Care to buy one, anyone?
It seems that Micro Four Third system cameras, introduced by Panasonic several years back, is getting mature very fast, faster than any of the camera makers ever thought.
As many of you have known, the system offers interchangable lenses, lighter and smaller camera bodies compared to most of the DSLRs, fast auto focus and less mechanical components, which make the cameras cheaper to produce. By the first quarter of 2011, 30% of the camera users in Japan already converted to this new system.
When Panasonic called me to shoot for their new Panasonic GF2, I got pretty excited. I didn’t win the pitch to shoot GF1, a year earlier, due to my slightly higher price than my fellow photographer (which happened pretty often). It turned out that the client wasn’t happy about the end result and decided to finally give it a try with me. So it was a good time to prove that the old saying ‘you buy peanuts you get monkey’ must have some truth in it.
The concept proposed by its ad agency, Saatchi (replaced by Dentsu now) was pretty simple and direct, a beautiful woman with a little bit of hi-fashion touch.
The ad agency did the casting and Panasonic decided to choose Kennova, a model from Jakarta, who was also a priority-banking marketer. Another proof that financial world has more and more good looking chics to market their products.
It took me half an hour to set up the lighting and another half to shoot for each layout. I used 3 heads, one for main light, one for fill-in and another one for rim light. I always prefer to work with simple lighting setup and concentrate more on the other equally important stuff, such as make-up, wardrobe and poses. I work a lot with wardrobe stylists, but not with posing stylists. They usually suggest poses that even an amateur model with minimal IQ can easily do.
I’m not a big fan of ‘alternatives’ either. I prefer to discuss the layout thoroughly during the pre production meetings and stick to one or two setup and poses that work best. I guess that’s why I work fast.
The digital retouch was also smooth with some minor revisions. I heard that it was a good relief for the client, as they had to make the previous photographer came back and forth up to 5 times until they gave a final ok. Poor guy, poor clients too.
The black version