazing. What we have here is essentially a chic hugging a giant phallus, in the shape of numeral 1.

I'm certainly no prude, but it does make me wonder why a high tech company like Phase should appeal to such basic instincts. Are such advertisements for the benefit of potential buyers of Phase One backs or for the benefit of clients of photographic services who might be impressed if the photographer they hire has a Phase One back on their camera?

Perhaps one can't separate the two.

[quote=Ray,Aug 11 2008, 03:39 AM]
What we have here is essentially a chic hugging a giant phallus, in the shape of numeral 1.




Madre de Dios, Ray, I must be slow: it never occurred to me. On the other hand, you might just be too quick?

My problem with the thing is simple: I can´t get the video link to appear. I get a blank page with the Rutherford Paris address but nothing shows. Very disappointing.

Rob C

Thank you James for a wonderful article on your shoot. Everything from the text to the video are as well done as the photo. Congrats.

Maybe this interpretation of the image is more in the mind of the beholder than that of the photographer or the client.

Does anyone know the song playing in the video?
I kinda like it.

I've only blocked one person on a forum in my life and not because I find anything that person writes as that objectionable, other than the words clouds my head with weirdness that I don't have time for.

People can and will see what they want and comment how they see fit. That's the beauty of a free society, (at least that's what I was told by my 5th grade social studies teacher).

As far as the image selection by Phase it was simple. The #1 is their new branding and that image showed the #1 most prominently.

We don't have subliminal message meetings. Few clients would ever market that way, mainly because viewer rentention is limited to only a few seconds and every advertiser wants to get their main message out in those few seconds.

Another video link is here that will also give an I-phone option.

http://russellrutherford.com/paris_production/

*warning. There is also a photo of the Eiffel Tower and we all know what was on Gustave Eiffel's mind.

JR

I want to thank everyone who has responed for their kind words.

I really enjoyed the article as I generally do with James Russell's writings--besides the insight into a shoot, there were pure laugh out loud moments.

I also got to watch the video last night--and it rather boggles my mind that someone sees a #1 as a phallus symbol. I can't see the connection other than it is vertical LOL. Goes to show you can pretty much read into anything what you want.

Diane

Like Rob C, I can't view the video either - IE looks like it's trying to load something, but it sits there "loading" a blank page forever until I kill it. The existence of the "iPhone format" link makes me wonder whether possibly the people who can view it OK are using Macs and those of us who can't are using Windows PCs...

Anyway, I'd love to be able to see it. The text article was extremely informative - it makes me feel better about keeping photography a serious hobby, that I can do when I feel like it, rather than a full-time profession! Thanks very much for a very enlightening article, James.

Lisa

Lisa,

Windows or Mac, you just need to update your Quicktime player. It's free and you must make sure your browser recognizes it.

IE is kind of goofy in the way it recognizes plug ins. Try Firefox, it's free also.

I think the large movie is mp4 and the small Iphone is h264, but either way, a QT update will let you view it.

JR

Lisa

I, too, have Windows and even James´s other link fails to go beyond a display of the negtive side of the E Tower.

If this is because of Macs, then it´s a shame: nobody that I know personally in Spain uses other than PC - there are specialist wholesalers that I know that do handle Macs but never have I seen one in public.

I have no trouble getting into the general website - which I often do, it is very nice to wander around there - so doubly sad to be denied the video.

Rob C

I viewed it on a PC last night--can't remember if I was on main with XP Pro or laptop with Vista, but the first time I tried it I couldn't connect. I tried later and it went through without issue. Don't know what the difference was...hmm, now that I think of it, believe I was on XP Pro machine. I do have the latest Quicktime player because it updated when I updated iTunes. Meant to say also that I was using IE and not Firefox.


Another addendum. Just thought I would try the links this morning on my laptop (Vista). I was able to connect with both the new link James gave and went back and tried the one in the article. Both worked fine. Actually the original opened the fastest--went right to the Quicktime logo thingie to play and played immediately. The second URL James gave took a few seconds to open and then to dl, but worked in fairly quick time.

Diane


Diane

James: Thanks for sharing this vignette of your life... I forward the article to my son, who works in rigging/lighting in the movie industry as I figured he could definitely relate...

Glad to hear you avoided the Paris buses!

Mike.

It downloaded and played fine on my WINXP PC with the latest Quick-Time player. Excellent video - including the music. I hope those having trouble with it eventually get to see it.

By the way James, I sympathetically read of your delayed baggage issue in the Phase article. I've had the same experience and I gather it's quite routine from CDG - not helped by all the restrictions the security authorities have been enforcing re carry-ons. I think traveling photographers are getting a rough ride these days, and not from air turbulence.

BTW:

In all my list of credits I have a big omission on my part . . .

I want to thank Michael for Publishing it.

Thanks Michael.

James

I particularly like the video, it really captured the feel of the shoot.

