Whats new: Behind the scenes at Rimagine studios is where it's all happening...

In early December 2011, our senior photographer David turned an idea into reality he had for quite some time: A series of moody fashion visuals, shot on-location on a chilly Shanghai winter evening. Below is a first shot of what we think turned out to be a quite beautiful series! Click on the image below to see more shots. A big thank you to Anna (model), Ajuan (stylist and make-up), LJ (retoucher) and Pingfei (producer).

We just created two simple but we think lovely product group shots for our long-term customer EKCESS (www.ekcess.net). The company, based in China and in the U.S., looks for innovative merchandising items to import them into the U.S. The company has already been operating successfully since a long time.

We regularly shoot products for them since many years, having done the first shoot in Shanghai in 2006. At this stage we would like to thank Tyler and his entire team for the on-going business! We also hope we soon get the chance to do a third catalog!

Our photographer Ray and art director Jonathan Weston created this awesome special-effect shot with water splashes for the great guys over at FUNC FACTORY (www.funcfactory.com), producer of functional golf, ski and beach sports wear. The shot was used for one of their first ad campaigns in the U.S., and was well received by their clients.

In order to create this shot, we put a huge inflatable water pool in the middle of our studio and rented special Broncolor lights to capture the fast-moving water drops in the way we wanted it! Thanks for the great cooperation!

We are happy to have just launched our new website. New look, new images, new content and fonts. Thanks to Neil and Dan over at Mediacake - it was a pure pleasure to work with such easy-going, professional and creative pro's like you. We hope you enjoy our new look and feel and are happy for any comments.

Since the beginning of this year we work a lot for the American product development company 3M. In the past couple of weeks we took dozens of shots of various products, such as desk lamps, post-it dispensers, water filters, etc. Below we just like to share some couple of new shots!

OVS INDUSTRY, one of the most known fashion brands in Italy with more than $1 US billion in sales, recently hired us to shoot their next look book. The two-day shoot involved in total four models and the entire production, including model booking, HMA, fashion stylist and retouching was managed and produced by our in-house production team. We like to thank Cynthia and her great team for this smooth and easy production!

 

 

 

There’s a good article in one of our favorite photography magazines, PDN (Photo District News), about the current landscape of commercial photography in China. The article gives a general and honest introduction of the pro’s and con’s of doing photography in China, and does not miss to also touch the challenges, which we also face on a daily basis.

 

Below some of the key points as summary:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Shooting assignments in China can be a lot of fun, if you can take the maddening aspects of it in stride. “It’s like the Wild West,” he says. “All of the sudden there’s all this money, and not that many people know what they’re doing.”

 

• He’s shot in studios that have lights rigged with ropes, cyc walls that are chipped and cracked, and floors that are “almost like dirt.” The bathrooms are “still just a hole in the ground,” unspeakably disgusting, “and there’s a $200,000 production going on in the next room. The contrast is remarkable.”

 

• It was a four-day shoot that called for 300 extras. “No way we could have afforded to shoot that here,” he says. But he also recalls landing in China with all his gear—and having to ship it back because he couldn’t get it through customs.

 

• Growing numbers of photographers in the U.S. and Europe are going after work in China because it looks, from a distance at least, like a pot of gold. The economy in the west is sluggish, competition is fierce, and rates are stagnant. China holds out the promise of new opportunities.

 

• Choo says that China looks modern and cosmopolitan, but scratch beneath the surface, and you quickly run up against the old China.

 

Thanks to the PDN Online Team for describing the current Chinese photography landscape so honestly!

 

We are happy to be featured in the March edition of PHOTONEWS, one of our favorite German photography magazines which gets published since 1989 with ten editions each year. The article talks about our adventurous beginnings, explains our original business idea (helping companies to save time and money by getting photographs of their products directly out of China) and also looks at the challenges and opportunities of photo studios in Shanghai and China in general.

Feel free to read the entire article by clicking on the image below (the article is unfortunately in German only).

 

We are happy to announce that we just launched a Freelance Model Database Shanghai! If you are interested in doing modeling jobs, feel free to add yourself to our database. Should we have any appropriate job one of our producers will be contacting you with information such as shooting topic, date and time, pay, etc.

 

 

Modeling jobs are either fashion related (photo shoots for fashion catalogs, homewear, underwear, nightwear, swimwear,..) or corporate (for advertising, brochures, websites, annual reports, etc.). In general, all age groups are welcome!

And now, please feel free to add yourself to the database.