A Footwear Fantasy

Posted by costas voyatzis on Saturday, June 30, 2007 · 2 Comments 

Michel Tcherevkoff:

“Shoe-Fleur: A Footwear Fantasy”

The photographer balks at the thought of using anything but a Mac. “There’s not much comparison to be made, is there? It’s just so intuitive. Sometimes I think you guys can read my mind. ‘Hey, Michel will need that, so we’ll design it just for him. Oh and by the way, we’ll sell it to other people, too.’”
Shoemaker Extraordinaire

Tcherevkoff describes his workflow: “I’ll take a leaf, make it into a sole, bend it to make a heel or a strap, then shoot it.” He works untethered. After taking the pictures, “I walk over to my computer room and download the flash cards. Now, some art director might say that’s wasted time,” he says, “but for me it’s thinking time. I’m looking one or two steps ahead, getting ideas, making creative decisions.”

Once the image is downloaded, he plays with it in Photoshop. “I silhouette the element I’m interested in,” he says, “then I place it here and there. I ask myself, ‘What would happen if I shrink it, distort it, shear it?’”

He’ll return to the set, as needed, to capture new visual elements. “I might take a rose or a daisy,” he says, “and the first time I shoot it straight on. Then I might go back and customize it for what I’m building — say I turn it 20°, then 20° more, and so on, until it forms a collar around the shoe. Getting all the flowers at the proper angle, with the right lighting, creates a put-together ensemble.”

via Apple-Pro , Michel Tcherevkoff

Filed under all, ecology, fashion, graphic design, objects · Tagged with all, art, Design