You said you’d compare a photographer making a photo shoot to a personal tailor. Why this comparison?
Jacek Piotrowski: The fashion metaphor is of course a simplification, because taking photographs is a far more complicated process: choosing the concept, the background, lighting… But we do order photos and suits for similar reasons, so maybe the contact with a photographer should be just as intimate as with a personal tailor. Think about how much time you devote to talking to the first one, and how much time you spend with the latter. When you want to order a suit, you discuss it with the tailor in details, you allow him to measure you, you tell him if you have any problem with your figure or want to hide something. A photographer should also know such things.

Do you always need to devote much time to talking to the person you are about to shoot?
JP: Not everyone needs that. Some people can buy a new jacket right before a business meeting and they will look good. They know their proportions are in line with the standard offer. Others in a similar situation would not risk making a haphazard purchase. They have been through many tedious and frustrating shopping expeditions. It is the same with photo shooting – photogenic models accustomed to shoots will take up the challenge even without preparing for it. They will take the initiative, leading the work towards well-tried poses, and they’re usually happy with the effect.

Experts from other sectors, employees of corporations, are usually not good at highlighting their advantages, and very rarely tell about their expectations regarding the correction of the way they look. Their experience with photography may have been rare and not very positive, so they’re not eager to try and don’t believe the result will be good.

When talking to a customer, a tailor finds out the suits in stores have too short sleeves, they’re uncomfortable and make your face look bigger. When measuring the customer he can silently confirm his initial assumptions regarding the size and proportions, and he knows what he should suggest. A photographer does not need to measure his models, but he can similarly analyze the previous shoots and plan the use of light, the background, clothes and props in such a way that even the first shots shown on the screen build confidence, just like the fitting, and encourage to try something more and to communicate expectations. A viewer’s brain interprets a visual impulse using its own experience, so if we don’t define all the details in the picture he or she will get the positive impression about what isn’t visible. Practically everything but a sparkle in the eye can be made better in Photoshop, so it’s worth taking care of that sparkle.

We order photos and suits for similar reasons, so maybe the contact with a photographer should be just as intimate as with a personal tailor.

What happens if we don’t have time to talk to a problematic model?
JP:  A photographer will save himself with experience, initiative, making contact, the use of universal lighting, provoking emotions, making quick changes and assessing the results without asking the model for acceptance, not to discourage that person.  The situation is like hunting, you need to lie down and wait to catch something – a good moment, the best shot. It happens people give false size to the stylist because they are ashamed. Sometimes a picture is good, other times it’s not and you need to work hard in Photoshop. There have been show business shoots when I got irritated because I didn’t know too many things in my relation with the person being photographed, and I would quote Madonna from her famous “Sex” album [a fancy booklet written by Madonna with photographs by Steven Meisel Studio – ed.]: “A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.”.

But show business is not like the world of custom magazines.
JP: I assume that in custom magazines the effect may not be that very important and the problem of “imperfect” pics is not so radically visible. When it comes to shooting people, it’s hard to say if someone could have looked better if you saw that face only once in your life, unlike the face of a famous actor, for instance. If you have an ambitious attitude, you may say that someone who’s not an actor can also play their part well, and if the shoots are cyclic and the person is seen in a magazine many times you can also have that person cooperate with the camera. You can arrange that person to some positive popular pattern, find a role for him. There is a kind of public imagination: people got used to certain visual archetypes and to the fact that something is considered pretty. But this is a higher level of skills.

What differences can you see between e.g. CEO portrait shooting for custom magazines and those available on the market?
JP: In photography, portrait is mainly built with lighting. Custom magazines like to use basic lighting, which they know guarantee good result, glamour (more or less sharp light at front, opposite lighting carving the hair, cutting off a little on the side and soft reflection at the front to lighten up dark circles). This is because we have little time and one shoot is made for various occasions, not for a particular publication. If the face is not typical, we need to do a lot to reach a particular effect. For example, you do not lighten a person with a single light from down under, because it creates an artificial shade behind the figure and against such dark background the face becomes vampire-like, but it may turn out such lighting is perfect for our CEO because it lightens up his deep set eyes. We need to arrange lighting adequately, to make it possible, for instance we can mix it with other sources of light, limit the downward light only to the face. To arrange the lamps may take more time and will limit the model’s movement, but we can finally get pictures with visible eyes.

Generally, I would say that in trade papers, such as “Male Man”, the new “Esquire” or “Forbes”, where we photograph business people, shoots usually look much better, they’re made with more attention, the scenography is chosen with more care… A key element of success in the case of such magazines is that being an authority they can demand certain conditions. If a photo shoot is made by a custom company which takes care of it, they should create those working condition, suggest solutions, talk about the problems, make me aware of certain things. Surely, you can accept how you look in a store jacket, but you can also look with satisfaction at a picture of yourself in a tailor-made suit – and that’s important.

