Jakarta Noir Style

Jakarta Noir Style by Fahmi R

Fahmi’s Introduction

There’s one thing that I love in mobile photography, it uniqueness. Creativity and imagination are the main elements to create a great style of mobile photography, those elements also affect the way to interpret the imaginations into photographs, such in a style of editing. One thing that attracts me is noir photography.  This classic style that usually use in Hollywood crime dramas was inspired Andy Priyantoko to apply the noir effect into his style of photography.

Andy Priyantoko @andypriyantoko is a creative consultant, his creativity to mix the style of Film Noir with his own perspective create a great collaborations and made us drifted into his great imaginations. Not only black and white, he also use another colors when he applied that noir effect into his photographs such blue and sepia and it make the result look more dramatic and cinematic.

Here the interview between Andy Priyantoko and I.

F: Fahmi A: Andy

F: Please tell me about your general backgrounds, a short story about your life.

A: My name is Andy Priyantoko. I was born and life in Jakarta, the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Work at a communication consultant firm as creative consultant, I handle multimedia works such as video production and other creative works for my clients. Photography is part of my daily activities which related to visual communication. As a big city, Jakarta has various peoples with diverse cultures, this is why Jakarta never lacked an objects to be captured.I love this city even though there are so many problems should be solved.

F: Ok I’m curious about your photography style, can you tell me what is it and why you choose it as your main genre for your photographs?

A: I called it Noir style photo. Noir means black in French but known well for a style of movie, such as American crime and detective films in France. For me, noir almost similar with monochrome which is dominated by dark black and other additional color such as white, sepia, or even blue. I like this style because noir has unique characteristic of lights, differs from black-and-white photos in general. And this is very challenging since I only use Android device (Acer tablet) to achieve this effect. On iOS, you can get noir effect by less than 3 steps using Noir Photo app, while Android’s users has to use one or more apps to achieve similar result by more than 10 steps.

F: Can you tell me shortly about the process to making a noir photo style? What apps did you use for?

A: I use Picsay Pro by Shinycore to achieve noir effect. But in some cases, I also use Picsart and Little Photo to have HDR effect on my noir photos. Basically, we play with “Spotlight” effect to make one or more light effects (on PicSay Pro) by considering the light directions to achieve natural light effect. We can also add additional effects such as “Soft Glow” and/or “Sharpen” and “Smooth” to make your noir photo sharper but still smooth.

F: Can you tell me what kind of photographs that most suitable for this noir effect? Can you explain it why? And is it any kind of photographs that not suitable for noir effect?

A: Basically, noir effect can be applied for any kind of photos, such as landscape, human interest, buildings, or even macro photographs. But for some cases, building and landscape can produce more dramatic picture when we apply noir effects. This is why most of my noir collections are buildings and landscape. Human interest and portrait was the most challenging object to apply noir effect, because I have to maintain the character and keep it natural.

F: I see.. what actually inspired you the most to seek the way to create noir effects in android? Did you just curious or what? 

A: Bill Far, a photographer who lives in Korea, has introduced me to noir photography. He used Noir Photo app on his iOS devices and he challenged me to create similar effect on Android. After trying several times, I finally found a wayon how to achieve noir effect on Android. Since then I continued to improve the noir effect techniques in my photographs.

F: Can I tell the noir photo is the best style for you to interpret the object? And what did you want to deliver for someone who seeing your work, is there any hidden message? Actually for me sometimes I see a sorrow behind your photographs. Can you explain more about it?

A: Yes, I do really love noir as I loved black-and-white photos. Noir effect tends to make photo look gloomy, sad, orterrifying, but in some cases noir effect will quide the audience to look at the point of interest (POI) of a photo. We can use the light effects to set the POI of photo. There’s no specific messages to be conveyed on my noir photo. I just play with lights and make an ordinary photo looks better, cool and dramatic. It’s all about fun.

F: It’s all about fun.. Sounds nice.. You have a great result with your experiment about noir photo. As you know Android has many variety device with different specifications, is there any handicap to create this noir photo style with the low-end Android device? Can you suggest me which kind of Android device is actually fit the most to create this noir photo effect?

A: Basically there’s no specific requirement is needed to achieve good noir effect, as long as your Android device able to run apps such as PicSay Pro, Little Photo and/or PicsArt. But I suggest you to use a big screen device, especially when you play with multi-layer editing. An Android tablet PC can be considered as your weapon.

Afterall I can say Andy Priyantoko has a great job in his works, an it totally awesome! Keren om Andy, gw bangga bisa featuring elo disini.. Hahahaha..