Future Frames

What’s Ahead for Your Photography? Take Some Cues From Imaginative Pro Shooters 

- Barry Tanenbaum

FOR AN ISSUE FOCUSED ON THE FUTURE of photography, it seemed appropriate to ask photographers who’ve created innovative, forward-thinking images what motivated them to make these inventive shots.

The short answers were inspiration, compelling interests, and business acumen. The longer stories were much more interesting, illuminating, and inspiring.

HIGH CONCEPT 

Fall is the time of year that conceptual, advertising, and fine art photographer Ann Elliott Cutting thinks about promotion. “It’s when I’ll reassess,” she says, “when I’ll think, What do I want to do in the coming year, and who do I want to work for?”

This fall she decided she wanted to continue to work in the science and pharmaceutical areas. “The new thing that’s really hot in molecular biology right now is the CRISPR technique [of genetic engineering]. I thought that a Rubik’s Cube would be a good metaphor for DNA because it’s a puzzle to be solved, and I could twist and turn it to make a double helix shape. The scissors are where you cut out a piece of DNA and splice in something else. It’s a quick read for gene modification taken to the next level.”

She got three cubes, twisted them, stacked them, and photographed them at different heights so the spiral would continue when she created a single image in post production. The loose pieces were pulled from one of the cubes and fixed with putty to an apple box at different angles. The scissors were held in place with a clamp that’s hidden by one of the cubes.

Cutting’s image is imaginative and creative, a smart idea skillfully executed, but most of all it demonstrates her awareness of how to visually communicate with the market she wants to reach. “They’ll know what I’m getting at,” she says.