But since we have little time, why not use those ready-made solutions? Assuming our CEO doesn’t have deep set eyes…
JP: This is always a matter of the decision and the conditions. Standard lighting gives a guaranteed effect, just like a tailor-made tuxedo – every man looks good in it. It is enough to meet the technical aspects of the publication, but does not always let you highlight something more. There are no individual features – it’s hard to tell one man from another, you don’t know who is who. This photo tuxedo also has some disadvantages. If we use this dynamic and aggressive light to shoot a CEO of a big company, whose job is to look commanding – there is no problem. But what about the chairman of  a very small company? He’ll look good, of course, but no more like a “good father”. Is this adequate for his position and the impression we want to evoke? Sharp light is not always the best choice. It is easier for me to decide because I’ve seen so many variants that when I see a particular person I know some solutions are not even worth trying.

Getting back to the basics: how do we choose a pic for a custom magazine?
J.P: It’s always a matter of deciding what is the purpose of the picture. If a photo looks wrong, it is often because the photo shoot wasn’t made for a particular publication, but used the CEO’s general portfolio. I understand why this happens. But we need to remember one thing: if we want to get identity, to make a close-up, we must try to catch the model’s look. When the model does not look at the viewer, he needs to express something, e.g. that he is looking at some vision if he’s a candidate for President or a CEO thinking about the future of his company. But if we’re making an interview about Christmas at home and wishes – he must look at us.

Finally, you must remember abou the layout. If the pages are dark, we may consider taking a shot against dark background, even though we usually don’t do that, or the other way round: we can assume this time we need overcome the standard. When we want to keep the impression of seriousness at a page presenting a division, a photograph of the entire team will have a corporate weight and will be great for the layout, but only if it’s not patchy and it large enough to enable people recognizing themselves. Patchy photos are usually diminished in order to add form to the layout. Or if we need a funny picture to be in line with the character of the magazine, we can take a fairly “normal” picture, but the chairman can be wearing a top hat, for instance. It’s still elegant, but adds some humor to the picture. But he needs to look good in that hat, so maybe a cowboy hat will be better?

What do you award in magazines applying for the Power Of Content Marketing Awards?
J.P.: I’m looking for something exceptional: sensitivity, brilliance, intelligence, taking the maximum of a given event. You can’t compare every magazine with every other magazine as their resources and classes are different. Luxury cars will naturally look better than tractors. So when I see a picture of a tractor which is funny, because somebody used it as a monument, placing it in the middle of the farm in the rising sun, I award it, even when it is technically weaker than a pic of a car taking the turn on a mountain road. Among publications using stock photos, for example landscapes or city views, you can see which photo editor can choose and arrange photos so that they form an intriguing combination.

When we have magazines with photo shoots and they meet all the possible conditions in their class, whether it’s a car or a fashion shoot, you can see the money in it like in a commercial magazine, I take into account the quality of photos in a given commercial sector and assess that work against a certain maximum. Other Szpalty Roky jurors often lack such a broad comparison when it comes to photography. In custom magazines photos will be generally more modest than in exclusive, business mags. In that case, I pay attention to daring, intelligent solutions. Ones that I can take as an example and say: “I saw one company which took a photograph of all its employees and it looks good, I can show you!” I like pictures depicting a specific esthetic situation, so that even a viewer not related with the subject starts reading to find out what it is about, just like the case is with photo shoots for @mazing.

There are also comparable categories, like employees presentation, when a person is both on the cover and in the article. The choice is difficult, because such shoots have a defined character and it’s harder to show a man in his working environment – particularly dull one – and make the pictures interesting than showing his thrilling and photogenic passions. I also appreciate when someone was able to play with a photo of e.g. a digger operator by adding light, making it a new quality. In such cases, I’m not looking for a professional attitude as it might “kill the poetry”, but for a situation when poetry is supported by professionalism. And that not always translates into professional light setting, sometimes it’s just about noticing the moment of good natural light and taking the shot.
 
Jacek Piotrowski: Graduate of Camera Operator Department at Film School in Łódź. His passion is documentary photography. For over 10 years he has been dealing with portrait and fashion photoshoots. Since 1994 he has been a contributor to Agora SA publishing house. Author of numerous artistic fashion photo shoots for “Gazeta Wyborcza” extra – “Wysokie Obcasy”, and portraits of film stars and people of literature from Poland and abroad, e.g. Jean Reno and Paulo Coelho. Winner of two first awards in the Polish Press Photography competition in 1996 in the categories: People/Culture. Member of jury in the Power Of Content Marketing Awards competition.