Grossceries – Alternative Ways Of How Things Are Made And Turned Into A Series

written by Houke de Kwant on October 30, 2018

Before shooting this series, Juhamatti Vahdersalo saw a documentary about how different groceries are made. Big factories with endless assembly lines and hundreds of machines handling products from beginning to end. That documentary became the trigger of this series called Grossceries. The name came with the idea of gross ways making groceries.

As with Juhamatti’s other works, the props here are made of wood and plastic. They scenes don’t have to be perfect in this case, because of postprocessing. This way, the whole construction process is kept efficient and doesn’t take more than a day for the entire process.

Juhamatti: “The whole process starts with sketches. I use Photoshop to draw different ideas that are in my head so I can see if they work in “real life”. When the sketch is done, I start building the props and the scene. Construction is the part that takes most of the time. Then, I shoot a couple of frames (3-5 photos) with different light setups. I usually use one flash with a beauty dish and a grid to have a good control of the light. Then, I combine these differently lit frames in Photoshop and add the details that were too intricate in real life, or easier to create in post.”