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FOCUS ON STILL LIFEThe Joy of SetsDAN TOBIN SMITH is a problem solverextraordinaire and a vivid storyteller.Story by Reuel Golden.COURTESY DAN TOBIN SMITHSOME PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN GET A LITTLE DEFENSIVE WHEN YOU CASUALLY MENTION THAT THEYreally know their technical stuff. They seem to take this as a back-handed compliment, because whatyou should really be talking about is their art. This is certainly not the case with the British still-lifephotographer Dan Tobin Smith. Speaking over the phone from his studio in Shoreditch in East London,he is pleased to declare, “I’m a little bit geeky.”“He has a great interest in finding out how stuff works,” notes Hamish Pinnell, an art director at BBH,London who has worked with Tobin Smith, “and the second part of that curiosity is figuring how he’s goingto get that on film. How many photographers want to know what bullets look like when they hit Jell-o?”Pinnell adds that Tobin Smith is the only photographer he knows who reads New Scientist in his spare time.Tobin Smith has just turned 31, but in a relatively short career he has become one of London’s mostversatile and in-demand still-life photographers for editorial and advertising. His reputation has beenfounded on what he calls his “set-based still-life interiors”: elaborately built sets in which he creates hisown world with an assortment of seemingly disconnected objects. These creations require meticulous,even obsessive planning. They also require what Pinnell calls a “little boy’s imagination.”His sets can take days to construct. Tobin Smith relies on a familiar stable of set designers, includingwell-known London set builder Rachel Thomas and others. Once the set is built, he spends a long timepre-planning the shoot, particularly the lighting.“I study how light interacts with objects. Light has its own language and it is constantly evolving forme,” he says. “When I first started out, I didn’t understand that making it look simple could be quite sotricky. Getting the right mood across is the most important thing in still life interiors.”A design story that Tobin Smith shot for Wallpaper magazine’s 100th issue shows off his ability tocreate harmony and texture out of a jumble of objects that appear to be randomly assembled. The idea© 2010 PDN, Photo District News, Nielsen Expositions. Appeared in July 2007 issue.© DAN TOBIN SMITH36 PDN JULY 2007

Tobin Smith excels at creatingharmony and texture outof disconnected objects.Opposite page, bottom:The cluttered workshop ofa company specializing increating signs from neonlighting, from a design storyTobin Smith shot forWallpaper’s 100th issue.This page, right: An ad for AG,the electrical goodsmanufacturer, created by BBHLondon, of an Electrolux“ProCombi” steam oven.Bottom right: Paper heads.© ELECTROLUX/PHOTO BY DAN TOBIN SMITHbehind the story was to take contemporary furniture and design pieces and place them intraditional workspaces. He shot one image in the cluttered workshop of a company thatspecializes in creating signs and objects from neon lighting; the company had worked withStanley Kubrick on his last movie, Eyes Wide Shut. In Tobin Smith’s shot, signs and lightsmade by the owners are mixed with ultra-modern furniture created by established designersand up-and-coming design students.For Tobin Smith, the challenge was making the room not look like it was just full of junk.He decided to combine his own lighting with the neon lights themselves. In capturing thecramped space, he created areas of darkness and made the room look bigger by underexposingthe film. (For the record, Tobin Smith says that he shoots 90 percent of his work on filmand will only use digital for demanding commercial assignments such as shooting liquids.)He shot the workspace story with his Sinar D2. He added depth to his images by shootingone side and then shifting the lens across and shooting the other side. Then he compositedthe two shots in post-production. “I could just get a wider lens I suppose,” he says,and then giggles. “But that would be justtoo easy.”OVERVIEWAGE: 31BACKGROUND: Born and raised in LondonEDUCATION: London College of PrintingRESIDENCE: LondonCATEGORIES: Still life, interiorsCLIENTS EDITORIAL: Wallpaper, AnotherMagazine, Creative Review, KilimanjaroCLIENTS ADVERTISING: BBH London,Mother, Fallon London, WinkreativeREPRESENTATION: Katy BarkerWEBSITE: www.dantobinsmith.comWallpaper is Tobin Smith’s oldest client.Launched in the 1990s, the publication revolutionizedthe way interiors, accessoriesand furniture were depicted in magazines.Wallpaper told creative stories about objectsand made them heroes with theirown traits and personalities. A paperweightor a table lamp, for instance, wasno longer just an afterthought in a fashionor lifestyle feature, it had its own glamourand beauty to be celebrated. TobinSmith, who started shooting for Wallpapervirtually right out of college, is part of thegeneration of still-life photographers who© 2010 PDN, Photo District News, Nielsen Expositions. Appeared in July 2007 issue.© DAN TOBIN SMITHJULY 2007 PDN 37

