“We believe all our products are more than just a phone and we strive to deliver unique experiences on all of our devices and to all our users,”commented Nokia’s Sam Clarke, creative lead brand lab, and Costas Syrmos, head of brand lab & film, as the smartphone manufacturer pairs up with Centrefold magazine to shoot its entire 10th issue on Lumia 1020 handsets.
The limited edition large format fashion, art and design publication approached Nokia with the “suggestion to shoot the entire issue on smartphone” posing the question “what could nine contemporary photographers do with a smartphone camera?”.
Before trusting the entire magazine to Nokia’s smartphone cameras, Centrefold founder and editor-in-chief Andrew G. Hobbs admitted to The Drum that he did put the handset through the wringer with his own test shoot, blowing the images up to A2 size, before trusting the entire issues imagery to the device.
“It’s incredible to think that we shot the whole issue on a phone when you consider that photography has always been a secondary function on them,” Hobbs said. “With these images you can still see the style of the individual photographers; the images completely retain their integrity and are enhanced by the quality of the camera.” Celebrating emerging photographic talent and the faces of the future Centrefold’s 10th issue comes under the theme ‘Beyond’ with images from the gritty New York art scene shot by Vanina Sorrenti, to UK wunderkind Damon Baker shooting models Eliza Cummings and Sam Rollinson, and other images from around the globe with Eric Guillemain shooting from Mexico, Tang Ting providing images from China and Peter Hill photographing in the UK.
Of his experience working with the Nokia handset Guillemain said: “This is the only fashion shoot and portraits I have ever shot on a mobile phone, though I commonly use one to snap daily visions on Instagram. It was challenging, since being quick in order to save a moment is crucial for my style of photography. Mobile phones are so slow that you need to be an even better photographer, but I was impressed by the rendering and I would think about using the device again.”Hill added: “Magazine shoots which combine different image quality/formats tend to hold my attention more, because of that mobile phones can open up the possibility of a more spontaneous approach to a subject. Flexible storytelling perhaps. Everybody is now so at ease with phone photography making creating portraits on them a far more relaxing affair. It’s always a bit unnerving using a bit of kit for the first time but Nokia’s image quality is astounding.”
Discussing the decision to work with Centrefold, Clarke and Syrmos revealed Nokia saw it as “an opportunity to move the boundaries of photography and production into new territory and a natural progression to the work the brand had previously carried out with photography legends David Bailey and Bruce Webber and National Geographic photographer Stephen Alvaraz. “Projects like this enable us to further push the limits of our technology, putting it in the hands of creative professionals and sharing the results with audiences around the world…[the] Lumia smartphone devices are proof that our products are more than ‘just a phone’. What we do with imaging is just one example of that.“Photography is a daily part of of lives. Everyone is now a photographer...Photography has almost become our global language and the Nokia Lumia 1020 is designed to appeal to both everyday photographers and also professionals. From the comments we have received when people see the A2 prints in the magazine it suggests that the quality surpasses the expectation,” they said. Centrefold Issue 10 will launch with an exclusive exhibition of the images featured at London’s Protein on New Inn Yard, Shoreditch tonight (Thursday 20 March) and is powered by Nokia MixRadio (previous partners of this year’s Brit Awards) who have created a playlist for the event. A behind the scenes video of the creation of Issue 10 can be seen below.
Nokia x Centrefold Magazine: Behind the Scenes from Protein® TV on Vimeo.