...but what's the music James? We all want to download it to our I-pods :-)

- N.

Brilliant.

Quentin

James, I loved the story and enjoyed the humorous manner in which you wrote it. Very funny.

Interesting story, you should have included the art director in your credits - if only because I think they failed on concept and direction.

The resulting images, at least as shown inline and in context of the website layout, look rather like a CGI rendering to my eye. Without first reading your article I would have assumed the image was a computer model rendering based on the video-game dramatic style of lighting and contrived poses of the model. I also draw cues from the manipulated look of the mottled background and the graphic quality of the black knockout background. The photography is stellar, but for a product that's marketed to photographers, the resulting CGI look is a miscue in my opinion. As you indicated, Phase 1 is about engineering first and marketing well down the line of priorities. Perhaps I'll see the images differently in context of the website and any related applications. I can't find the web page example on the Phase One website.

James:

inspiring.


Makes one want to go out and shoot

Thank you, James (and Michael)... that was a very enjoyable read!

Firefox worked fine. Thanks for the suggestion.

Lisa

The main intent of this article was to give credit to the still production crew. It was discussed about putting in Art Direction, Client, Marketing, video credits, but once again, the idea was to credit my still crew.

As far as the look, or direction, regarldess of who conceived the thought, it is the result of budget, time, concept and input. Always is, always will be.

As I mentioned had the budget been there I would have shot it on location in a foundry with mutliple foggers, talent, wardrobes, but it just wasn't possible, though the final resulting image looks much different in large reporduction than it does in small web display.

In fact retouching for the web, if we have the option, is usually performed different than for large print. The two medias often can look that different.

Yes there is retouching, though just about anything shot for commerce has post manipulation and to some extent that is the benifit of a medium format file, to work the file deep and to still hold detail and form. Some people may agree with that, some won't, but I would imagine 95% of all medium format images shot for commerce have a heavy degree of post manipulation.

It's just the way things are.

Everyone has an opinion and in a way all are valid and in other ways all are not, depending on who buys or is motivated to buy.

Marketing is intersting and in today's 4 second world has changed.

This year we have won a series of awards and though quite proud, the images that have won have been relatively simple, (all with black backgrounds) where the images submitted that were complicated and organic were passed over, probably just because they took more time for the judges to study them and it seems time is the one element everyone is lacking.

In other words this


gets more attention than this


Today, if an image is graphic or simple it seems to resonate quicker. Look at 99.9% of all the magazine covers.

JR

Deleted.

I think to a considerable extent much high quality art is "simple and clean", in the sense that uncluttered graphic language communicates with more impact. I believe this is true whether the purpose of the image is to convey the essence of a landscape or to sell a product. The two images James posted above demonstrate this very clearly. The upper image gets more attention than the lower one because it is uncluttered with emphatic lighting; it is intense and coherent focusing the viewer directly on the subject. The lower one isn't a particularly successful use of graphic language regardless of its purpose. The background is distracting and the lines of vision are contradictory to no particular effect. While one doesn't want to "rigidify" concepts of what makes art that carries impact, there are these "rules of thumb" which generally work.

deleted.

Simplicity. Yes, that´s exactly why the work of my old favourite Hans Feurer looks so damn good. He achieves it most of the time, in the images of his with which I am familiar, by virtue of a long lens and simple beach/rocks/desert backgrounds which are mostly suggested forms, the colour and design of the subject saying what has to be said.

Don´t forget, he started as a designer...

To me, there are two types of master photographer: the location man who uses a minimum of lighting; the studio man who can light the subject as distinct from simply illuminating it in order to make enough light for an exposure. Not the same thing at all.

As for the location (outdoors) photographer who uses too many tricks - I wonder why.

Rob C

This 4 second world as James puts it what is ultimately doing is pasteurizing things to simple forms anybody can understand. It is a problem of communication. The amount of imagery shot at you everyday is overwhelming, and in the advertising business not getting the message across is death.

The world doesn't have time anymore for anything at all, if barely for eating while watching tv or sleeping plugged to an ipod. We have lost the ability to be amazed.

I have made a good living and had the hell of a good time as a fashion and advertising photographer, but sometimes this makes me sick. I work to live, not live to work.

I started my own personal projects out of a feeling of emptyness and a lack of meaning from my commercial work. I confess that though I make a very good living with photography, I felt that the purpose of my work had to be a little more than merely making someone else richer with it.

I'll stop before I get bluesy.

Artemis, on the album Gravity. The song is "La Belle" - the lyrics are taken from "La belle et la bête" (The Beauty and the Beast) by Jean Cocteau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_th...ast_(1946_film)

http://www.last.fm/music/Artemis/Gravity/La+Belle

Pierre

:idea: good!

Well I've heard the live to work, work to live thing and maybe that's the way its for some.

