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

Live my pridest moments again - in my pictures

Christian, 34 and Alessandra, 32 - are married and live in Frankfurt, Germany

When I asked the two to spend some time with me to talk about digital cameras, Aless already said: “Oh that`s perfect, Chris always has a camera with him.” Something that also all of his friends confirmed, when I talked to them in a restaurant before asking Chris and Aless directly. So Chris seemed to be the typical party photographer guy who annoyed everyone with taking pictures during a night out. Annoying, because of course he would always take the worst pictures of everyone – being drunk and behaving very stupidly.
But this has changed, he found his girl – now his wife (he doesn’t go out that much anymore) – and he got bored of taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures of drunken people.
In the meantime Chris uses his camera to get inspiration – for his business and private life. Chris works for a Chinese company which produces “all kinds of staff” – so he is always looking for new products, nice designs and logos to get inspiration for new product ideas. So he constantly has a camera with him and tries to capture everything that seems interesting. Every month he then puts together a report with many pictures and new product ideas and sends them to China.
Privately he always used a Canon camera - always Ixus. He also tried some others in the meantime, e.g. from Casio, but always came back to his Canon Ixus, because he knows how to handle them and he knows what he will get. Furthermore, he thinks that it is “such a rubbish” how manufacturers and brands currently try to outbid each other with the number of megapixels. “It so not necessary to have 7 or more megapixel – 4 megapixel are absolutely enough for taking a great picture and for our normal eyes, and I am annoyed because I always need to extent my memory chip.”

Chris likes to document his life. “I have a picture folder for each month of a years since 2001 on my computer. From time to time – mostly for special events or birthdays – I look through all of them and laugh and live the days again – in my imagination with the help of the pictures.
He also has a printed out picture wall in his office at home “which I am not allowed to touch, Alessandra comments”. Because Alessandra likes to change the flat and also the pictures in the flat sometimes – “but not his picture wall”. On his wall are pictures from many important stages of Chris’s life: A-levels degree, his time abroad in South Africa, 3-month holiday trip through South America, his expatriate working time in China. “When you pass this wall or pictures, you can see my whole life. I love to look at it from time to time and then I am really proud of what I have already done and reached in life” says Chris.
Privately Chris has changed his “photographer behaviour” compared to when he was younger. He now likes to document life, take pictures spontaneously, take pictures of interesting people and monuments and capture special moments:




Examples of Chris`s favourite pictures from his 1000 picture folders on his PC

“Constructed situations for taking pictures are not my favourite anymore” says Chris and Aless adds “Chris takes nice pictures, they are not so artificial, they show the real life, although of course sometimes the pictures are as crazy as he is and I don’t see any beauty in them – but he does. Chris even gives me a camera when I am travelling alone and tells me to take many nice pictures because he wants to see how the trip was and wants to be able to imagine everything. So I mostly take pictures on holidays for him, not for myself.”
Chris says he enjoys having so many pictures that document his life and the life of his family and friends. Whenever there is a special occasion or event, everybody asks him for pictures. And Chris himself also enjoys surprising his friends with funny pictures of them, when he is invited for dinner or a birthday. Then he prints them out, sometimes even frames them – “but not normal and boring – I sometimes use the same picture 10 times – put them next to each other and cut out different pieces so that it looks extra strange.”
The best pictures for Chris are taken in South Africa or in a sunny environment with special light, “because here the colours are always brighter, more intensive, more beautiful. You can take a picture of a swimming pool on a nice sunny day in Frankfurt and one in Cape town – the Cape town picture will always look better.”
Chris is very much interested in a digital reflex camera – he is sure it must be so much fun. At the moment, they still seem too big and not practical enough for him, because he would always like to take it with him. So what he does at the moment is trying to “pimp” his little compact camera and get as much out of it as possible, e.g. with his little stand that he just bought. But he is sure that he will a reflex very soon, he cannot wait.


Insights:
  • although pictures seem to vanish on a pc, your memories will find them
  • my house, my horse, my boat - my life in pictures
  • I don`t want to miss anything...
  • megapixel are no relevant innovations



























































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