Chris Collins

Chris Collins has been working in product photography for over 20 years, combining the product, model making with his own innovative style and sense of humour.

For Chris his move into this field began when he was 25 years old,  he watched a slide show by Al Francekevich, who he was working for as a second assistant.  He met Pete Turner whom Chris described as “a photo visionary whose style was very graphic with bold colours, often coupled with outrageous concepts.  Pete Turner’s work inspired Chris so much that in 1978 he opened his own studio in New York, where Chris started to carve his own niche.

Chris starts working with a sketch, and working with the client he brings the vision into the ‘real world’.

One of Chris’ projects, one in particular that I like, is the Georges Duboeuf campaign, where he took photographs of the French companies wine, some corkscrews, which were to play people in the finished work, which Dan Smith (their in-house digital retoucher) digitally took apart in Adobe Photoshop CS and turned them into more life like figures.

 

Two examples of this work are shown below:

 

Another big product promotion was for the Miller Brewing Company’s “Miller Mountain” advertisement.  For this Chris took a stock image of a mountain and then combined this with a model, produced by Prop Art, which was designed to hold a six pack of Millers, then this was iced and snowed on using Tengrove Studios’ Ice Effects.  The images were retouched and combined to produce the following image:

 

Now that is an image that I would be very proud of.

Chris’s work has won him a number of contracts from the likes of Canon, Oneida, Miller Brewing Co., Midori, Computer Associates, Georges Duboeuf, Crown Royal and Fuji.

It is Chris’s ability to create the impossible for his clients that has won him the loyalty of a number of advertising agencies, which supply him with his work.

Chris uses large format film cameras (Toyo View G 4 x 5 and Toyo View 8 x 10), and a medium format Hasselblad EL/M camera with Kodak Ektachrome EPP and Fuji RDP Provia 100 film and Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 gsm photographic paper. 

 

The film is usually scanned on a Imacon Flextight producing a 100 Mb RGB file.  Dan Smith then recomposes, colour corrects and finally retouches the images.  These are then emailed to the client and Art Director for review.

Chris also uses a Nikon D70 digital SLR.

Not all of Chris’s work involves model making, which is good as I could not complete one finished image for the course if I followed one of Chris’s projects.

 

Below are some more of Chris’s work:

The images in the selection above, whilst not as imaginative as some of Chris’s work, are very powerful images.

Although I don’t think Steve would have been too happy if I tried to recreate the Oneida image !

 

Evaluation of Images

Chris has also used strong colours, but his use of the cgi effects is to me what catches the eye and keeps someone from simply glancing over the photograph before looking else where.  It is this use of cgi which has captureed my imagination and prompted some of my work.

Chris has used texture in his work, in particular with the Jif photograph (column 2 row 4 of the images above) where he has captured the texture of the nut and of the background.

Chris has also used a range of camera angles in his photography from high angle to low angle.

Chris has also been more careful over his choice of backgrounds, so there are no distractions from the products that are being promoted.

The lighting is generally even, except for the Coke and Heineken bottle photographs (columns 1 and 2 row 1 respectively) where in the case of the Coke bottle being back lit and the Heineken bottle being strongly lit from the front.

Irving Penn

Soon after I started my first photographic course, Recreational Photography, I heard about Irving Penn.  During a presentation I saw examples of some of his photographs and whilst down London with the photo group, we visited the National Portrait Gallery, where there was an Irving Penn exhibition.

Irving is considered a master of portraits, nudes, still life and editorial photography.

Irving Penn was born in Plainfield, a small town across the Hudson river from Manhattan, New Jersey USA, 0n 16th June 1917.

At 17, Irving attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, (now the University of the Arts) where he majored in design.  Here he took part in art director Alexey Brodovitch's 'Design Laboratory' classes.  Irving left the school in 1938.

Between 1937 and 1938 Irving spent two summer vacations interning at Harper's Bazaar in New York assisting Brodovitch, who was then the art director. Several of Penn's drawings were published in the magazine, the money from which was used to buy his first camera, a Rolleiflex, which would become his career-staple.  Irving began taking photographs on the streets of New York.

Between 1938 and 1940 Irving worked as a freelance designer in New York.  Later he worked as a commercial artist at Saks Fifth Avenue devising advertising design strategies, first as assistant to Brodovitch and then independently. Through Brodovitch, was introduced to Vogue's then Assistant Art Director, Alexander Liberman. 

