It just happened…
Here comes a rather funny shooting story. Back in March, I was shooting a great editorial (Dreams of a Samurai) with a new team. It was Konstantinos and Rocco doing the styling and make-up/hair and although I haven’t met Konstantinos before, I just had him on the phone, and Rocco I have seen only once before and it was already a while ago, we had a lot of fun and it felt right working together. Our model Emma was gorgeous: sweet and very talented, she blew my mind with her powerful poses so that after half of the outfits we had to slow her down to loosen the total image. It was unusual that we were all smokers (shame on us) and so we had many little occasions to talk in between and discuss either the next shooting steps or just chat about other things. And so the stylist told me in such a little pause that he had a brand new corsage from Dawid Tomaszewski, which has never been shown before and he planned to work it into the shooting. The corsage had the word “safe” stitched on it with sequins and beads and it looked very arty. Konstantinos wanted to combine it to a NIN3 earring saying “SEX” and so he wanted to hint at the importance of safer sex, especially for the LGBT community. He told me that the corsage was meant to be a homage and for the world aids day. The idea of implying a message into the editorial pleased me and I told him to do it if he’d like. Read it
Cinematic Homage to Romy Schneider
Fashion editorial ROMY exists in two different versions which are for both print and digital media. One version consists of photographs while the other one is made of animated GIFs. The latter adds up to an innovative storyboard taking the term moving image upon its actual meaning. The GIF version contains landscape formats only, according to the format of movie screens. In every image, a certain element moves constantly while the rest of it is frozen. The photographic version follows the same plot. Read it
Modern Bacchanalia aka. YOLO
Fashion photography is, on purpose or as a side effect, soever advertising. It shows a product that the customer is supposed to desire because he likes the impression of the picture. The AIDA principle is determinative of everything concerning advertisement: ATTENTION (somebody’s attention is engaged) – INTEREST (he or she is interested) – DESIRE (the customer desires the product) – ACTION (the customer buys it) The logical follow-up goal is winning costumers for future purchases too. Therefore brands create master plans for labels that are designed to elicit the sympathy of costumers. Read it
The Beauty in Typography
Typography is the supreme discipline in the field of design that concerns the direct communication of things to a viewer or reader. Contentual coherences are plotted by the use of letters forming words. They are perceived as many little pictures. The typeface subtly promotes the content of the text, though it keeps fading into the background. The typeset, grey levels, and white spaces define where to look first and last at a text design – stroke width, serifs, font style, and size emphasise the statement. Although typography shows a great diversity in classifications, it all together pursues the objective of conciseness. Read it
Travelling in Time
Humans and machines can connect and interact through interactive media. It starts with a simple app right up to complex installations that seem futuristic to us. The development of such media has not yet grown up, but there is a high potential provided for the future’s design. Even though we are living in the age of rapid transition, those developments cause mixed feelings: sensations of freedom & restriction, interconnectedness & loneliness, the power of control & the ignorance of where this leads to are all there at the same time. Read it
A Line is a Travelling Dot
Nude drawings and fashion photography equally address the human figure and its shapes that get formed solid by light. They are snapshots of short instants, a documentation of the current condition, that will pass soon. With fashion photography, it’s moreover the current zeitgeist to be captured by photo. Especially today drawings are located between art and design. Old printing techniques like etching or letterpress can be stylistic devices at the designer’s work, but in these digital ages they are not a necessary part anymore, so they may be classified as art. Still, we love handmade things. It’s individual, unique, precious, and made with love for detail. For the designer of handmade things, as for the photographer producing pictures in a photo lab, it means more creative freedom and a greater, but also more obvious effort. We all identify with hand creature better because we ourselves feel special and unique, as well as we feel transient. Read it
Not an Error at All
The Internet is a collection of information, that theoretically can be reviewed and influenced by every human being. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, almost everyone leaves a digital trace of his existence. The internet archives every portrayal of the real world, no matter if it’s impartial or sentimental. It dissolves them into a digital web that is spun densely enough to seem like a single grey area and making it hard to be conceived. Read it