Photography
Singapore, 27th March 2010
With the weekend arrived I took time out to run some errands and dropped into Page One, a bookshop well known for its large collection of architectural design books. I chanced on a new issue of hotel designs in Asia. It was nice to see three of our projects in there as well. But what struck me most was how “nice” the photo’s where (having seen some of the installations in real life)…someone had obviously gone through quite some extend to touch up the photo’s.
Which brings me to today’s topic…it is very rare that a photo (of a lighting installation) truly represents the reality. Two things generally happen, either the picture looks much worse than the reality, or it looks much better than the reality. In the first case it is probably the result of bad photo taking or inexperience in photographing night time lighting installations. In the second case it is likely that efforts have been made to touch up the photo. It may initially been the same picture as the first, but with today’s computer technology we can crop, add, erase and touch up any element in a picture. Selective viewing angles are a well known photographic “trick”. We all know the beautiful resort or home pictures from the travel or real estate agents…need I say more.
It is safe to state that today we never know whether the picture represents the reality or even whether it is actually real or not. The latest 3D rendering software is capable of producing the most astonishing virtual reality. But somehow there is still that stigma that if it is printed it must be real! We all use it in our presentations to our clients, on our website, in our company brochures.
Who wants to show pictures saying…oh sorry it is just a bad picture, the reality is really good! 🙂
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