Every 3D artist should be a photographer

I’ve always loved photography, I used to use my Dad’s old 35mm (old Skool) – I upgraded to a digital camera (all of 1 mega pixel) and snapped away for years. Since then I’ve had several digital cameras that were great for taking pictures, but not really good at taking photographs. In December I bought the entry level Kodak SLR D3000 with a 55-200mm lense.

The biggest difference between SLR and Digital is the depth of field that is created by using the different focal lengths on the camera lens and the control that you have over the image.

I think everybody in 3D should have a passion for photography and film. Chris (our lighting guru) loves film and has several fancy HD cameras. Photography gives you the absolute basics in terms of camera control, rule of thirds, framing and staging a shot.

Although I don’t directly create the 3D models, I am part of the camera setup process, where I find my photography passion plays a large part. At Burn, we don’t just stick a camera into a scene and hit render – we think about what it is we are trying to achieve with a particular view. If our client needs to show a certain aspect of a scene, we are very careful about how we stage that illustration.

Each rendering that we do should be a work of art by itself. Sometimes clients are draconian in their POV choice – that’s fine – it doesn’t mean we can’t tweak that view until it’s just right but within their constraints.

There are some awesome 3D artists out there, but sometimes their choice of camera placement, composition,  stop and focal length, etc let them down. I feel that if they’d picked up a camera and did some basic photography they’d be miles ahead! In every guide I’ve read, it says to think about the subject first and not to just snap away in hope of making a hit; it doesn’t work like that.

If you’d like to get into photography, I recommend an entry level SLR (the point and click digitals don’t give you enough control that you need). The principles are easy to learn but hard to master, so keep at it!

Here are several photographs I’ve taken lately (Click to make larger!)

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