If there’s one thing people have in common, it’s their unanimous frustration with construction barricades. They hold up traffic and make the pedestrian walkways just as congested as the roads, eating up people’s time when they’d rather be somewhere else. When Lululemon was remodeling their San Jose outlet, they wanted their storefront construction barricades to be a little less irritating. To help them out, they turned to San Francisco-based photographer Ian Tuttle.
Ian had a working relationship with the brand over the last year, photographing the apparel company’s store ambassadors, a collection of local athletes, ranging from yoga instructors to MMA fighters, who represent and embody the company’s core values. The team at Lululemon told the photographer what they had in mind for their latest project, covering up those awful construction barricades.
“Big huge prints of inspiring local people being active and healthy! We knew from the get-go that these images would be around 12 feet tall. They needed to be visually striking, clean, and also tie into the city of San Jose in a recognizable way.”
When the team moved on to organizing the shoot, the biggest concern was the location. Where would they photograph these brand ambassadors and at the same time make it crystal clear that this was San Jose? After speaking with the local store manager, Jemma Lotzer, and using the quite reliable Google Street View, everyone settled on City Hall. The location is central to San Jose, providing a tremendous architectural background and plenty of visual variety. It was up to Ian to secure the permits necessary for the location, while the task of finalizing the talent fell to the client. The brand settled on four athletes ingrained in the fitness industry for the photoshoot.
The shoot itself was fast and expeditious, unlike the construction work that plagues and lingers around in most cityscapes. Lululemon wanted two stellar images of the four athletes for usage, and Ian had one and a half hours allotted for each athlete. Ian and his assistant Arturo Pedroza set up a workstation on wheels to be as mobile as possible, moving from one shooting spot to the next. Ian finalized the backdrops and the exact shooting spots with the client, and from there it was a relentless frenzy of camera snaps.
The most interesting challenge to Ian, from the shoot, was the talent. These were athletes and figures in the fitness world without any modeling experience. He instead tried to make sure the camera captured a moment frozen when the pose feels more natural and at ease.
I, of course, like the technical puzzle of using the location and resources to my best advantage, but that’s all background to my engagement with my subjects. These weren’t professional models. I’ve worked with models and their precision, while handy, isn’t as exciting to me as working with people who are less experienced in front of the camera. There’s a looseness, and often a little nervousness that can be channeled into images that have a real warmth and charm to them.
The only significant obstacle was when one of the athletes showed up after elbow surgery and said he couldn’t do anything “sweaty.” Since the shoot required some shots to exhibit a level of physical activity, this was no doubt a concern. Luckily for Ian, the athlete’s natural charisma compensated for any shortcomings in poses.
With the shoot wrapped up, there’s no doubt that it’s been a thorough success, judging by the reactions of Lululemon and also the general public at the sites of the giant portraits.
I’ve seen selfies of people posing in front of the portraits, engaging with them, so that tells me they resonate. I finally got to see them in person last week, and they made me smile!
With so much positive feedback, there’s no doubt that Ian’s partnership with Lululemon will continue for years to come. But if things head south, he can always count on the City of San Jose to kickstart his career in urban planning, making sure the people of the city put up with those annoying construction barricades.
Credits:
Client: Lululemon
Assistant: Arturo Pedroza