My BIG week in photography

not suitable for a studio - or is it?

by Ashley Taylor

How do you take studio photographs of agricultural machinery that’s up to six metres wide and 13,000 kg?


That was the challenge Echoes Marketing and Simba Great Plains gave me when they said that for Simba's new range of brochures they wanted to move away from the traditional working shot in an arable field, and show the cultivation equipment against a modern white backdrop. 

  

I called a few big photography studios, listened to them whistle down the phone and heard a variety of ways to say "no": 

“sorry mate, it’s just too big”

"it's not going to fit through the doors"

“it will probably cut into our floor”.

So I went back to the clients and we hatched a plan to convert part of their factory floor into a working photography studio, capable of taking photos of these immense pieces of kit that are crisp and bright enough to reveal all the engineering details in print. No transport costs, no studio hire and no broken floorboards. 

With the help of old-fashioned white paint, eight studio lights, 3m x11m metre paper backdrops and six days hard work, this is how the Simba team and I shot the giants for Paul Maitland at  Echoes Marketing to use in the final range of new brochures.  

studio photography, without the studio

six days shooting means an awful lot of coffee

eight studio lights and  3m x11m paper backdrops 
turned the factory floor into a photographic studio

the floor was regularly mopped to remove tractor tyre marks

the next stage: using Photoshop, Echoes Marketing's 
graphic designer Dave Wilson 
removed all evidence of the factory

another cleaned up shot ready for the design work

one of six finished brochures featuring my photography
(click the image to enlarge)

another centre spread in print 
(click the image to enlarge)

Ashley Taylor is our photographer and 3D Graphic artist. You can see more of his photography work on the Push Creativity website. If you've got a similar job you want to talk to him about, call him on 01673 843852.