Cluttered rooms. Terrible ambient light. Cramped working spaces. For most photographers those are a series of photographic nightmares, but for Dimitris Poupalos it's where he thrives. He likes the challenge of walking into a complicated situation and turning chaos into a symphony.
"I like to give each object in the room the chance to be its own model," says Poupalos, a commercial photographer based in Athens, Greece.
His series of operating room photos – shot for Greek health-care company Hygeia Group – create a narrative, cinematic frame from mundane subjects. Using contrast to expertly isolate parts of the room, Poupalos creates a clear way for the viewer's eye to move through an otherwise cluttered image.
To get that meticulous contrast, Poupalos sets up five or six studio flashes. He then takes up to 100 shots, changing the light in each one. Once he's lit the room multiple ways, he culls through the edit and picks his top 30 frames. Then in Photoshop he starts combining them in layers, devising the best way for the various light scenarios to work in concert to bring out the features and mood of the room. Poupalos is aware of operating rooms as places of life and death and he doesn't shy away from creating a serious, somber tone.
"I can create lot of different atmospheres so it all depends on how I decide to use the photos," he says. "All those machines have a lot of stories that are related to human lives and I wanted people to be able to pay attention to each one."
Other projects Poupalos has tackled include a series of industrial shots and several furniture factories. Nothing says boring more than a chair manufacturer, but Poupalos says he enjoyed finding a way to take an otherwise mundane visual situation and turn into something worth looking at.
"I think things that are too clean are boring," he says. "It's all about using your light and allowing the smallest detail to make the photo."