I don't know, because I just live and prefer to work rather than not, but that doesn't make my way right, or wrong, it's just my way.

The thing is commercial work is just that . . . commercial work. Sometimes it's inspiring, sometimes it's just professional, but if you do it right it's usually a lot of effort and can be challenging.

I learned a long time ago not to worry too much about any of this. Some photos I love because I know the complications, the effort and the change I and others made to the raw material.

If those are, or are not noticed it's just not a big deal.

I also know that sometimes a simple well executed image can be striking, once again, it's not a big deal.

The thing I know is that it's not quite as easy for our clients as we tend to think. They have to work on a brand, a product or for a specific client for years where we usually just come in for the week.

An AD will usually present 2 dozen ideas just to get one through the committees and probably have to fight tooth and nail to get the photographer they chose hired.

It is a complicated business and if you take it all to heart it can take a lot out of an artist.

Then again, from my personal experience I have learned to step back and try to see it as the complete process rather than just what is handed me.

It normally makes my day or week a lot easier.

Yes it may be in some instance a 4 second world, but if done well, even those 4 seconds can be very appreciated.


JR

Sergio

I think that if one really loves what one is doing, then the working to live or living to work thing becomes unimportant because one is simply doing that which one loves.

I, too, had a hell of a good time in fashion, not so much so in advertising, but certainly so in calendar design/production and photography where the only bad part was doing the selling, something I never have enjoyed at all. I was doubly lucky in that with the fashion and calendars, I was usually able to travel without clients: they were too busy doing other things to spend time with me on shoots. However, there were also good clients and bad clients, even with the same company, and the bad ones did little for the job, when they trailed along...

I had no problem helping clients make money, just as long as I was making it too. Like you, I have gone onto personal things, but that is far from easy - the main problem is financing the things I really want to do, which always include models. Irony, of course rears its head: when I was working I had no time or interest in girls coming to see me, now that I want them to, there is no work to offer them. Oh for a muse!

Rob C

deleted.

I remember, years ago on the Galbraith forum, James touted the Leaf backs as being "more film like" even though he derided photographers using film by saying that "film was a romantic notion."

I'm curious as to why you switched to Phase and what about the Phase you appreciate more than the Leaf backs.

Thanks!

Richard

James can reply for himself, but I don´t know about film being a romantic notion. Photography might well be a romantic notion, even if its reality mostly is not, but film isn´t much to do with romance, in my book, it is just a medium which is sometimes better than others. Horses for courses, but for me, a well scanned transparency can produce a feeling, a quality, that I can´t see in my own digital captures.

Rob C

The end of the Cretaceous must have been a lonely time. (Just kidding.)

I do miss konica 50. I don't miss scanning it.

Actually, I said film was a romantic notion of the past. To some extent I believe that.

Cameras, that's another thing as with some cameras there are things you can shoot or shoot in a way that you can't with digital, i.e. the Fuji 680, an 8x10 camera, a 6x7 RZ or Pentax 6x7. Those cameras had a certain look that can be emulated by digital but not exactly repeated.

It's interesting, last week I spoke to an Art Director for about an hour about a project.

One question he had, or more a statement he made was most photographers he knows shoots film for themselves or for editorial but shoot only digital for commerce.

He asked if I shot digital and I said I actually embrace digital capture. I think that answer kind of threw him as he was use to the NY mindset where many photographers or a certain level only shoot digital with an outside tech and turn it over for someone else to process, color, retouch and purpose.

I said I think digital is a much more intimate learning experience than film. In the film days I could or wouldn't shoot a film and process it in 6 different labs, with 6 different processing routines.

I would never have looked at hundreds even thousands of frames of film at 100% and learned the nuances. With digital I have done that.

I think there are very few film looks I can't achieve with digital and better yet, dozens of looks I can achieve that I never would have had the opportunity to try with film.

Also digital offers opportunities film never did, especially in commerce or high pressure situations.

With digital I can get the base idea into the can and then go on and expore newer or maybe even images with more risk, because I know the base image is covered.

With digital I have a "polaroid" that is way more detailed and accurate than any film proof and I have it in about 2 seconds.

I can adapt, correct and see the results now, rather than even wait 60 seconds and kind of translate the polaroid look into what film will do.

Yes, there were/are some interesting films and like digital cameras and backs some were more suited for some styles than others, but not all films were really beautiful and not all films worked for some situations.

To me film is a romantic notion of the past and though digital has a way steep learning curve and takes a huge monitary and time investment, it's well worth it.

As far as switching from Leaf to Phase. We'll at first I didn't really switch, I just added a Phase back to my contax's. The main reason was at the time the Leaf software was "challanged" and the Phase was faster and more stable. I stay quite busy and I needed stability and speed.

I understand LC11 is a much improved tethering software now.

Also I needed even slightly higher iso. The Leaf was great at 200 but only up to 200 (the A-22) where the P-30 would go to 400, but not much more than 400.

