Jeffrey Vanhoutte- Some Spring Fun.

With the temperature getting warmer and the colors of nature slowly reappearing into the spectrum, it’s time to get in the mood for something a bit more humorous. I am pretty sure that Jeffrey Vanhoutte’s photographs are a good start for that.

Yes his photographs are used as advertisement, but I have found that those kind of pictures aside from being incredibly creative, they have a lot of room set for humor. Humor is an important element in commercial photography, however it is also a dangerous element. When presenting a product to the public, you have to be careful to catch their attention and leave a very positive impression at the same time. Problem is that everybody is trying to catch our attention, and that is when humor comes in to play. Often times when we see a funny commercial or photo ad, we are most likely to remember them with a positive opinion, and that’s exactly what advertising agencies want. Be warned though that what’s funny to some could be insulting to others, so commercial humor must be very tasteful.

The pictures below are not the typical “ha ha I peed my pants” kind of funny, but they have a very subtle light humor in them that brings a smile to my face (and hopefully yours). They’re colorful and fresh, some funny, some sexy, but all of them are simply exquisite. Vanhoutte is really a master of commercial photography, because I mean you try dealing of with a creative director of an ad agency telling (mostly yelling at) you all the do’s and don’ts for a campaign, and you having to come up with a visual representation of all the do’s that’s beyond just original.

Jeffrey was born in Belgium, and by the age of 21 he opened his own studio in Brussels. He started taking pictures of food, but according to him there was not much humor in photographing a tomato, so that’s when he branched out to commercial photography. In 1999 he started collaborating with innumerous advertising agencies around. His parents worked as package designers, so advertising was most likely in his genes. He draws inspiration from books, online, but mostly from cinematography, and throws his own humor into the mix. Nonetheless, his pictures are not all happy go lucky in style, for there is another side to his work there’s a bit more on the edgier side of things that I also happen to like.