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Cartier’s Tank Louis, with its 18K gold case and beaded crown set with a sapphire cabochon, requests a modest sum of $10,000. Patek Philippe’s Golden Ellipse, with its rose gold case and 18K gold dial plate, insists on about $35,000 from your bank account. And H Moser & Cie’s Streamliner Tourbillon, with its head-to-toe red gold finish, demands roughly $120,000. New York-based David Lewis Taylor, though, didn’t spend a cent to get his hands on them. Unfortunately, 10 security guards had their eyes locked on him as he did so. Fortunately, this was not a heist gone wrong but a product photoshoot in his studio last year for Modern Luxury, a brand he has worked with intimately over the years.
I have a long relationship with the creative team at Modern Luxury. I started by shooting fashion accessories, still life, and cosmetics for their different regional editions. For a time, I would shoot two to four cosmetic editorials for them every month. Each was designed to reflect what was regionally available. I was shooting a lot of editorial work and had a strong reputation for being able to style an engaging page, in addition to doing photography.
This particular assignment was right in David’s wheelhouse, featuring daring compositions with lighting to match. Its brainchild was James Aguiar, VP of Fashion and Creative Director of Modern Luxury, a frequent collaborator of David’s. While the watches would be the centerpiece of the images, there would also be some unlikely heroes by way of some vertical slats.
James likes to plant seeds of ideas, for himself and for me. On the shoot, we really collaborate with the compositions and watch placements. We are both very aware of how the pages will work together, and we constantly think about the story layout during the shoot. The idea was to create various 3D sculptures and simpler compositions to showcase the watches.
The focus was on watches with minimalist designs, statement pieces that serve as a contrast in the modern day where noise and clutter run the roost. To that end, the timepieces and blinds were an ideal pairing, two sets of items that use their shape and form to harmonize. While a watch wraps around a person’s wrist during everyday use, it was the blinds encircling the watch on this set. A reversal of roles for the central subject. The feature first appeared in the digital edition of Watches International, a Modern Luxury publication. Then it ran in the print counterpart before making a run across other Modern Luxury publications around the country.
The time on set was engaging and intense. It was James, David, his assistant, and those security guards mentioned earlier. The photographer doesn’t get much facetime with the fine jewelry pieces on a shoot such as this. Given the expensive nature of the subjects, security personnel would escort them to the studio and remain there for the duration of the photoshoot. This time was exactly the same. James had a few hours to work with his camera before the precious cargo had to be transported back to the manufacturers’ safes by 5 or 5:30 pm.
James and I would spend a concentrated amount of time creating the sculptures, and then the watch placement. Afterward, I would spend 15 to 30 minutes on the lighting, and we’d review it all together. You get engrossed in the process – always aware of the time constraints but not letting that be too much of a worry. At times, I would turn around and there would be six to ten guards in the studio. I had been so engaged that I hadn’t even noticed them.
That level of focus and attention is mandatory. Photographing still life or product in a small space with limited lighting is challenging. Ideally, David prefers getting all the required images on set with little time and effort spent in post. However, the 5:30 pm deadline compelled him to shoot an entire library of images for safety. He took exposures of the bottom of the bands that were in shadows, the face, watch hands, metals, and other minutiae, covering all his bases before it came to retouching.
These images required detailed retouching on the watches and the chipped edges of the blinds. I then retouched the photos to complement each other within the feature, ensuring the images’ tone was consistent throughout.
David had his start in fashion but soon realized that too much was out of his hands. That wasn’t the case with still life. While he does follow a collaborative process within the specialty, he has more control over each step along the way, playing around with the finer details so that the final shot is very much his own. In that regard, he’s quite similar to the horologists who obsess over iotas of material and space, all in service of products that command time, attention, and money.
See more of David’s work on his website.
Credits
Creative Director: James Aguiar