Photographer Darran Rees teams up with MOT's David Coles to capture the spirit of urban adventure, in the latest Footlocker/Timberland 'Summit' Ad.
The story is about an urban adventurer who puts on his Timberland boots and who now, rather like a polar explorer, surveys the city as a place with potential for great adventure.
The first task was to find a model who would fit both the target market here and in Europe. The brief was to find 'a model with a calm, confident, heroic look on his face. Not aggressive or intense.' The client wanted the models face to 'suggest that the air about him is fresh and bracing, but not too cold. The wind will be through his hair.' Darran knew that David could fit this the bill perfectly.
Darran then needed to shot suitable generic buildings for the ad. His assistant scouted for two days all over London for the perfect spots. It was essential to avoid any obviously recognizable buildings as these adverts were to appear all over Europe.
The chosen locations were deliberately shot before the studio-based model so that Darran could then, as accurately as possible, match the studio light to that of the location light.
As with all his work, Darran prefers not to depend solely on retouching to get the right lighting effects. He aims to get the shots to appear as real and as 'honest' as possible by carefully thinking the shoot through and preparing a little in advance.
Dozens of buildings were photographed as possible locations. Each had to be photographed from the correct angle so that David would look natural superimposed into the final image.
Finally David was photographed in the studio atop of a very large wooden block holding a large studio-pole that would match the actual flag pole in the finished ad. He had a large fan blowing in his face, and he was able to give us the look and feel we wanted to matched the brief completely- natural but strong.
The final detail was to make sure that the shadow from David's Timberland boot and the building front matched the other building shadows.
This image can now be seen as posters in Footlocker store windows all over Europe as well as on line.
Sapient-Nitro, London was the advertising agency that created the ad. Art Direction was provided by Katie Cook and the wardrobe styling was provided by Christine Harding.
Darran is a London-based advertising and fashion photographer well-known for his sexy and dynamic shots of cars and his dramatic and fantastical landscapes. His sensitive and evocative portraiture and personal shots of Paris also exhibit a very different and exciting creative angle to his work. To check out more of Darran's work please click
here to go to his website.
Please click here to go to the Footlocker website to check out the latest from Timberland
here David Coles has had a great month recently racking up jobs for big brands such as Pringles, CAT and even doing a Medina music video! Please click
here to check out his online folio.
