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.


13 August 2009

Emotional Resonance

Jay is a 25 year old bar tender who works in a cocktail bar in East London. He studied photography at university and worked as a photojournalist for a short time. He now does a bit of free lance work but doesn’t take it too seriously. His first camera was a Pentax and since then he has used Canons. He warns me early on that he is a bit of a “photo snob”. After a while it is clear what he means by this; he would much rather still use film than digital cameras. In his opinion “What you get with digital photos is exactly what is there. Whereas with film there’s a richness… it’s hypernatural.” With his digital cameras “I get frustrated when I know what I want and know I can’t get it.” It follows that his ideal camera would be a digital camera that “gives you photos that look as rich and as real as film.” He still thinks there is yet to be a digital camera that is as good as a film camera.
I am curious what photographers he admires but he says that “I honestly don’t have a favourite photographer. It’s not about photographers. I react to individual images. A good photo has to literally just grab you.”

Insights:
• Great photos grab you and cause an emotional reaction.
• Having an idea in your head and not being able to reproduce it with your camera can be very frustrating.
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