Slam Jam Showroom, Paris

Photography Luca Piffaretti

A contemporary showroom with special attention given to the lighting to isolate and highlight the products on display. 

One of the best aspects of being an interior / architectural photographer is the chance to travel to different locations every day. We are on a journey of self-discovery which can take us to all parts of the country and abroad, finding ourselves in wide-open spaces one minute to small interior rooms the next.

Luca has discovered new spaces and locations he would have never seen before and a few times every year he gets commissions that involve travelling abroad.

This can be a an enjoyable time or a rather stressful experience for someone who fears flying — yes, Luca is not a fan of air travel, but thankfully one of his regular commissions involves taking photos of Slam Jam’s showroom in Paris during Fashion Week, meaning he can easily reach his destination by Eurostar.

Half of the fun of what we do is exploring but we’re here to talk about photography, so we’ll turn our focus to certain aspects that make this particular job very interesting. 

Slam Jam is a forward-thinking fashion, music and culture retail platform and twice a year opens a temporary showroom in the heart of the Parisian fashion district.

During the past two years the design of the space was curated by Berlin based studio, Gonzalez Haase, known for their minimalistic transformation of spaces in collaboration with fashion brands and art galleries. For this project they created a series of display platforms, chairs and clothes hangers using industrial materials like PVC, Aluminium and particle boards.

All these elements can  be easily moved around adapting to the temporary nature of the space.

From a technical point of view the project did not present many problems, except the mix of natural and artificial light meant a bit of post-production magic in order to eliminate the colder tones coming from the skylight. What posed a challenge was the time at Luca’s disposal to complete the photoshoot.

As often happens with temporary structures, the final touches are completed just hours before the official opening which leaves a very limited window of time for photography: In this case, about 1.5 hours before all the clothes were positioned on the hangers and the buyers started flooding the space.

Because photos had to be taken quickly Luca couldn’t use his usual set up (camera tethered to a MacBook air), resulting in some annoying discoveries once he checked the photos on a bigger screen on the train ride back to London: a few bottles of water forgotten “on set” the night before and a bin peering from behind a table….however we think he did a great job! Good luck next year Luca.