In 1943, Liberman, now Art Director of Vogue, invited Penn to join the staff to suggest ideas for covers. They worked out of the Vogue studio at the Graybar building, 420 Lexington Avenue, New York, and pictures by Penn began appearing in the magazine. He photographed the October 1943 Vogue cover, his first colour photograph and also the first still-life cover in the history of the magazine.

Over the next 70 years since, Irving has covered photography in portraiture, fashion, nudes, still life and ethnography (where he took photographs of people from different cultures (source Dictionary.com)).

Irving also created a set of portraits which he called small trades:

 

These depict men from various trades in their typical workwear with the tools of their trade.

Irving, like Richard Avedon, brought new life, emotions and  meanings into fashion photography.  But unlike Richard, Irving worked in a studio (which he would take with him around the world) whereas Richard worked in the street.

Sadly, in 2009 Irving Penn passed away leaving us with a new perspective on photography.

What I like about Irving’s work, is how he has concentrated on the subject in the portrait.  He does not always close in on the subjects face, which to me shows variety in his work.  The backgrounds are plain or mottled concentrating the viewer’s attention on the subject.

Other photographs by Irving Penn are shown below: 

Sources of information:

Professional Photographer, National Portrait Gallery, Irvingpenn.com, Digital Photo Pro

 

Evaluation of Images

Irving Penn's work is on the whole straight forward, where the focus is on the subject of the portrait, without unnecessary props or distractions, taking the view's eyes away from the real subject.  Although the portrait of the lady smoking (column two row ten of the images above) is made more interesting by shooting the portrait through the half full bottle, adding to the interest of the portrait.

Irving has taken portraits at all perspectives; head, head and shoulders, half, three quarter and full length, with plain or mottled backgrounds.

The portrait of Alfred Hitchcock (column 1 row two) is one of his more famous portraits with a tightly cropped portrait and very clear skin texture, lit from the left side of Alfred.  This lighting technique hides the right side of the face in the shadows, and is apt for Alfred who is famous for writing his books.  Alfred's pose with the tilted hat and his collar hiding part his face adds to the mysterious image of the great writer.  The shapes formed by this pose and the textures add more interest to this portrait.

Irving has used texture in many of his portraits, in particular in the portrait of the gentleman smoking (column 2 row 2) where he has captured the texture of the man's face, his thin hair and even the smoke being exhaled from the cigar.

Irving has used the full tonal range in his portraits, with some exceptions (column one and two row five) where Irving has produced two portraits, one with some mid tones (column two row five) but with a very contrasting portrait, and the other (column one row five) with almost no mid tones producing a very powerful almost pure black and white portrait where the subject is facing forwards towards the camera, but looking to her right, beneath her veil.

In one portrait (column one row seven) Irving has captured his subject with his eyes closed, glasses in his right hand which is also supporting his face, whilst either listening to something or deep in thought.  This to me is a powerful image, where although the subject's eyes are closed, the portrait gets across to the viewer the man's concentration and attention to detail.

Like David Bailey, his approach to photographing men and women is often quite different with harsher lighting used for men and softer lighting used for women.

A Calke(ing) Day Out

I am going to try not to make any deer jokes.

Well a later start than normal, the big advantage with Calke Abbey so nearby.  It is a place that I have heard about, but never visited.  Many thanks to Pippa for organising it and Bill for his guidance (and exceptional eye sight).

The full group made it, so off we go.

After a short walk I fell for the idea of a little macro photography, but soon changed my mind.

Bill certainly knew his stuff about deer, and passed some of this on to us during the tour.  I had taken photographs of deer before but on the other side of the wire whilst working at Castle Donnington.

Below are some of my photographs from the day, which I cannot upload to the pixel guild.

3D (eer)

 

Looking at you

 

Eyes Left

 

“What are you looking at ?”

 

Watching the Birdie

 

Watching the Photographer

 

 

Watchful

 

On the Run

 

Ouch !

 

“You go that way and we’ll go this way and catch the photographers in the middle”

 

“And STAY OUT !”

 

The Look Out

 

“Don’t go getting lost “

 

“Where’s my MUM ?”