Storefront photography project

Storefront photography project - A lot of pictures

During the design of our Westfield.com site, we were required to source storefront images for each retailer in our malls across the United States. It was important to us to set the most accurate expectations before coming to the center. sWhen we contacted professional photographers to scope the work out, we were given quotes that would have killed the project. The issue with the pro photographers is that they required off hour access to the malls, special lighting to offset the bright lighting from inside the retailer, and a lot of time. Huge costs involved. I headed down to the mall and figured out how to get the photos, during operating hours, and with no fancy equipment. I also came up with a system for the center leasing department to implement when new retailers came on board that made it easy to obtain and manage the photography. I even photographed 4 centers myself.

Project Goals

Source storefront photography for all US centers
Create a catalogue of photos that is easily manageable

Role and Responsibilities

Production Design Manager/Photographer
Set and define standards for storefront imagery
Coordinate with 15 photographers around the US
Photograph 4 centers to set the standard
Create photo re-naming tool
Create documentation and share with US centers

Outcome

We took upwards of 20,000 photos and processed them down to the 7,000 that we needed. I created the image guideline to help center management continue to be able to add photos as new tenants would join. I photographed 4 centers myself, SF Centre, Valley Fair, Oakridge, and Century City. Each center taking about 4 to 6 hours to photograph. As for the 15 photographers that we worked with for the other 43 centers, they would photograph the centers and Fed Ex their memory cards where we would take the raw files and process them to fit our style guidelines.