Shot for Professional Woman Magazine

One of the advantages I have as a photographer is that I’m typically shooting for an ad or collateral piece that I’m also designing and producing. So that’s helpful especially when you know you need X number of inches to flow type over or you need to crop a certain way to accommodate the layout, etc… That’s what an Art Director would do for the photog at the shoot anyway. It just turns out that I’m usually wearing both hats myself.

This morning’s shoot for Qualcomm was a little different though. It was for a publication highlighting women in engineering and top management positions. Very cool stuff – I was excited to be a part of it. With no direction from the AD at the publication and no sneak peak of the layout, I tried to capture an image that could be cropped as either a full page or inset. Since this is the lead-in to the story, I figured they would want the ability to flow headline and story copy over the image – hence the framing. Would make a fine full page image with type.

The architecture is just beautiful. Wish I could take credit for that, but I can’t. Love the lines and lighting. For the photogs out there, I took my friend Chad’s advice and threw an amber gel over my speedlights and color balanced to the subject. That made the background very cool – both in temperature and aesthetic. Thanks Chad – good call!

Anyway – the point of this entry is just that in lieu of an Art Director on the scene, it’s important to shoot with the mindset of a designer having to use this photo in a layout. Ask yourself, “what would this look like in a magazine?” – or “do I have the resolution to crop tight if I needed to?” It’s an advantage I think I have being a designer first and foremost, but you don’t have to be a graphic designer to think like one. Just flip through magazines and you’ll see what to look for. I started doing that over 15 years ago and still do regularly.

-N

Warhol's Debbie Harry Painted on an Amiga 1000

Long before Steve Jobs’ marketing gurus at Apple figured out how to utilize pop-culture to effectively sell computing, there was the Commodore Amiga’s live demo with Andy Warhol. (And sorry – that weird 1984 inspired Superbowl commercial does not qualify.) Now Commodore was far from being great marketers. Any company with that kind of money and a FAR superior product that couldn’t get significant traction in a pre-MS Windows era can’t be given too much credit. BUT… For one special evening back in July, 1985, they NAILED it!

Lincoln Center in New York City was the venue. Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry walk out on stage to great applause. MC Nerd, dressed in a tux (of course) introduces them and outlines the demonstration that is about to happen. Debbie Harry sits in front of a video camera and the Amiga “digitizes” her image. Warhol, with all his charisma and facial expression proceeds to digitally sling color onto her picture in real time. Wow. The Amiga was RAD – and I had to have one. And so my passion for computer graphics began…

Youtube Warhol + Amiga if you are interested. It’s pretty cool from a nostalgia perspective and freakin AWESOME for you geeks out there. If anyone knows where I can score an actual print of this piece, please let me know. I’ve always wanted one.

-N