THE XPLORING BRIEF

The digital revolution has made photography accessible to everyone as the digital camera market is developing faster than other creative media, both technically and creatively. People now have an ever-expanding choice of tools to create their pictures while one product innovation is chasing the next. Everybody is able to document their lives and to explore their creative potential without taking any risks. Not only have people been empowered to create more images of their lives but also to share them and collaborate with others. Photographs have become the new social currency that people are trading on social networking sites to influence others and express their identity. It’s a universal language everyone can understand, but the quantity of images has taken over the quality of photos leading to digital inertia. Digital cameras are becoming commoditized in the megapixel and price battle. Consumers are trying to stay on top of the digital camera swamp as they are stuck in a tyranny of choice. What all camera brands are failing to do is to create an emotional connection with people who may not be passionate about photography as such, but use digital cameras in their everyday lives.

The purpose of this Xploring project is to uncover a strategic insight that will help us lift people’s rational barriers and take us to a powerful organizing idea.

Areas of Curiosity:
- The rise of creativity in people’s everyday lives
- People’s hidden creative talents
- How people reportage their lives in pictures
- How people’s see the world through their camera
- People’s passion to preserve their experiences on pictures
- What makes a good camera for ordinary people


THE XPLORING TASK
Xploring is based on a very simple principle:
If you want to understand how a tiger hunts, don’t go to the zoo...Go to the jungle.

Xploring is much more than gathering information, it means going into unknown territory. Taking risks, perhaps taking a wrong turn. It means following your gut and listening, really listening. It means trusting your instincts, over and beyond the facts given. Knowing that when you do, you'll see more, understand more.

We will spend the next weeks with real people in the real world to understand the things that matter to them when taking pictures. Our Xploring journey will take us to people living in Germany, Poland, Russia, Italy, Spain and the U.K. We will go to their homes, spend a day with their families and friends, share their personal memories, connect with them through social networking sites, go on a night out, play with their cameras, listen to their stories, and observe their creative abilities…etc.


27 July 2009

Different cameras having different functions

Simon, 28 years old from Frankfurt, Germany just signed his first contract of employment after finishing his architectural studies. He actually planned to stay in the Frankfurt area but unexpectedly received the offer of an international office to join the company in its Beijing branch in China, starting in September this year.


So, knowing that he is going to leave the country for at least one year leaves him with a lot to do’s: arranging all of the acquired tests and documents for his working visa, ordering an extension of his passport, getting immunizations and figuring out the best way of staying in contact with your beloved ones at home and keeping them updated about your daily life in a country that none of them did visit themselves, yet.


The first thing that came into his mind when thinking about how to easily provide as many friends and relatives as possible with information was to open up a blog and filling that one with observations, stories, absurdities AND pictures about the country and people he is going to experience.


Up to now, Simon almost only took pictures of buildings and statues during his holidays. He loves to walk around the works of famous architects for ages while taking different pictures from different angles. And doing that, there is no need to be spontaneous or quick, because these things wait patiently until he finally decides about the best adjustment and equipment for his huge digital mirror reflex Pentax K10D. But he knows that he will need to change that behaviour to guarantee any exciting stories for his blog. And therefore he decided to buy a new pocket size camera to carry with him in his trouser pockets (the Pentax needs a case that equals the size of a woman’s handbag that is perfectly equipped for a weekend trip) while staying in China.


While watching him playing around with different cameras at Media Markt (a big electronics retailer in Germany), he tells me that “it is really important for me, that I don’t have to carry around the Pentax with me, because first of all, I don’t want it to be stolen and second, it doesn’t work for those spontaneous pictures at all. It takes so much time to get it out of the pocket and ready to use and that doesn’t allow you to catch and keep those little unplanned moments in the real life. But leaving Germany to work and live in a foreign country so far away from my family and friends feels so much more comfortable once I found my way to easily share even small things and observations of my new daily life with all of them.”



Insight:

- The size of the camera doesn’t tell anything about the worth of the picture you are about to take with it.

- Different cameras can have different functions: sometimes a camera allows you to have a look at something from your own angle and keep that impression for eternity, some other time its your dedicated line that allows somebody else to be part of your life while not actually attending.

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