Those of you in the studio still life area know what I talking about. This notion of creativity in commercial photography is a bit convoluted. Very rarely is one allowed complete control of anything, it normally is a long drawn out affair of agency meetings, presentation to clients, often focus groups are used even before the job walks into the studio. Once the job begins, it's a day long effort of almost imperceptible movement toward the final photograph. You'll shoot a shot and everybody rushes to the monitor to study it and make a judgement on what should be done next...move the glass an 1/8" to the right, rotate the cheese counterclockwise a quarter of an inch, increase the fill another third of a stop.
This can go on all day.
Often tweezers are used.
Folds of a napkin are picked at ad infinitum.
Grains of rice are moved individually.
The business of studio still life photography is a group effort and more often than not done through consensus of the group. It's not some artist photographer that shoots what he or she wants, slaps it on the desk of the art director along with the invoice and walks out.
Until recently I shot the catalogs for a major flower and plant nursery that is located south of San Francisco in the small fishing town of Half Moon Bay. (An aside. Read the fascinating account of 100 ft. Wednesday here. The day of 100 ft waves in Half Moon Bay). It was mind numbing work really. Day after day of shooting flowers and plants. Sure, they were drop dead gorgeous world class best damn flowers in the whole nursery, and I love beautiful things as much as the next person but still...mind numbing in it's repetitive nature. Went on for weeks at a time.
One year at the beginning of the catalog I wanted to do a project to fight the man so to speak. I got up each day before dawn to make the drive down the coast and shoot something for myself before the catalog shoot began. I actively shot against all the rules.
I shot all on polaroid, never metered anything, would purposely overexpose or underexpose by many stops, I placed the focus to force the viewer places they didn't want to go. Uncomfortable framing, weird subject matter. I would see, shoot, pull the polaroid, place the polaroid in a pocket and walk away. The polaroids would be processing for hours sometimes instead of the 90 seconds that Polaroid said to do.
There was no second guessing and no fussing. And the most beautiful thing about polaroid is it is the finished art work...and they're not sharp, and the colors are muted mushy muddy cool.
Later in the day I would gather everybody in the studio around as I opened the polaroids. I'd pick one out, cut a mat and put it on the wall. By the end of the shoot I had some 70 expressive tiny little jewels.
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