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Graphic Designers with Cameras
As a graphic designer, all anyone had to do was attach the word "Digital" to "photography" and everything is suddenly accessible and inviting. Graphic designers already have an experienced eye for design, skills in the digital darkroom (photoshop) and reasons to integrate photos into our current profession (websites, motion graphics, etc), so photography is a natural step. After browsing MM for a while, I began to notice that I wasn't the only one. So I was wondering.... who else is a graphic-designer-with-camera? Sep 05 06 03:49 am Link Hmmmmm, great observation... I'd have to say I am a graphic designer who is also a photgrapher, who is also a video editor who is also a etc etc etc.. Bottom line, I am a Producer who knows the ins and outs of the production process. I've used my various skills to grow a business as well as build revenue in each area. I think I grew up in the era of multi tasking and, it suited me well; as I had many interest. This is nothing new as many here on MM have a great skill set. In todays day and age you almost have too. Vance Sep 05 06 04:09 am Link I'm a Photographer who studied Electronic Publishing at Pratt Manhattan. Fell in love with Typography. Sep 05 06 04:32 am Link Graphic design bought my cameras... and alot of other things. The camera has become a daily tool for product and model shots they go hand in hand with what i do. I don't know, am I making a living off my camera? I'd be spending just as much time editing photos if that's all I did. My formula for being stuck behind a computer after a shoot averages to: 1 hour spent shooting= 4 hours dealing with the photos. Wheather sorting, archiving, retouching, etc. My shoots for the following type of work you see averages anywhere from 2000-4000 shots. Yes it SOUNDS excessive, but look at the packaging (forget the content), as a designer wouldn't you want all the possible varieties of poses and crops to fit side, top, front panels and die cuts?? Times that with with an art dept of about five people working on about 5 projects a week, that library of shots become useful. I shoot the models in many different outfits and have them do a full 360 degree rotation of posing. So we have every possibility. The beauty of this technique is, say you have THE perfect pose, but the model happens to blink... you just drop the face or eyes from a shot taken just a few seconds before. It's all digital surgery. When I shoot for myself I'm in a different mode, lighting, cropping and using angles I couldn't do at work.  Sep 05 06 04:47 am Link Most working photographers have to do graphic design these days as the other post said. As for graphic designers having the skills in the digital darkroom that I might have to quwestion a bit. Not all but some can work an image,others well ........ Sep 05 06 05:34 am Link I went through the graphic design program at San Diego City College. Worked at a few shops after I got out and HATED it. Went back to City College and finished the photography program. LOVE it! So I guess I'm a photographer with some graphic design training. It has come in very handy, for sure, but I find the working space in photography, the 3-D world, much more comfortable than the working space of the graphic design, or 2-D world. Sep 05 06 06:12 am Link Thats what I do for a living. Sep 05 06 06:31 am Link FARLEY MAGADIA wrote: IMO adult boxes, covers, labels and case inserts are ALL, and almost ALWAYS, way, way, WAY, WAY too "busy" for my taste. They are often so complex as to be counter-productive. One of the very best of that kind [and it was a whole series of box covers not just a one off] was, and I don't recall the production company, a plain black cover with a PS cut-out image of the featured performer; the name of the company; and the name of the production... absolutely nothing else on the front. Those were not only eye-catching in simplicity but stood out from the pack and grabbed the viewer's attention in a way that the run-of-the-mill product covers, as above, simply don't. Mainly because they all pretty much look the same and try to carry much more information than a person will take in an the 1/8th of a second that the average shopper will be looking at any single one displayed along side 100's of nearly identical others. Sep 05 06 06:33 am Link I have been working as a graphic designer/illustrator and photographer for about thirty years. In designing a layout it is so much easier to shoot the images you need than to explain what you want to someone else. It also gives you creative control form start to finish. Sep 05 06 06:43 am Link *raises hand* I use a lot of photography in my design and vice versa.    