The models take a short break while the next camera setting is being prepared
© Mark Steinhoff
© Mark Steinhoff
Freshly ironed bed linen
Each photo is automatically transferred to a color-calibrated display so that the image, or details of it, can be checked for the lighting mood and focus and, if necessary, adjusted for the next shoot. On the monitor, someone has placed a sticker with the words "Denn man tau" — Low German dialect for "Get busy!"
Melanie, the stylist, is already hard at work ironing the bed linen required for the next shoot. This will feature a family cavorting around in bed on a Sunday morning. The aim here is to portray the kind of people for whom Merck invests €1 billion a year in innovation. The Than-Hai family is originally from Vietnam. In real life, the man of the house has just finished studying economics in Hamburg and his wife will soon receive her teaching certificate in math and art. Astrid, a hairdresser and beautician, has taken charge of the children. Her job is to ensure that everyone's hair, features, hands, and teeth are presentable for the camera. "It takes more time to make up women than men! But the kids hardly require anything at all," she says.
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A visit from the ice cream truck
At the moment, however, four members of the set crew are in the bed. Their task is to put some realistic dents in the pillows and represent the models so that the technicians can start adjusting the lighting for the shoot. Then it's the family's turn to take up their positions. The scene on the monitor reveals nothing of the paraphernalia surrounding the scene: the high factory building, the set crew, the white backdrop with its concave, seamless transition between the wall and the floor (the so-called cove), into which even cars can fit.
Everything looks perfectly natural, just like a family on a Sunday morning shortly before getting up. "The more people there are, the greater the chance is that one of them will look not quite right," explains art director Jenny Wirth during a short break convened primarily to give the children a chance to prepare for the next session. But then it's back to position. Christian, the assistant, holds a piece of card covered in aluminum foil which reflects a diffuse light onto the father's face. Soon after that, it's a wrap. And, as if on cue, the bell of an ice cream truck can be heard tinkling in the yard outside.
This was just one of a series of shooting days. And it was only a section of the process that starts with the shoot and goes on to the finished picture that will be perfected in postproduction. "I try to get my pictures to a stage where there is as little as possible to do," says the photographer Torben Conrad as he casts a critical eye at a display monitor. Although the experience of modeling for the brochure was a lot of fun for Hermann Heinze and the Vietnamese kids, for agency boss Michael Nissen it was part of an intense process of "getting to know what innovation means at Merck, so that I can get others fired up about it." Now that the process is over, the impressive result can be seen by all.
Each photo is automatically transferred to a color-calibrated display so that the image, or details of it, can be checked for the lighting mood and focus and, if necessary, adjusted for the next shoot. On the monitor, someone has placed a sticker with the words "Denn man tau" — Low German dialect for "Get busy!"
Melanie, the stylist, is already hard at work ironing the bed linen required for the next shoot. This will feature a family cavorting around in bed on a Sunday morning. The aim here is to portray the kind of people for whom Merck invests €1 billion a year in innovation. The Than-Hai family is originally from Vietnam. In real life, the man of the house has just finished studying economics in Hamburg and his wife will soon receive her teaching certificate in math and art. Astrid, a hairdresser and beautician, has taken charge of the children. Her job is to ensure that everyone's hair, features, hands, and teeth are presentable for the camera. "It takes more time to make up women than men! But the kids hardly require anything at all," she says.
Photo shoot in Hamburg
Image {count} of {total}At the moment, however, four members of the set crew are in the bed. Their task is to put some realistic dents in the pillows and represent the models so that the technicians can start adjusting the lighting for the shoot. Then it's the family's turn to take up their positions. The scene on the monitor reveals nothing of the paraphernalia surrounding the scene: the high factory building, the set crew, the white backdrop with its concave, seamless transition between the wall and the floor (the so-called cove), into which even cars can fit.
Everything looks perfectly natural, just like a family on a Sunday morning shortly before getting up. "The more people there are, the greater the chance is that one of them will look not quite right," explains art director Jenny Wirth during a short break convened primarily to give the children a chance to prepare for the next session. But then it's back to position. Christian, the assistant, holds a piece of card covered in aluminum foil which reflects a diffuse light onto the father's face. Soon after that, it's a wrap. And, as if on cue, the bell of an ice cream truck can be heard tinkling in the yard outside.
This was just one of a series of shooting days. And it was only a section of the process that starts with the shoot and goes on to the finished picture that will be perfected in postproduction. "I try to get my pictures to a stage where there is as little as possible to do," says the photographer Torben Conrad as he casts a critical eye at a display monitor. Although the experience of modeling for the brochure was a lot of fun for Hermann Heinze and the Vietnamese kids, for agency boss Michael Nissen it was part of an intense process of "getting to know what innovation means at Merck, so that I can get others fired up about it." Now that the process is over, the impressive result can be seen by all.
