I’m often asked to photograph some of the robots SRI International is working with. Those robots are always one of a kind (ok sometimes there is more than one) and it’s challenging to capture a robot as an image. You see a lot of videos of robots on Youtube but rarely images. The reason I believe, is that we think of robots as something in motion, therefore our mental representation of a robot is not static.
A robot is per definition something that moves, grabs, fold, paint, etc. (you get the point, it’s not motionless) while a photograph is motionless. How do you capture the concept of robot in a photograph ?
The idea I have used (in the image above) is a multi shot image where you can see the robot grasping the object.
The other technique that seems to work well, is to put the robot in a stance that’s imply movement. SRI International made another version of the same concept by blurring more of the robot
In this image (below), Charlie the robot and Aravind look like friends or teammates. I love this image for many reasons but it’s interesting to observe that this image is the last image we took during the photo shoot. The photo shoot concept image was the composite image at the top. Once we got that done and while everything was setup, the researchers start to get more creative and were asking for their own pictures with the robot. Nothing planned but I love the result.
Aravind and the robot “Charlie”
In this image, I have used a very wide angle lens to increase the size of the gripper relative to the robot. The important new technology SRI was developing was this new gripper and the robot was an off-the-shelf robot. But you should get the notion that this robot can grasp things.
The robot “Fetch” (Youbot Kuka) with custom hand.
– this image shows a typical product shot and it’s hard to know what this robot does (it’s a coffee robot).
Innovative coffee robot from Robosoft
Willow Garage PR2 robots
All the images presented here are available for licensing or as fine art prints.