Potemkin Loo, 1988

Fantasy factories

As I mentioned in my introduction to this Toronto series (also see tag below), in late 1987 I graduated from studio sweeper and toilet scrubber at the sprawling downtown studios of TDF to a position at equally gigantic Pringle & Booth, out in Markham, Ontario.

These huge photo factories produced everything from advertising and magazine illustrations to corporate portraits. But catalogue and flyer photography was the bread and butter of the business.

Probably eighty-percent of our time was spent shooting product and fashion images for retailers like Eaton’s, The Bay, Canadian Tire, and Sears, some of whom, whether through mismanagement and/or slumping sales, have recently shuttered their countrywide retail outlets.

Bloodied but unbowed

Fashion studios usually occupied a floor of their own. They were relatively clean and civilized by comparison to the large product studios. They typically included a built-in “infinity cove,” curving out from an end wall abutted by a stretch of hardwood floor.

The cove could be painted according to colour schemes assigned by the design team with paint mixed in a paint shop worthy of Home Depot.

Rushing to mix a batch of paint one day, I put a gallon can into the agitator on the skew, so that the can didn’t tighten down. The machine, at eye level, rattled ominously and, with no safety chamber to contain it, launched the tin at my head.

When I came to, bathed in blood, colleagues suggested a trip to the hospital was in order. I spent the rest of the day having my left eyebrow sewn back together.

Powder rooms and light painting

Adjoining dressing rooms were spare, painted white, dominated by a light-ringed theatre mirror. After a busy day, floors and counters were coated in smears of lipstick and blush.

Electronic studio strobes, capable of freezing action, were the lighting of choice. Cameras were usually medium format Hasselblads.

Offices included space for designers and booking agents, and The Boss. There were several light-proof film-changing rooms, where some employees were known to exchange other services.

Fully-equipped woodworking shops, staffed by a crew of carpenters, produced room sets. Large prop rooms, stocked by roaming buyers, contained a continually changing collection of bric-a-brac: vases, artwork, statuary, books, curtains, carpets, etc. Regular prop turnover avoided duplicate decor between shots. Perfectly good ornaments and other household goods ended up in studio dumpsters, where I often dived to rescue stuff for our sparsely furnished communal house in the “New Bohemian” neighbourhood of Queen Street West. I still have one of those rescued treasures.

All studios contained a commercial-grade lab that developed negative and transparency film in less than an hour.

The cavernous product studios covered many thousands of square feet. On any given day, half-a-dozen room sets — bedrooms, living-rooms, bathrooms — were erected, furnished, styled, and lit with an array of Fresnel lights (the kind you see on Hollywood film sets). Large format view cameras, 4×5, 8×10, even 11×14 inch for two-page spreads, were the cameras of choice. Scattered among these Potemkin rooms, individual products —  from snowblowers to barbecues — are similarly set up and photographed.

Product photography has always relied on a combination of fine detail, produced by the resolving power of larger cameras, and the idealization of masterful lighting. The ultimate objective of this industry, after all, was to coax the consumer out of their homes into the retailer’s showrooms.

A client or the company’s art director will have an idea, often vague, of the quality of light they want to illuminate their latest commodity. It is the photographer’s job to “paint” the product in alluring light, using tools like gels, cookies, reflectors, diffusers, and other modifiers. And so, Sears’ “spotty lighting” was born.

Toil and trouble

I don’t exaggerate when I call these places sweatshops.

During a scheduled break in Fashion Studio 2, I suggested to management that I refinish the hardwood floor, pockmarked by high heels and toppling light stands. “Great idea, Ray.”

I rented a floor sander.

With equipment all under drop cloths and the studio thick with dust, the studio manager burst in, demanding I set up for a Canadian Tire flyer shoot. Never was the term “gobsmacked” more appropriate. “You want me to do what?”

Shoot a dozen products by the end of the day.

I vacuumed up as much dust as possible, including inside the bellows of the Deardorff view camera. The shots were complex; one requiring a water bath backlit by a purple-gelled light. Under the circumstances, I thought I did a pretty good job. I sent film down to the lab.

Before I could retrieve it, the manager strode back into the studio, throwing the resulting 4×5 transparencies onto the light table. “What’s this shit?” he demanded.

I walked out into the evening, screaming into the wind.

Hired guns like my tormentor usually had little to no background in the craft; they were hired for their threatening size, demeanour, and lack of empathy. I suspected the whole thing was a setup to test my resilience.

Career in the toilet

The loo shot above was the last catalogue image I made at Pringle & Booth. The studio slave drivers claimed they couldn’t spare assistants for this Sears job, so I built the set, lit it, and shot it with an 8×10 Deardorff camera using Kodak transparency film. Thankfully, I cornered a stylist at the last minute to make sure the curtains and towels were artfully arranged.

Still, the enforcers claimed I moved too slowly. I was called to the office and, in the nicest possible way, the boss fired me.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was just about to quit.”

When you gotta go, you gotta go.