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I was working for AgResearch developing infographics and dashboards when I discovered that simple photographs made for a knockout background to overlay messaging, metrics and graphs. The rich colour and visceral texture from real world objects outperformed backgrounds consisting of gradients or supporting Illustrator drawings. Following this eureka moment, I developed the mantra, "Nothing pops like a photo" and didn't look back.

 

But - one problem. Finding suitable images was a nightmare. Existing stock photos didn't have an ideal ratio of subject to space, nor the appropriate positioning of the subject to optimise the amount of available space. This needled at me, until I purchased my own camera so I could create an inventory of photo canvases, where I could very deliberately include enough of the subject for it to be recognisable, but shooting it well into and over margins to leave "more room for activities" (yep, that's a Step Brothers reference, something I'll endeavor to include in every blog post).

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The examples below, all shot late March at Lake Hawea Station in Otago, show how balancing composition and the ratio of subject:space has created real estate for bespoke elements.