Photos – Advertising Photography course – Final Year Project

In 1995, the Visual Communication department at Loyola College, Chennai offered Copywriting & Advertising Photography as a final year major. Being a part of this batch, we were required to hire a studio with professional equipment to shoot food products, automobiles, garments etc. for the final project.

Me and my friend Vijay adopted a more creative route and used table lamps, a good Yashica manual SLR, tripod, macro lens, 400 speed film and shot at home with available props.

The photos came out much better than what other had shot at expensive studios! Our instructor, ARC Shanmugam had given me a 94 on 100! But some students raised a furore over what they felt as unfair scoring and our HOD – Fr. Rajanayagam re-evaluated and cut down my score to 84 I think!

Used a glass top tepoy at home. Switched off all the lights. Used an emergency light with fluorescent tubes to illuminate from underneath. It featured a male body spray surrounded by perfume sprays for females positioned to look like they were being attracted to the male spray.

The above 3 shots were for a food product. Just shot 3 quickies using a macro lens and some creative arrangements with available props. Thinking back, I should’ve made the violin doll a brand icon and should’ve featured him in all the photos.

A shot of another food product…a kind of lifestyle feel for the product.

The effect in the above photos of the bike was more of an accident. Featuring my classmate Ramesh and Nirmal’s bike, the above photos were shot at around 12 am midnight outside the Loyola College church which was pitch dark. The camera aperture and shutter was kept open and we walked around the subject illuminating it with bursts from the flash. This technique was called something….I forget now…there was specific name…but the technical name seems to be “long exposure multiple flash” night time photography.