Nick Meek – Judd : Full CG

Judd with Nick Meek

A sleek black M1 forms a dark dynamic wedge that interplays with the shapes of an abstract sculpture.

Walking around the sand and aligning the massive elements with the car, the viewer can get lost in this creative exploration game. Sometimes the car forms a striking diagonal, sometimes it’s the focal point in recurring framing elements.

The desert’s like a canvas for the photographer’s eye to juxtapose the pale concrete artwork– created purely for art in this space, scoured by wind and sand – and the deep hot black angularity of the car that’s been driven to it,  a machine built with function and movement in mind.

These images show the photographer’s own interpretation of what each sculpture is trying to say, as well as how they can counterpoint the car to tell a new story.

How we did it:
This series is a collaborative experiment by photographer Nick Meek with post-production studio Recom Farmhouse. We set out to see how far it’s possible to push the boundaries of photographic realism in full CGI.We created a set with the correct natural terrain, materials and light, which the photographer could then ‘walk’ around, choosing lenses, angles and sun position, but always within the real world parameters that the photographer would have shot.The wedge-shaped BMW M1 in classic gloss black sets off the rough concrete forms. In every choice – car positioning, angles, lighting, rendering, grain, we chose to be as accurate as possible to analogue photography.Graded with meticulous care, the series is as close to the film grade as possible.Finally, we carefully scanned and graded original film borders to make a true, respectful recreation of analogue photography in 100% CGI.This is a series that’s a world away from flamboyant retouching – we have framed it as absolute photographic classicism, to show that working in CGI can embrace everything we love about photography. See the whole series on our site here.

Behind the scenes video:

Credits