In April, 2018 I was contacted by NOI Pictures about a one and a half day stills commission for German shoe manufacturer Prime Shoes.
Prime Shoes were looking to create a beautiful series of images in their factory in Ho Chi Minh City to capture the sublime workmanship that is behind the making of their hand made and high quality leather shoes. Prime Shoes owner, Detlef would be visiting the factory and I would be joining him during his visit.
On the day before the shoot I met Detlef at a cafe in HCMC and he talked me through the brief and shared with me some examples of what he was looking for. Prior to the meeting he had shared with me the Prime Shoes colour pallette which consisted mainly of brown and yellow colour tones and I had used it to create a look that I felt both suited Prime Shoes shoes marketing materials and which would also suit the style of the images.
To match the colour palette I created a lightroom preset by desaturating all non yellow colours and then I added a touch of brown to both the shadows and the highlights. I tested it some images that I had shot for other clients and Detlef was very happy with what I had come up with.
To shoot the series I used my Sony A7RIII cameras combined with three primes lenses in the Sigma 35mm F1.4 lens, my manual focus Nikkor 55mm F2.8 Macro lens and my Sony 90mm F2.8 Macro lens which I felt would be ideal for capturing the close up style shots that the brief required.
On our first morning Detlef gave me a tour of the factory on arrival and he pointed out the processes that he felt would make the best images. The factory was dark in the morning but it had large west facing windows which would allow for us to utilise the natural light coming through them in the afternoon. I had also brought along a simple lighting setup so that I could add a little bit of mood and texture to some images.
Below are some of my favourite images that I captured during the assignment.
Detlef was extremely happy with the images and on his next trip he gave me a hard copy of the Prime Shoes catalogue which was beautifully printed with a gorgeous matte finish. I’ve posted some of the tearsheets from the catalogue featuring my images below.
Sebastian from Noi Pictures was recently in Munich and he passed the Prime Shoes outlet store and shared this image showing my images in the stores windows.
A behind the scenes look into the creation of video and stills content of the manufacturing process for high end medical scrubs company Jaanuu at one of their textile factories in Ho Chi Minh City.