According to new research, we have our creative peaks while daydreaming. When we take time to relax, our brains are highly active, both with rational thinking as well as with creative thoughts and fantasies. Perhaps it is this factor that is the secret ingredient behind the innovative photos and new business ideas from fashion photography duo “Norman Cavazzana”.
Marco Cavazzana work hard for ideas, yet they do it in a relaxed way.
- We need to ponder all the time - Brainstorm, says Marco Cavazzana.
- Right, it’s hard to describe what our days look like, but Marco and myself often choose to meet at a pub or something. We’ll sit and have a drink and just talk away. “It would be awesome to do this or that, says someone”. “Alright, that’s a great idea! Let’s do it!”, says another.
- And then we write everything down. A to-do list.
- I think we benefit from it, especially being two. If one is alone, one might think “This is a great idea, but it’s too difficult, I can’t do it.” But if you work together you can just throw the idea into the air and Marco will seize it and help take it to the next level. It makes it easier to do things. Most things are actually possible, as long as you are really determined to do it.
The ideas, and the work to develop them has paid off. Norman Cavazzana’s almost surrealistic photos evoke interest and reactions; the photography duo have agents in several fashionable cities and have worked for customers such as Top Model, Urban and Björn Gustafsson.
- The everyday life right now is very messy, in a positive sense. There’s a lot going on at the same time. Then again, that’s how it is most of the time when working professionally with photography; five percent of the work consists of actual photography and the rest of meetings, pitching new jobs and job proposals and then having more meetings.
Once a customer is “pitched in” and all meetings have been rounded off, the creative image-process begins.
- The work starts off with…Well, it’s quite complicated, really. When we did Top Model, for instance, we first met up with the agency, and talked about the entire concept and what they wanted. They gave us all the info and then they asked what we thought: “Is it possible? Do you like the idea?” After the meeting with the agency, Morgan and I sat down and discussed about how we could take it to the next level while still preserving the feeling the customer was looking for. It’s an intensive brainstorming process.
- It’s also tricky to balance the budget.
- Exactly. It all depends heavily on whether or not one has resources. If we have loads of money, it’s all good, then we just constantly pour out new, crazy ideas.
Brainstorming is not the only creative method Norman Cavazzana use to create new concepts.
- Inspiration images is really first and last for us. I think we have an archive containing three to four thousand inspiration images. A couple of times a month we sit down and scour the internet for images from different sites and photographers. Then we’ll go through the images and think “Yeah, I really like the styling here”. “Right, it’s cool, but what if we use it with this, or that.”
The inspiration images are picked out from photos, films, music videos, magazines and advertising campaigns.
The images are also important tools for communicating with customers.
- If I were to says to one hundred people that we would like to do black styling with spikes and a raw feeling, they would all picture entirely different looks. However, if we show twenty or so images, then at least they can start to visualize what we’re after.
Following the concept stage, the idea is presented to the customer and once it has been approved the next stage is to book all necessary equipment and to “tinker around” before the day of the photo shoot. After the shoot, there is a process of selection, following a post production stage by Marco. Once that is done, Morgan adds the beauty and fashion retouch, which completes the product.
Morgan does the shooting and Marco acts as the creative director. However, these roles are constantly merging.
- I bounce all my ideas off Morgan and vice versa and we’ve told each other to be very honest with each other. If there’s anything we don’t like, we say it.
Composition-wise the duo has done lots of work with symmetry and shape.
- If one looks at early work of NC (Norman Cavazzana), one can see that symmetry was our thing. It was hardcore; if one branch were to stick out on one side, one could be sure to find an identical branch sticking out on the other.
These days, Morgan believes that they compose images based on what “looks good”.
- In the beginning, one follows all sorts of rules and things like that, but after a few years it you create by feeling. But if one would analyze the compositions, one would probably find all sorts of “golden rules” to the left and right.
Another thing that distinguishes Norman Cavazzana’s photos is that all 3D-objects are real.
- If we have to do a photo shoot with a rusty reinforced bar, then that’s what we use in the shoot.
Norman Cavazzana take great care to turn all their photos into “NC images”, something more than just regular photos. This is a crucial part of their own marketing and branding.
- I think it can be compared to music. Compare someone who has won “Idol” to a band like R.E.M., who really have a true style. You’ll immediately hear it’s R.E.M. That is the goal with our images.
To work with their own brand takes up 95% of the time, says Marco and laughs.
- We have done it very un-Swedish-like. To begin with, who else has images of themselves on the first page of their homepage on the internet?
- It’s all about being strategic; there’s a lot of politics in this business and we have to make sure that our exhibitions look as good as possible and that we are in the right places and work with the right people.
- Also, we try to think about everything. When we go to parties, we dress up. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but one needs an image and we have to look like that black duo from NC; the guy with dreads and the tall guy. It’s just for fun and people who know us know that we’re good guys.
- People like hype. They’ll immediately look and start talking, especially when we were at New York fashion week.
- NC Raw is also part of the branding.
NC Raw is Norman Cavazzana’s jewellery collection, which is being launched in November. Norman Cavazzana makes jewellery which personifies themselves, like a blend between fashion and art. The pieces are large, raw and rather different. The design is Norman Cavazzana’s own, but they are manufactured by two jewelers.
- At first, the jewellery was a pure branding thing for us. We were talking, like usual, this time with an Irish friend of ours who said “You can do anything with NC: photography, film, clothes, jewellery..”. And then we thought “What the heck, let’s do it!”
NC Raw is not the only news being presented by the duo this coming fall. NC Vision is the name of Norman Cavazzana’s new forum for film. The idea for the project was born in New York.
- We sat in a NY diner and thought it would be cool to make small art movies and post them on the internet, kind of like a video-blog/art exhibition.
- So we took my small Canon Ixus and filmed whatever inspired us; homeless people, basketball players, a dove…I don’t know what the heck it all was, just short movies.
- Then we posted it all on the internet, mostly for fun. We had no ulterior motive with it, but all of a sudden we had thousands of hits and then it was a hot topic on hundreds of blogs.
That’s how the embryo for Vision was born. The focus of Norman Cavazzana’s venture into filming is fashion video. Whether it is for advertising or art purposes is all up to the customer.
- We have noticed that customers are craving film now, especially in the States. Walk into a store and you’ll almost certainly see a flatscreen TV pumping short films, most often not even very good ones. I believe there’s a huge market there.
- That’s an important thing. That’s how we work. We look at the market and think “is anything missing? Will anything happen?”
- Because right now, things are chaotic. The entire photography industry is completely upside-down. These are new times, people go bankrupt and we’re in a true hardcore recession. But, it is just in such a period of recession that one can be darn creative and do things, because that is exactly the time when one should be doing new stuff. Staying in the same old treadmill is deadly.
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i love your work, im not a fashion photographer, but i starting
to get very interested in it after seeing your site. if you ever get a chance , check out my site. thank for shareing your work with the world, its truly inspiring.
/ christopher jones, 2009-09-25