Back Room 2

Using my computer makes things easier

Imaginator computer platform

The following gallery contains more complete descriptions. All these images were produced with help from my Imaginator computer.

Legoland Windsor

Agency: Kelly Weedon Shute – AD: Martin Pierson == created for Legoland Windsor in England. This image, produced to promote the opening of this new theme park in homage to the famous plastic brick, is a multi-part composite consisting of over 30 separate photographs. – 1996

Its Genuine

Agency: MBA – Art Director: Martin Pierson – Client: Mercedes-Benz – August 2000 ==”It’s genuine but where will you find it?”The above image, the first in the series, establishes the idea of using genuine Mercedes parts in unusual situations. Stone Henge itself is too controlled and crowded to be of any use as a location so we shot this around the corner in Avebury, also an ancient stone circle site with a very similar feel. The oil filters were arranged and shot in my studio and composited on our Imaginator systems. The sheep make it for me.

My Car Dream

Personal work == Ideas come and go and having finished version II, I was quite happy to stop there. Never the less the germ of an idea was forming in my head, and a year later I got the CD out and started to work out how to convert this idea from my head to the page. I had taken the care to record, as I always do, the height of the camera lens and distance to the car when we did the original shot in the car studio. Having found a suitable location near home in Oxfordshire, I shot this one morning as the sun was coming up. It was just a question of getting the weather right. Oh! And matching the height and distance of the camera lens to the original studio shot.

The Skater

Personal Work == The cars and background were shot in Hyde Park, London and the very fit skater was photographed in my studio nearby. All put together on our Imaginator computer. Model Vikie Harvey – MOT

Sinking into Debt

Agency: Osprey Park – Art Director: Seth Crew == This photograph, for a Barclaycard leaflet, was produced from two 5×4 inch transparencies. The background and floor were shot in Whiteleys, a department store in Queensway, London W2. The “Sinking Lad” was shot in a tank of milk in my Paddington studio (milk powder in water for the colour). The two shots were then carefully blended on our Imaginator computer before outputting as a 10×8 inch transparency.

Rolls Royce the sunrise

Agency: Stanford Burgees – Art Director: Peter Tish – Client: Rolls-Royce PLC == The South West of England is a good place to go for sea location photography. The narrow Cornish peninsula has both a West and an East coast. This means that one can shoot both a sun set and a sun rise over the sea within a few miles of each other. This looked easy at first, but in fact, a surprising amount of cloning through a mask was required to make the reflections believable. – April 2000

One Stop Recycling Centre

Personal work == This image marks a turning point in technique for me. I had, by this time, refined my masking system to such an extent that I could have created this image entirely “In-Camera “. I was spared much of this complicated task by Peter Holmes, who gave me a free day on the brand new Mamba retouching platform. Never the less, it still took 2 days to set up and 4 days to shoot it. Each day the entire set 4 sided set, the background and all the lighting was rotated 90% before very carefully lining everything back up . We could then fill, prop and shoot whichever sink was lowest at the time. It was critical that each days setup was aligned precisely. I have been using computers to do the “hard part ” ever since. Nothing stays the same. – May 1991

Performance

Agency: Citigate Albert Frank – AD: Peter Worrall – Model: Parallax – Client: Dresdner RCM == Old techniques, model making, modern computer methods and a few simple pyrotechnics were all brought together to make this photograph come to life. Shot entirely at room temperature, the bulk of the image is a studio table top model. I used the now old fashioned “front projection” technique to light the apparently hot liquid in the 10 inch high crucible, while the word ‘PERFORMANCE’ was back lit through soft focus filters. I used tungsten light and smoke to achieve the “God rays” upper right and lots of flash and filters on the background. The four business men, representing the four companies involved in the group, were shot separately, in the correct perspective and lighting and composed together on our Imaginator computer. 10×8 Ektachrome EPP. National and Trade Press – 1997.

Before Nokia

Agency: Klein Grey – Art Director: Vic Hazeldine – System: Obscura – Client: Nokia == We tied the young man to the board with real phone wire, stretched tightly and attached to large nails in the board. All the nail positions were carefully measured relative to the camera lens and recorded. Each nail position required a model and each model or group was shot in a 25 foot high studio in the proper perspective as calculated from the measurements taken. Once in the proper positions they pulled on a flattened drain pipe which was the correct scale to the phone cords. On the computer the nails were cloned out and the people pasted in over them. The most important job my assistants had was keeping our copious and accurate notebooks. I call this style “Gulliver” for obvious reasons. – Press ad and 48 sheet posters (bill boards)

Rolls Royce - Oil and Gas

Agency: Stanford Burgess – Art Director: Martin Neagus – Client: Rolls Royce ==Rolls-Royce PLC are expanding into the oil and gas market and the above image was created to call attention to this development. I considered shooting the effect in a tank of very thick oil but it is a very sticky and messy business. I finally opted for honey which was much easier to control. Still sticky but at least it is water soluble and tastes nice. It took me a year to use it up on my muesli.

Rolls Royce - Service

Agency: Stanford Burgess – Art Director: Martin Neagus – Client: Rolls Royce == To achieve this dramatic rain storm I thought, “Where can I get a lot of falling water?”. “A fire station of course!” was the obvious answer. I rang a fireman friend, and it was arranged. We needed an hour or so, after dark to light and shoot this effect on 5×4 tungsten Ektachrome. Later, on the computer I created a mask using reference photos and darkened the rain to create the aircraft. Many thanks to all involved, especially Martin (the art director) who got rather cold and wet under the brolly in pursuit of his art.

Rolls Royce - A New Baby

Agency: Stanford Burgess – Art Director: Martin Neagus – Client: Rolls Royce == Know what they say about animals and children? – Babies are worse and because the little blighters are not very predictable so you need some backup. On the day we had 12 babies in for this job. Every time one of them went off the boil the cry would go out “New Baby”, and the tearful little darling was plucked off the set and a fresh and newly brushed up baby was inserted. Wonderful! The down side of that was that there were 12 babies (ok..?), 12 mums (natch), 5 big sisters and brothers (inevitable) and 4 dads (unplanned for) milling around the studio like a termites in mound. The place was absolutely knee deep in babies. Moving around was a high stepping nightmare. A few years ago this would have been a very stressful job but with the availability of reliable post production I always knew that, what ever happened, I would get a result. This knowledge made me very relaxed about the job which made the mums relaxed which made the babies relaxed and we all had a wonderful time. Great fun!

555 Race

Agency: Bates Dorland – Art Director: Gary Luxton – Client: British American Tobacco == One of a series of three, we photographed the full size racing car in a London car studio using a film dolly to track our 10×8 camera along the side of the stationary car while Dusan (my assistant) turned the rear tyre. This foreground was then combined with a table top model of the cars, race track and star painting (also tracked during the camera exposure). The movement blur was recorded on film in much the same was that it appears above but we did use the Imaginator to re-enforce the movement lines in post production. 10×8 Ektachrome poster and press, South East Asia.

Rolls Royce

The above started life as the personal image “Bugs” found elsewhere on this site. My Rolls-Royce client liked the image and I re-worked it for their product, a low pollution regional aircraft engine. With thanks to Oxford Airport where we shot the runway and distant background.