#will whipple

[instagram]

Memories Without Detail: @willwhipple’s ‘Gist’ Project

For more from Will’s Gist project, follow @willwhipple on Instagram.

Photographer Will Whipple (@willwhipple) hopes his blurry photos take you on a trip down memory lane. His “Gist” project was born while editing some photos from Greece; a blurry test shot of a street immediately transported him to the road he grew up on in a small town in California. “My eyes kind of tricked me, and my mind just went with the tricks, and it made me start to think about the whole interpretation process of images that goes on subconsciously,” he explains. Will deliberately changes his focus and opens the aperture during shooting to blur out details, whether he’s on a commercial shoot or at the beach with his family. “By taking the detail out of it, it becomes more of a memory, because a lot of our memories are lacking in detail as well,” he says. He aims to ask the viewer not, “what is this of?” but rather, “where does this take you?” — whether that be a family holiday, the work commute or an old friendship. “It forces the viewer to be conscious of the interpretation process of photography,” he says.

[balconyjumpartists-blog]

Will Whipple shoots Boots front cover.

Will Whipple shoots the front cover of Health & Beauty for Boots. This red lip rocking image was styled by Jess Henley, Hair by Elliot Bassila, Make up by Terry Barber, Nails by Chisato Yamamoto, Fashion styling by Amy Bannerman and Model Lucia K @ Models 1

[matthewwalder]

Media Molecule Portraits

Media Molecule are the gaming house behind the Sony game Little Big Planet. They commissioned Will Whipple to head down to their offices in the tech-haven that is Guildford, and get portraits of the entire work force. There was an interesting and diverse mixture of people who work on video games, from programmers and character designers to graphic artists, and what struck me most was the fun recreation and kitchen room above their offices. This entire floor was dedicated to the R'n'R of the staff, and had a table tennis table, huge video game set up, instruments, decks and a huge open plan kitchen. Having facilities like that made me (almost) want to work in an office again. The art work around this room (where we set up our backdrop and managed to squeeze a Broncolor para into) was fairly indicative of the laid back, creative space these people get to work in. Jealous.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from  | Comment »

[matthewwalder]

Early Rider balance bikes.

Balance bikes are an ingenious way of getting young children to safely handle and progress with bike-riding, without the need for stabilisers when they come to get a "grown up bike" with pedals and a chain. Early Rider are a brand producing some of the most beautiful wooden balance bikes around, and I was optioned to assist on the latest shoot.

The initial date for this Will Whipple shoot fell just before Christmas, however Mother Nature had a different idea and bad weather stopped play. As the shoot required small children playing on the balance bike range, the snow storms put paid to that idea. A revised date for the shoot brought us up to Formby near Liverpool in mid January, with a dawn start and perfectly clear blue skies (although the temperature didn't get the memo and stayed stubbornly at just above freezing). Located just around the corner from Steven Gerrard's home and gym mega-complex, Fishermans Path runs from the train station in Formby, through the woods down to the beach. We set-up a small white backdrop just off the main path and mixed up some product shots and portraits with a lot of action pictures. The production and art direction was handled amazingly by Mercy UK, and the stylist (who was frrreeeezing cold and wrapped up in many layers) for the little people was Katrina Howley. It was the coldest I'd been on a shoot for a while, but several cups of tea soon sorted me out, and the pictures were definitely worth it.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from  | Comment »

[matthewwalder]

A Select model test

See the full gallery on Posterous

I went with Will Whipple to Select Model Management's head office behind Oxford Street to help shoot a slow-motion video shoot with a Red camera, and a few hundred pounds worth of flowers and petals. We filmed 3 different girls throughout the day, and the results when shot at 150 frames a second create dreamy slow-motion images.

Posted via email from  | Comment »

[matthewwalder]

Easy Living in August

Another job with the excellent Will Whipple, this time shooting simple fashion editorial in Spring studios for Easy Living magazine. Of all the studios I've worked in, the set up at Spring is very slick, and the building is pretty epic. I think I'd set up my own studio in a similar vein with a significant lottery win. Spring also have a members club/bar area which is very understated but classy, and I'm contemplating joining. Yet to discover the price of the membership though... The shoot was in the gigantic I/J studio, and we used probably a fifth of the space with two set-ups, one against the exposed brick of one wall, the other on a grey colorama. The day was another stress-free affair, and I was even able to grab some time with the pocket wizards on my Canon G12 to catch some classic jump shots.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from  | Comment »