Technical Photography – An introduction to our work
“A picture tells more than a thousand words.” According to this motto, the instruction manuals prepared by the Ingenieurbüro für Technische Dokumentation Dr.-Ing. André Cajar (consulting engineering firm Dr.-Ing. André Cajar specialising in technical documentation) see examples) are provided with many illustrations.
Digitally taken photographs – edited and captioned – make up for the largest part of the illustrations in the instruction manuals. All of the captions are added in the word processing program.
In the following, we would like to take a closer look at the problems related to industrial photography, the possibilities of digital photography the Ingenieurbüro für Technische Dokumentation Dr.-Ing. André Cajar can take advantage of, and details of digital image editing.
Problems of industrial photography
- Time pressure, since the photo call is often arranged between commissioning and transport.
- The machine to be photographed may not be completely assembled, incompletely painted, or soiled as a result of test runs.
- Often, large objects must be photographed in confined conditions
- Inconsistent lighting due to different light sources in the manufacturing shop.
- Partly strong shadow zones next to strongly reflecting surfaces, making the use of a flash unreasonable.
- The installation of one’s own lighting equipment often fails because of local space-related circumstances and time pressure.
- Disturbing details in the surroundings of the machine (distracting from the actual image contents).
- Lack of suitable viewpoints for taking pictures of the entire machine or necessary details.