Had the A-22 gone to 400 iso clean I would have kept it and probably still bought a P-30 but waited for lc11 to become mature.

Both backs are different and offer different looks. At times I found the Leaf very "film like" whatever that means at times I find the Phase quite nice.

They are very different backs.

Now, back to this art director's comments. I asked him to go onto my web site and pick out the two images he thought best represented film. The two he slected were shot with the A-22.

Whether that means anything or not I'm not sure.

JR

I'm also rather amazed that anyone would think my phallic interpretation of that scene is unusal or weird.

Clearly, any shape that is roughly of similar proportions to the erect penis does not have to be considered as a phallic symbol. However, when such shapes are inflated (or deflated) to an unnatural size, and then directly associated with a scantilly clad (or provocatively clad) female, then the sexual symbolism is clear to all, except perhaps those who have never heard of Sigmund Freud, or those who simple don't know what sexual symbolism is.

The symbol for #1 is not usually larger then a female person. The enlargement of the symbol for #1, in relation to the size of the female who is hugging it, is very obviously suggestive of the enlargement that takes place when a penis becomes erect.

The enlargemnt of the #1, in conjunction with its general shape, should make the phallic associations obvious to all except the totally naive.

deleted.

Following from my previous comment on phallic symbolism, those of you who are particularly naive might find the following quotes informative, and even humorous .



I have never, ever felt comfortable wearing a tie. Not even as a school boy.

Since the demise of the Rob Galbraith Forum, there seems to be a lot of professional photogrpahers who have migrated to LL. That's no problem for me, and I welcome the different perspective. But, I would just like to emphasise in this post that it is a different perspective, not a better perspective. In fact, if I were to indulge in my own prejuduces, I would say that it's an inferior perspective. However, realising that that's a biased perspective of mine, I won't say that. So let's be clear. I didn't say that.

What strikes me about the MFDB 'mob' (if I can describe them as that. It's a term used to describe a group of Kangaroos), is the 'sameness' and 'predicatability' about the images. We're not into fine art, here, but crass art, commercial art, lowest-common-denominatore art, phaliic symbolism art.

That's fine by me. As I've said before, I'm no prude. But an observation I would make, is that an increase in the cost of gear does not seem to translate to an increase in the meaningfulness and spiritual worth of the images produced. In fact, the trend seems to be to the opposite. The more expensive the equipment, the more garish, the more crude, the more blatantly sexual the images. (Michael, of course, is excluded from these comments because he is clearly into fine art.)

Ray, most of the time I find it easy to agree with you. Of late - since the #1 episode - I find you seem to have slipped into a parallel universe to your own, normal, one.

It might be the heat, the humidity, even the rice water; it isn´t a comfortable period.

The complaint about professional photography might well be partly true, insofar as I think that much of what I see today, in fashion/beauty, is way too over-produced, too retouched, devoid of much humanity or appeal. But I don´t know if that´s because today´s lensmen over-enjoy playing with their new toys or because art directors or agencies or even cients think that it is cool for women to look like waxworks. I like skin to look like skin; that never means that it has to look unhealthy or pockmarked, just that it should have texture.

I would love to get the female photographer point of view, particularly from any women working in fashion/beauty.

Rob C

No, no , no! I'm very stable and always in the same universe.

The crux of the matter is, if you are working for a client, you have to satsify your client.

If you are working for yourself, as I am, the results will be different.

Ray, to think that sex and sexuality isn't a subject for an artist really shows an absolute lack of understanding what art is.

Of course I know about Freud, for heaven's sake, but his ideas are looked at a little askance these days. He saw a phallic symbol in almost everything it seems whereas Jung sometimes sees a thing for more or less what it is. And---just look how you had to extrapolate that #1 so everyone would 'get it'. Sometimes a big #1 is just that LOL. The point, as I understood it, was to get across that Phase is #1---so big was called for---and you can't grab a guy's attention these days without a sexy model (and 99.44% of these cameras will be sold to guys). Sometimes what is----is.

deleted.

Well, you won't be amazed by me, because I thought your interpretation is simply nonsensical. And if that makes me "totally naive" so be it. I'll "naively" believe James Russell's definitive response to this far-fetched notion. This thread has been developing some interesting conversation about the relationship of art to commercial photography and about the demands and expectations of the contemporary business environment as it affects commercial photography. But this purient tangent - as far as I'm concerned - is really devoid of value-added.

Mark

Woof75,
It's you who is showing a great lack of understanding. There's not a single sentence in my 5,000 odd posts that could be construed as a disapproval of sex as a subject for an artist.

My comment about James Russell's Phase One phallic symbol does not relate to any disapproval of the sexual connotation, but an amazement at the obvious and blatant nature of the phallic connotation, and as Diane as just written, the fact that it has to be explained to some of you.