Like many photographers stuck at home due to the coronavirus, Chris and Jordan need a creative outlet. Let's see what happens when they try to re-create bad product photography from a kids' toy.
I bought the ES-2: what a great way to SIP! I'm digitizing and importing 1000s of photos into LR, and picking the good ones for scanning. Digitizing is much quicker than scanning as I like to keyword each frame. And the quality is fine for social media. Thanks! Question: how can I do the same thing for my 6x6 120 negatives?
Does hammy composition really equate to bad photography? The original >photography< looks fine to me. Yes, the original art direction is listless, at best. Are you sure you don't need help with copyedit?
Technically the photos on the original box may be considered better. The original photos don't have a green cast on the people, whereas the dpreview versions have a green cast in the shadows of Chris.
"Good Photography" usually require firing on all cylinders! Creative, Artistic, and Technical.
That why I started out with "Technically"... Don't discount what can be done in a living room.
With the right Artistic, Creative, & Technical skills, professional results can be attained in a living room. Even with green screen in a living room. The example here could have been a lot better, but they choose to not put in the effort required to produce better results.
The goal of this blog post wasn't to actually reproduce bad product photography better. But more of an fun lighthearted engagement piece to meet people where they are at (at home stuck on quarantine), and it succeeded.
Hey, bored photography folk - just up on DC World (seriously) 'Make your $2,000 camera into a pinhole camera using a body cap'. WARNING! Remove the body cap from your camera BEFORE you drill through it.
Interesting idea. This was a few years ago, and I think I ended up taping a piece of foil over the drill bit hole and just barely pricking it with a pin. That worked better, but I think the sensor size and flange distance works against one that way. The home size relative to the flange distance is still really big.
Though ... what if I was to use my FTZ adapter, then some extension tubes, THEN the lens cap? If I increase the flange distance that might help. I’ll try it over the weekend. Thanks for the brain-starter!
Fun project... But this is example of bad art direction, not bad photography. I've shot many jobs like this early in my career late 1980's. The creative agency brings the mockups to the studio and the photographer does what they are told. In that light, it's really good photography because the photographer gave the client exactly what they wanted.
The philosophy from the creative agency is based simply upon what they know will stand out on the shelves at toy stores, to make kids pester their parents with. The only art here is the seductive arts played upon ten year old consumer advocates against their parents.
Lots of fun. Hard to decide which one I liked best.
As a side note, the term “social distance” is just horrible. Let’s knock off the politically complicate language and call it what it is, “physical distancing”. Social distance implies snubbing or no communication - like no phone, text, facetube....
Unfortunately, if applied over a long period, it may lead to exactly what the name says. I really hope that people's natural need of social interaction and being close to others helps us recover when it becomes possible/allowed.
1. I think the term is actually worse than that, because it implies that one can be "at" a "social distance", which is obviously not what we are going for these days.
2. Despite that infelicity, people are getting the message. And for those who are not getting the message, the problem isn't etymology...
"Physical distancing" sounds like keep your distance from objects, chairs, tables, walls, doors. Social distancing implies keeping your distance from people. I think it fits better.
In my line of work, when people "reach out to", they usually feel already socially distanced (like from a different planet) but they need you to accomplish some inferior task or to 'provide' them with something they think they can't do themselves because they are just too busy with stuff that really *counts*.... sorry had to say it.
Bring on the tacky old toys! I am so glad I’m old enough to have lived dangerously. Lawn Darts, BB guns and .22 rifles unsupervised, chemistry sets with dangerous chemicals for Christmas, Erector sets with sharp edges, pocket knives, and staying out all day miles from home on bicycles with no adults in sight.
The sweet smell of stop bath in the darkroom.
Instagram, tik tok, Facebook and kids stuck on computers is just sad.
Or jumping off the barn into a pile of straw. Who could hold the biggest fire cracker in their fist. Wearing a red coat in the bull corral. Potato dodge ball.
Man, I miss the old firecrackers with the couple-of-seconds long fuses. We used to get bricks of them and separate the individual firecrackers to last longer since we were of lower income growing up. Never forgot when I blew up a fire ant mound and spent 30 painful minutes in a tub as my grandmother scraped those suckers off me! Those were the days!
who couldnt forget putting a cube of hot ice in a hard plastic orange juice container with water and placing it in the middle of the school quadrangle :-)
gone are the days taking your air rifle to school in metal work class and machining the mounting grooves in the barrel for a set of telescopic sites :-)
Donald B: I remember taking firearms safety class in school. Everyone had to do it. Actual guns in the classroom. We were all taught what to do if we came across a firearm, how to check the safety and see if it was loaded and how to shoot. I still believe that if we were still teaching this we would have far fewer cases of kids (and adults) getting killed by "unloaded" firearms.
When “banger” fireworks were still legal in the UK, we would make them into makeshift rifles using a metal tube. Impressive muzzle velocities were observed!
@Welsh, I never forget when out with friends as a kid and putting a UK squib (US small banger/ firecracker I think.) in a bottle, capping it and running away. Nothing happened so being first/brave/stupid enough to go back and try again, I opened the bottle, BANG and spent two hours in A&E having gunpowder and glass picked out of my eyeballs with a fine needle. It actually makes you puke/barf/whatever every time the needle goes in!
I was lucky not to lose my sight and never let my children or grandchildren forget about it.
@Boomanbb - Ah, the exuberant fun children used to have playing with things that were ludicrously dangerous such as chemistry sets where you could formulate your own gunpowder. What fun! That said, three of my best friends never made it to adulthood. Perhaps modern childhood has some advantages even if it isn't as free.
@Chris Bonney - I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything. No cable tv, no computers, no cell phones, etc. We had to actually learn how to play with real friends, not virtual ones. Sorry about your mates.
I like all the variants and the idea! I can also imagine, that lot of kids would prefer a box with an adult on it ("it's so cool, event interesting for 40+!")
So I deduce that Chris and Jordan will be living together through the crisis. Time to go full big brother and give us viewers around the world something to watch 24/7!
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