E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Special effects are certainly nothing new to the motion picture, television, and commercial, portraiture, and wedding photography industries and have been somewhat popular among amateur photographers. Some of it is kinda "kitsch"- well, not exactly purist, some of it is high tech/futuristic, other kinds are comical and humorous. It could be very artful and thought to provoke.

Much of it takes place in sophisticated motion picture production facilities, or are created by complex darkroom techniques that are painstaking tedious and time-consuming. A great deal of it is digitally based but heretofore were in the domain of professional pre-press production houses. As we all appreciate, nowadays with the advent of easily accessible post-processing methods, programs, and equipment, SPECIAL EFFECTS are virtually at our fingertips, that is if one cares to produce them.

So...recenty I was asked by one of the advertising agencies that I service, to prepare a seminar for its association, on some of the special effects that are now in the domain of photographers. The themes were no so much in technique but to stimulate ideas and approaches to advertising n and product photography projects.

For one of the classes, I decided to make up a kinda silly fictional product to conceptualize. I thought of the breakthrough ideas used by the great advertising gurus at Doyle, Dane and Burnback and J. Walter Thompson to utilize humor in advertising like the iconic Volkswagen ads that added ladybug legs to the car. It's always good to start off a serious class with a joke to relax folks and get there imagination going. This one did the trick so I thought I would let y'all in on this approach and perhaps see what y'all can come up with.

I observed that there are all kinds of modern newfangled products and services to make it east for and convenient for busy folks to shop for, prepare and serve foods. There are online shopping and pick-up apps so you don't have to bother with crowded aisles in the supermarket, The "Good Foods" folks that send you a complete frozen recipe in a box and all you do is combine and cook it, and of course, there is a multitude of frozen, freeze-dried, dehydrated and instant stuff.

So... then I decided to combine the concept of laundry detergent PODS with food packaging, for folks who don't want to measure a fuss with liquids and powders, and "invent" "MEAL PODS" Theses marvelous and miraculous products contain an entire meal and plate. When the PODS immersed in boiling water, microwaved or placed in a toaster-oven, an entire meal or multiple meals materialize and you don't even need one of those replicators like on Star Trek!

In my special effects, I had to create three versions, of pods, a ball- like the laundry kind, a cylinder for those who relate to canned goods, and a flat model that would easily slide into a toaster-oven or the browning dish in your microwave oven. It all comes in a stylized shopping bag.

I do a good volume of commercial work for the food-service industry, so I picked out a colorful dish from my files and used it as a base product and the condensed PODS.

If anyone cares to, why no try to use a special effect to tell a story, promote a favorite product- real or imagined, provide some humor or just have fun!

Heather Iles Loc: UK, Somerset

How very clever! Thanks for sharing the photos.