Consumer vehicles are increasingly built with integrated cameras as part of safety systems, and the Volvo XC60 is no exception. The only difference? Volvo is using their car cam to capture a unique brand of photography.
Volvo recently tapped Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Barbara Davidson and Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors to create a first-of-its-kind photography exhibit called 'Moments' that features images taken by Davidson using the SUV's built-in camera. "Through art we're connecting [viewers] with really important technology that saves lives," Davidson explains in a video from Volvo Cars, "and I think we're bringing the technical world and the artistic world together."
Pulling photos out of the car's video feed, Davidson managed to create a unique set of photographs using the Volvo.
Davidson staged the shots, a process highlighted in Volvo's video. Talking about this, Davidson explained, "I'm really using the car as a camera, and I'm framing it as I would frame with my 35mm camera. So it's very similar to how I would work as a photojournalist."
Volvo premiered the 'Moments' project on July 4th in London, and will be showcasing it in various parts of the world throughout 2017.
Volvo's promotion department is paying a Pulitzer-winning photographer to advertise their cars. So i guess Lewis Hamilton will be testing the new Nikons !!!!!! 😂
If average joe photographer had taken the exact same images it would have never seen any real attention. Let a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer take the images and some people are falling all over them selves talking about how stunning this was.
The boxes detract from the photo. We didn't really get to see the photos all that well, maybe because they're not that good? The few we do see (link to article) aren't very good.
I give her credit for doing what Volvo wanted her to do. She probably did better than I could. Still don't like it.
Well, she is having an exhibition with the photos and i guess that is why those photos are not part of the video, why let people see them here instead of going to the exhibition...
the boxes and the possibility to add geometry in the design and intent of the shooter for formal purposes is possibly the only thing that makes these otherwise poor res images interesting .....
"And maybe it’s because a real photographer is behind the wheel, but despite numbered frames that denote pedestrians and other subjects, they’re strangely replete with human warmth."
What I want to know is whether the "numbered frames" are actually generated by some form of instrumentation, maybe for the Volvo engineers to work with, or whether they've just been added on with arbitrarily chosen numbers for "artistic effect".
"Davidson staged the shots, a process highlighted in Volvo's video. Talking about this, Davidson explained, 'I'm really using the car as a camera, and I'm framing it as I would frame with my 35mm camera. So it's very similar to how I would work as a photojournalist.'"
Probably not the best way to put those two statements together on DPR's part... Staging the shots while working as a photojournalist. I don't think she meant that she stages her shots as a photojournalist, only that the framing process is similar to how she works with her normal camera.
so I guess Mirrorless cameras really aren't any smaller! Pretty good battery life/ imagine the battery life if it had an ovf....... definitely not discrete.......does it have IBIS or is a tripod/monopod recommended ......I
I see nothing wrong with this. But I wonder if there are some people that would say this is fine, but the photos that come from smartphones, those photos are bad.
Good stuff, and always interesting when a good photographer explores the periphery of photographic practise. The graphic overlays add an extra layer; it reminded me a bit of Kate Orff’s work in ‘Petrochemical America’.
Kudos to dpr for the post, though I do wish that there was more information about where and when the exhibition is showing.
I think this is great. I love how the constraints imposed, and the technology overlay, have yielded a fresh and absorbing photography. And no doubt, the photographer's skill also. I was struck by the strapline at the end of the video - that nobody should be seriously injured or killed *in* a new Volvo car. It seemed to jar with the direction of the video, which I took to be every bit about protecting those outside the new Volvo as those inside.
Interesting how the highlighted boxes and numbers add graphic elements to the composition. Recreate "The raft of the Medusa" with overlapping pink rectangles like a diagram in a text book that explains the geometry of the composition. More conceptual than strictly beautiful.
Damn, I though of this a month ago. When the trunk (boot) of my Tesla is open you get a great arial view....could have an exhibition, if only I could figure out a way to save the images.
A car has access to a massive power source and space for a whole lot of sensors and processors. A camera has a tiny battery and all the processors have to fit within a few inches of space.
I don't think it is a matter of quantity, but quality. Industrial machine vision cameras the size of a typical compact have had multi object tracking for over a decade.
This is also meant to work with one lens and recognize/track a very specific number of subjects against a somewhat normalized backdrop (part of the frame is always a certain amount of road etc)... Versus a full lens collection and the variety of conditions cameras are used in.
When you narrow the variables you can do some nifty things, kinda like how some phones are doing more advanced in camera HDR than any high end camera, or how Apple is better able to optimize for battery life when they only need to worry about a handful of phone/laptop models.
So here we have a forward looking car company (first major company to announce no more gasoline engines in their cars) and yet, they clearly haven't bought into the "trend" some people see that says cameras must keep getting smaller ... and if the best camera is the one you have with you ... I think smart phones might have some stiff competition in the near future.
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