Tipsy Friday at the V&A
Last Friday I was invited by Curator to talk about creative process at the V&A Friday Late dedicated to Collections of Collections.
Another speaker was Loris Jaccard, from Loris&Livia, the designers behind the Tipsy glass that I had already photographed a few weeks earlier at the Sanderson Hotel for London Design Festival, where they had set up their Cocktail Club.
I loved listening to her explanation of the different phases of development behind the production of the Tipsy glass. Initially created for DesignMarketo, the Tipsy are original Duralex® Picardie glasses that have been fired in a kiln at a very high temperature, and transformed into playful and delicate sculptural pieces.
How to give an idea of scale when photographing empty spaces
I sometimes have to give a feel of empty spaces; this happens when shooting a construction site, a project that has just been finished and hasn’t been lived-in yet, or even an inhabited place in which the furniture has unusual proportions, like the higher than usual fireplace and worktop in the picture above. In these situations I have to find a way to give the viewer clues of how large and high a space or a piece of furniture is.
Unless the confusion of scale is here as a statement and should therefore be reinforced,
I find that simple, very recognisable sized props can help give the images a sense of scale without having to furnish the whole room: it can be a simple chair, a book on a table, a fruit bowl on a work plan.
Another way to give a frame of reference for scale in architecture photography is the use
of a blurred human figure. This tends to be less distracting than a prop; it also introduces
dynamism in a kind of picture that is usually quite static.
I like how the use of props and blurred figures tend to create a form of discreet narration
which draws the viewer into the picture, making him or her engage, and sometimes even identify with it.
Mushroom & Spikes
Interviewing The Ceramicists this week reminded me of this 2 pieces I came across
on a photoshoot for Mendes-Ruiz upholsterers in Lubéron, France a few months back.
At first I could decide wether I liked or hated them; this is far from a classic functional form
I’m usually attracted to, and yet I the more I looked at them the more I could feel I was falling for the very organic references to nature these two pieces hold in their shapes.
Portrait/Interview: The Ceramicists
The Ceramicists: Stéphanie Sommet in her studio
Earlier this week I met up with Stéphanie Sommet from The Ceramicists in her London studio.
Originally from Paris and a Central St Martin graduate, she has worked on bespoke pieces for The Shard and has recently been commissioned by VOGT Landscape & Architecture Studio to create prototypes of ceramic fountains for a luxury development in Dubai.
I had met Stéphanie many years before through a mutual mosaicist friend; we almost lost contact, as you do in big cities, until I started following her work on Instagram, and completely fell for it. Eager to see more and actually experience the feel of her objects, I decided she would be the perfect sitter to start this Portrait/Interview series.
And she definitely was.
The Ceramicists: Stéphanie Sommet at work
How would you define your practice in 2 sentences?
Because I like to produce honest pieces of work, I choose to ignore overflow lines
when I design, within the limits of practicalities. To me a well crafted raw material
is the secret of an object of quality that will never go out of style.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Inspirations always comes suddenly and from nowhere…
It’s often late just before I fall asleep or while daydreaming, which is often!
It never comes from design shows or shops; to me following a trend is an anti-design process.
How do you find clients? What do you show them?
I get my clients mostly from word of mouth; I also share my work quite a bit on social medias. I’m @theceramicists on instagram & Twitter, please come and say hi!
You experiment a lot with materials.
What is the most surprising material you’ve worked with?
All raw materials are interesting but funnily enough the most surprising one to me is
definitely CERAMIC! Materials all come with their own technicalities, but ceramic ticks
so many boxes, it requires water, fire; you can carve it, cast it, smooth it, fold it, stretch it, throw it… It has so much potential, it is such a versatile material that you always learn from it.
I’m fascinated by your Cities Color Palette collection, could you tell us a bit about it?
This series represents London, Paris, Bruxelles, Porto and Athens through they reflective materials. For example I used terracotta for the bricks of London, plaster of Paris for Paris, and sand by the sea side of each places to make they own concrete color tones.
I consider Cities Color Palette my signature work.