Sep 05 06 06:45 am Link Lion Heart Studio wrote: Right you are... and the "eyes" image is one of mine specifically shot for that project. Sep 05 06 06:48 am Link I started life as a photographer....became a graphic designer....and now I do both. It was a fairly easy transition from one to the other. I looked upon the computer screen as vewfinder and used exactly the same basics of photography to create digital artwork or adverstisements. Many times I went out to shoot already knowing exact placement of space in which ad copy would be placed. Made my graphic work so much easier. I like doing both and make a living at it...hence my business name FKVPhotoGraphics. When you're in a small almost non-existent market as is the area I live in it sure helps having more than one avocation. It's also a great time and money saver when creating promo pieces to advance my photography side. Sep 05 06 08:04 am Link About the only thing literally photographic in photography these days is the exposure: all else fast becomes computational illustration, and that includes the artist's choice of turning out something (for the web or printed by ink on paper) that looks like a traditional or straight photograph. A similar option existed in Man Ray's day too, but it was rooted in dealing with photographic materials through most collage-building or special effects adding processes. Sep 05 06 09:25 am Link Yes indeed! It seems so natural.  Sep 05 06 09:29 am Link Mark Sebastian wrote: You found me out. Sep 05 06 09:47 am Link Yes, I'm an MDes "GDWC". Photography has been part of the graphic designers' trade for decades. Really, the trend has been greater in the other direction. With the appearance of digital photography, a lot of photographers have started saying, "I do graphic design, oh yeah, and websites too!" Sep 05 06 09:56 am Link Eric Tragedy wrote: Yup. And it shows. Now it seems like everyone with a PC is a "designer." The art of typography has gone in the toilet. Oh well. . . Sep 05 06 02:15 pm Link Maxim wrote: BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Sep 05 06 02:17 pm Link hey mark..small world..this happens to be your thread? lol. graphic design and photography share a lot of the same elements..so it's not suprising that some people have an eye for both. but i have only seen a few talented creative graphic designer + photographers. it's always either they do "ok" in photography and great in design or vice versa. Sep 05 06 02:25 pm Link Timm wrote: Tell them to stop stealing sheep! Sep 05 06 02:50 pm Link Graphic artist and photographer for over twenty years and still going strong.  Sep 05 06 03:07 pm Link I'm photographer and a card carrying member of AIGA. Sep 05 06 03:20 pm Link I started with photography then a year later I got into videography which led me into computer graphics for video and i did pretty good with 16 and 256 colours belive it or not we're talking 1986 or so then in the early nineties i started playing with graphics for press now I do all three sometime for the same client. Just depends on what comes up on what day. But my real passion is still phtography. Sep 05 06 03:27 pm Link I think some are confusing graphic designer with image manipulator. A competnat photoshop use doesn't make for a graphic designer. Sep 05 06 03:32 pm Link started school doing gd, fell in love with photography, now teach design and do photography and design on the side. But I try to keep them somewhat separate-I use the digital arena for my photography, but try to avoid making "illustrations" out of my photographs. Sep 05 06 03:39 pm Link i only bought a camera because i hated the pictures i was geting to design with but now i hate designing cause id rather be taking pictures ( i had been doing abstracts and nature photography since i was like 15 but never really thought about shooting people) Sep 05 06 03:57 pm Link Been in advertsing as a graphic designer - artist for the last fifteen years... ditched that to take up the lens. Sep 05 06 04:02 pm Link movie title design / motion graphics / visual effects here. Sep 05 06 04:06 pm Link Gotta post to this.....I'm definitely in the club. Sep 05 06 04:08 pm Link Nobody got the sheep reference..? Sep 05 06 04:10 pm Link Tzalam wrote: I think Mr Tzalam hit it on the head. You could be awesome at Photoshop... doesn't mean you're a graphic designer. Kick ass image editor sure.. graphic design is a different story. Sep 05 06 04:15 pm Link Eric Tragedy wrote: Not many understood that you were referencing typography. This is certainly an indication of something. Sep 05 06 05:29 pm Link I know many high end "creative directors" who letterspace lower case type. I don't like it, but heh who am I to knock it. Sep 05 06 05:35 pm Link That sounds like me Photographer, Graphic Designer, Make Up Artist, Web Designer, Electrition, Set Builer, Sign Painter. You do it all when your out on your own like I have been for the last several years.  Sep 05 06 05:43 pm Link Eric Tragedy wrote: Nah... we were just trying to ignore it. LOL Sep 05 06 07:41 pm Link Mark Sebastian wrote: Oh no...now we have GDWC's Sep 05 06 07:43 pm Link Ed Wilson Photograpy wrote: Including being the tea boy and general sweeper upper, too. Absolutely. Sep 05 06 07:43 pm Link I have designed a flyer or two. as requested by a client, she wanted flyers and I said I can shoot the images but she would have to find someone else to ad the wording. She has been great in encouraging me to pursue my photography and said nope I was going to do it. So I added 100.00 to my bill for graphic design and learned how to over lay text and composite three images on to one. Sep 05 06 08:02 pm Link I usually like photography produced by people with a graphic design background, as the composition usually stands out, providing impact that is often missing otherwise. John Sep 05 06 08:29 pm Link Eric Tragedy wrote: Yup, Frederic Goudy was right. And while Blacktype (Old English) isn't used much anymore, there are still many people using script type in all caps. That's just as visually offensive. Those people would steal sheep, too. Sep 05 06 11:14 pm Link |
