I have never been a “hands on” person. Starting from my years in Engineering and Academia, I was never happy in the lab… I was never in the lab actually, or, at least, this was my supervisor’s opinion. I did prefer the theory behind the experiments and, if it could me avoid one day in the lab, I could spend days to prove the experiments were flawed in nature rather than executing them.
Photography? I am happy in front of Photoshop, editing a portrait, or a still life, but it is painful, for me, arranging the lights, preparing the background, moving around the table, polishing what needs polishing…
So, we come to today. I had an idea (an egg in a coffee cup by a cappuccino in an egg stand). I said that I had an idea, but I must emphasise that, most probably, I would never had the idea if my ever-censoring hyper-active brain would have seen the idea coming: too tiring and cumbersome, it would have said. My brain would have stopped the idea before it came to the surface of consciousness. Polish the egg stand, prepare the coffee, froth the milk… quick! adjust the lights! buy the egg!
I had an idea, I said, and it never occurred to me, if not afterwards, that I could have photographed it. I had an idea for Blender, and I fought with Blender to make it look as real as I can. No polishing the metal egg stand was required… on the contrary, I had to find the texture that includes some touch-up and dirt and imperfections; likewise for the egg shade…
So, I didn’t take the picture, but I CGI’d it. I am sure this will happen more and more often, to me and to many working photographers that don’t use their cameras to freeze memories or capture people and events, but rather to create an unusual world that exists in their minds, and make it picture-perfect.