On a previous post I talked about my understanding of what design was:
Design is not a thing or a deliverable. Design is what happens before the thing, it is hours of assigning purpose and intention to an idea yet to be conceived, to then plan and finally execute.
Would you have ever thought about a photograph being designed rather than made/taken? My guess is that you've never heard of a title called "Photo Designer" or something of the like.In 2008, Flickr launched a photography contest called Muestra tu México con Flickr (in english: Show your Mexico with Flickr). The purpose of the contest was to make some buzz about Flickr starting local operations in Mexico, and to celebrate it's first year they were going to have an exhibition with the most relevant photos of international photographers that would better represent Mexico. The prize was going to be the photograph printed in a book and an exhibition of the winning photos followed by nibbles in a fancy venue in Mexico City.At that point I was an active flickr user, and I happened to stumble upon the contest while browsing the site. I decided to submit some photos from my existing collection, but that left me feeling unsatisfied but still determined to be part of the printed commemorative Flickr book.One day, thinking about what to do to make the cut into the book (or designing the photo), I had an epiphany (which in my terms would be: a realization of design): -Nothing shows Mexico better than a taco stall. I thought. It sounded like a joke, since Mexican epitome of street food tend to be found everywhere but in photo worthy places, but I gave it a shot (several actually).[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="584"]
The so-called Taco Stall photo.[/caption]Back in the day, I was learning how to do HDR images with photoshop and photomatix (this was the time when HDR wasn't included in digital cameras as a feature) by hand, so I decided to make an HDR version of the photo that I took that night (I would spend a couple of hours post-producing the photo) and submitting it into the contest.The results where outstanding and unexpected! The photo made the cut to the book. I had my nibbles, my exhibition and I've got my first printed copy of a photograph I take picked from more than a hundred thousand submissions. In retrospective, I don't feel that the photo is that good, and the HDR looks almost cartoonish (I was learning how to do HDR back then, but I have to say that I love the shadows in the meat and the texture in the grill), but regardless, design played its part of matching the intent in the mental models of the jury (or their expectations).[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="584"]
The "Muestra tu Mexico" Book with my photo.[/caption][caption id="attachment_156" align="aligncenter" width="584"]
Me @ Show Your Mexico in Flickr photo exhibition.[/caption]Needless to say that those "better" photos that I carefully picked from my collection failed to tell the story of showing my México as they were almost general purpose.The message that I want to convey is that it is possible to design photography, and pretty much anything else in life (even your life).To illustrate the point I'm going to other examples:
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The train of thought for the blog's header as part of my design process.[/caption]And coming back to the main story line of the post of how I've got published in a photography book from among a hundred thousand submissions by using design as a tool; I took an unorthodox photo that accomplished and even exceeded the purpose for which it was designed for, but I only knew this in retrospective, many years after. Back then the photo gained some popularity, and it is still constantly used by a number of websites, I leave you with some examples.[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1024"]
Yahoo México[/caption][caption id="" align="alignnone" width="609"]
Chilango Magazine - México[/caption]
