The Time Travelers' Diary
by Thomas Saur
The shoot for this issue’s cover image has become a multimedia project with a life of its own. The original concept told the story of two Victorian time travelers, and the “diary” in which our heroes recorded their incredible adventures in words and pictures is the project’s first major by-product. This article lets you in on some of the secrets surrounding its creation and explains some of the photographic and image processing work involved.
The Location
The location had to fulfill all sorts of criteria if it were to be a convincing stage for a story about time travel. Our protagonists had to find themselves in the midst of scenery that hinted at the past as well as the future. It was obviously going to be impossible to create this kind of nostalgic atmosphere in the studio, no matter how much work we put in, so we were on the lookout for historical buildings right from the start. We took test shots at a number of locations before aging them artificially on a computer to find out which would be best for our cover shoot. The distance to the location and the challenges involved in getting permission to shoot were important factors in our considerations, and we ended up using the Landschaftspark Nord in Duisburg (a leisure park built around industrial ruins) and the Zollverein coal mine in Essen. These industrial monuments, with their enormous old machines, seemed to us to belong to some kind of parallel universe and made the perfect backdrop for our visual ideas.
Design and Styling
Our search for the right look for our planned images led us inevitably to the steam punk scene. This fantastic mix of retro and science fiction has given rise to all sorts of sub-genres and sub-sub-genres including music, clothing, role-playing games and art. The basic physical attributes of steam punk objects are a Victorian look combined with contemporary (or future) functionality.
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