Out of the Woods

Wednesday July 20th, 2011

As you may remember, Tom Cwenar recently won an advertising award in this year’s Communication Arts Photo Annual for his image of a tree made up of split logs. The ad was for Brunner and their client, Cub Cadet. Tom’s image intrigued me. How did he do it? Was it CG? If not, how long did it take to build? Where did the idea come from? So I decided to get in touch with the man himself and have him answer some of my questions. Tom was happy to fill me in on this interesting campaign and how it came together. Turns out, it is real, and Tom and his team built it themselves.

The job began with Tom bidding against a few other photographers. He won the bid as Brunner felt he was the best fit for the campaign. Tom had been working for Brunner for many years and was happy to continue his relationship with them with such an interesting project.

Tom soon found out that he would be building the tree himself. He was told that the inspiration came from a sculpture that the creative director had seen along his travels. With the concept in mind, Tom and his team set out, “to illustrate the capabilities of Cub’s Log Splitter series, and how you can get carried away with splitting wood because their splitters are fun and easy to use, but in a graphic way.”

Tom, the creative director and the retoucher worked tirelessly to create the final results. In the end, the image was a successful representation of the original concept and everyone was very pleased, including Brunner, Cub Cadet and Communication Arts.

I asked Tom how they actually went about building the sculpture and creating the photo,

One log at a time, kinda like Paul Bunyon, but with a camera.  I built it in sections to scale in my studio, lit it then shot it. We had so many different shapes and sizes of logs, it was definitely like building a puzzle, but a heavy one that moves. It took about two days in the studio to build. I then created a natural lighting scheme that highlighted the texture and form of the logs to match the other elements of the ad.

Today, more campaigns are created from composited images than ever before. Technology has given us tools that can recreate ideas and concepts that were once unobtainable because of the logistics of a particular project.  It has expanded the creative process to include the “what if’s” that photographers only dreamed of before.

Here’s a short video of the process:

Tom also shared some advice for working with wood, “Wear gloves, splinters suck.”

After speaking with Tom, I caught up with the project’s creative director, Dave Vissat to hear a little more about the project. “Tom and I have been working together for over 20 years. He wants to produce good work and so do I, in spite of budget challenges.” Dave also went into a little more detail on the shoot’s inspiration and creation,

The inspiration came from a sculpture that Alastair Heseltine created in Canada some years ago. It was a cool visual to help communicate the splitting power of the Cub Cadet log splitter. We contacted him, and he was flattered that we where interested in his piece, but he informed us that he burned it. He heats his home with a log burner. The most difficult aspect of the shoot was recreating the sculpture in studio. We had 3 cords of wood dumped into Tom’s studio.

Then we started the slow process of rebuilding the sculpture in sections, shooting, rebuilding, digitally assembling in a rough manner as we shot. We used Dwight Pritchett to do all the final retouching, like Tom, he did a kick butt job. This job just reaffirmed my opinion of Tom, that he can shoot anything and do it well.

- Maria