Art Direction & Commercial Lifestyle Photography for Osprey Packs
Giving Gen Z Vibes to the 24/7 Series Backpacks
It feels great to be able to share this photo campaign that I art directed and shot for Osprey Packs last year. It's always a bit anxiety producing to have to sit on a great product lifestyle photoshoot for 6-10 months but I can finally talk about this shoot openly, now!
Osprey commissioned me to produce an active lifestyle photo campaign for their 24/7 series packs (a well-built backpack primarily targeted at a college student / commuter market). I shot these packs in San Francisco a couple years back with a different look and feel - still young and energetic, but in the last moments before Gen-Z and their aesthetics became the target of so much marketing effort.
One of the things I love most about working with a brand like Osprey is the opportunity to pitch and manage the art direction early in the process. Their product is evolving, and so is the consumer base's aesthetic sensibilities. Personally, I love the aesthetics of the previous shoot, but in the interest of better engaging the demographics this product is made for, I took the project in a different direction. The emphasis would be on diverse casting, contemporary wardrobe that broke out of the core-outdoor look, and an energetic photographic style informed by Gen Z's aesthetics.
I define the Gen Z aesthetic as "late 90s party snapshots with a hint of skate culture"...sort of like my Facebook account from the time :/
I get it, the taste of this social media driven generation is largely about authenticity. Authenticity can be messy - but that doesn't mean it can't also be beautiful and stand out from the noise.
To meet the authentic/messy aesthetics but still balance the need to present the product beautifully, I cast talent that were already friends and shaped the direction around their lives and experiences. For a camera system I stayed mostly with my professional DSLR with lens objectives that matched point-and-shoot dynamics, and brought out a tool that hasn't been part of my equipment list for almost a decade, my on-camera speedlite. I also tuned up an old polariod land camera and a 35mm SLR loaded with a Portra 400. I wanted dependability at the core of the creative process, but also the latitude to experiment and add range to the final deliverables.
Part of me shuddered a little at the thought of shooting light straight at my subject, since my core aesthetics are much more "natural light" informed. But, hey, growth and challenge are why I love this work, right?
I was lucky to be able to work with wardrobe stylist and Gen Z whisperer Lisa Moir to create a look that felt authentic, free, and on-brand for the product design. The talent and I had fun putting together looks and matching them to the packs during pre-production. Personally, I'm not going to wear baggy cargo pants again - I already did that. But these three looked great in wardrobe!
Letting go enough to develop an in-the-moment POV while still maintaining creative control and talent direction is a practice I've been working at for ages. It's a great space to play in - somewhere between my editorial and commercial approaches. Sometimes it's perfect, right out of camera, and sometimes it takes a bit of extra love in post (thanks Adobe AI object recognition!).
This shoot was a fun creative challenge and I'm looking forward to my next projects that play with this aesthetic and style. It's not quite a fit for my main portfolio and I don't want to direct all my work this way - but it's certainly added some new thoughts and processes to how I approach future work.
