Hippies - Swiss Watch Makers - Overheating Cameras and Jumping Dogs
Usage: Getty Images Photo Library Worldwide
Creative Process/Pre-Visualisation
I had been working with Getty Images for a few years when they asked me to shoot some lifestyle images for their library. They were looking for images of people living in a more unconventional way, off-grid, and living a different alternative lifestyle. I had been going to Ibiza on holiday for a few years, and I knew the kind of people and the kind of pictures they were looking for could be captured there.
They were looking for people who are very free-spirited and live a natural lifestyle, somewhat living off-grid in a kind of hippyish way. When working for photo libraries, it is a very different way of working. The images have to be generic, so they can be used in many different ways, unlike commissioned work, which usually has a very definite idea behind it with a concrete final goal. You have to try to think to yourself what they could be used for?
The images can be used for marketing, editorial, and advertising media worldwide, with a wide range of uses. They can be used for advertising health products, in brochures, on book covers, or really anything. So this kind of photography is quite unique in that you don't know what the final use will be. You have to think about possible uses for that image, so in a way, you have to create a kind of free spirit within the photograph itself, so they can be used in many different ways.
Execution
This was a self-funded shoot. So I had to pay for everything in advance and hope the pictures sold and made a profit!! This created a lot more pressure for me as I was responsible for all the expenses, the creative ideas and the practical and technical aspects of the shoot.
I hired a production company to help me find ‘models’ and interesting locations. I needed to take an assistant, a wardrobe and prop stylist, and a hair and makeup artist from the UK.
I hired a large villa that we could use to stay in and also shoot in as a location. It had a great pool and balcony. We got a lot of dancers and people who worked in nightclubs to come and be a part of a pool party, which we then photographed. It was the first time that I had shot in a hot country using a digital back.
It was a back made by Kodak KODAK DCS 645 PRO BACK (That cost me £10,000!!) It fitted on the back of my Hasselblad Mamiya 645. The problem was that in those early days of medium-format digital photography, things were still being developed, laptops were slow, and batteries didn’t last very long.
At one point, I got an error message on the digital back saying it was ‘Too hot to take a picture‘!!! Despite the technical difficulties, we produced some stunning images, some of which I saw on massive billboard posters all over London.
TECHNICAL
Mamiya 645 | Film Kodak DCS645M Digital Back