FOCUS ON STILL LIFELeft: Bedroom, Kilimanjaro magazine, February ‘06.Bottom: A recent ad by agency Fallon London,for client Orange, a British cell phone provider.ASSIGNMENT: An editorial spread for British fashion/style magazine Kilimanjaro that’s printed on newsprint in abroadsheet format. This was published in the “When I was 17” issue and was splashed across a double-page spreadillustrating the chaos of a teenager’s bedroom.PROCESS: The bedroom is actually a hexagonal set that took five days to build. Two wind machines were used tocreate a vortex that ripped everything off the walls and threw the objects into the air. Tobin Smith prefers to shoot asmuch as he can in-camera, rather than over relying on compositing in post. However, there are some separateelements to this shot, such as the book to the left of the frame, that were later added to the finished image. He knewthe image was going to be printed big in the magazine, so he shot it on 8 x 10 neg, using a Sinar D2. The tricky partwas capturing the motion caused by the windmachine, so he used Broncolor flash, firing at 1/800th of a second, tofreeze the action. “It is extremely messy, but it has a certain elegance as well,” says Tobin Smith.EQUIPMENT: Sinar D2, Kodak EPN film, Broncolor.© 2010 PDN, Photo District News, Nielsen Expositions. Appeared in July 2007 issue.© DAN TOBIN SMITH© ORANGE/PHOTO BY DAN TOBIN SMITHgrew up under the influence of the magazineand later help shape its esthetic.“Bringing objects to life by taking a differentstance on something quite ordinaryis what really excites me and it’s whatWallpaper does so well,” he says. “In the kindof work we do, there is such a lot of scope forcreativity because you are making these differentfantastical worlds in camera.”This year, Tobin Smith has worked on two advertisingjobs that each presented unique technicalchallenges. In an ad for AG, the electricalgoods manufacturer, created by BBH London,he had to depict steam rising from a loaf ofbread. He was determined to shoot the steamin camera and not create it in post. He endedup exposing 60 or 70 sheets of film photographingdry ice until he was convinced thathe got the texture and the thickness just right.He then shot a mold made out of plastic tomake it look like bread, and he used a long exposureto get that ghostly outline. The challengewas getting the highlights and shadowsof the mold to fall within the lighting set up.Pinnell, the art director on the campaign,says of Tobin Smith, “He spends a lot of timesetting up the lighting before it even gets tothe Polaroid stage. It’s worth it, because hehas the ability to make something verysimple looking very beautiful and sculptural.”For Fallon London, Tobin Smith shot the latestads for Orange, a cell phone provider. Theads involved photographing a 4-foot-tall setmade of Perspex acrylic glass with a live edgeeffect to represent clouds, the sun, a tree andother elements. The shot appears fairlystraightforward, but the lighting is a combinationof ambient and flash.Once again, Tobin Smith tried lots of experiments.“We settled on lighting the floorwith flash to give it a neutral look and thenlighting the edges and the glow of the neonby using different ambient exposures andworking out what looks best,” he says.Tobin Smith’s career is split 70-30 betweenadvertising and editorial work. The little sparetime he has left is devoted to personal projects.He says he is working towards having anexhibition. Does that mean he would classifyhis work as art? The chatty Tobin Smith is temporarilysilenced, but then he recovers with aquote from photojournalist Don McCullin:“Photography is an applied science.”If that is the case, then Tobin Smith is avery gifted scientist.This month PDN Online will will feature technicaltips from top still-life photographers, includingthe best way to shoot something really ugly anda list of favorite gadgets.38 PDN JULY 2007