French photographer Philippe Echaroux normally uses Hasselblad cameras, Elinchrom lights, and other pricey equipment to capture his stunning portraits of celebrities and other subjects, according to Australian Photography.
But now, for his latest projects, he’s downgraded to using his iPhone, a small flashlight, a straw, and a McDonald’s Big Mac box.
Echaroux was looking for a challenge, so someone put him up to the “The Big Mac Portrait Challenge” where he uses the low-grade equipment to capture his portraits. And results are just as stunning as if he used his fancy expensive equipment.
And results are just as stunning as if he used his fancy expensive equipment.
He still, however, retouches his photos, but he does so on his iPhone using VSCO, Photoshop Fix, and Lightroom Mobile apps. Echaroux, who describes himself on Instagram as “sometimes a photographer sometimes a street artist 2.0,” prefaced his new challenge on Instagram saying, “New Stupid Photographic Challenge Coming Soon!!!”
This isn’t his first photo challenge and probably won’t be his last.
Echaroux’s latest body of work proves that you don’t have to drop a ton of cash on high-end equipment just to make beautiful art.
All he does is carve out a piece of the box to lay the flashlight in and uses the straw and a second slit in the box to prop it up. Then he holds the light up to his subject and snaps the photo on his iPhone.
The photographs come up looking drastically different than his subjects do it in real life and have that signature Echaroux look.
You can see what we mean below. His subject’s eyes seem as if you’re looking into infinity and appear to reflect him capturing the photo, while their skin and prominent facial features seem to glow.
“I like to challenge myself,” Echaroux told PetaPixel.
Last year, Echaroux mastered another challenge by taking portraits in a makeshift studio he had to create in a building hallway.
According to Bored Panda, the most difficult part of The Big Mac Portrait Challenge for him was not feeling stupid while holding up a fast food box to people’s faces as he snapped their photo on a cell phone.
“With this video, his main goal was not to show his skills but to push people to try to do what they have in mind with no excuse for waiting,” Bored Panda’s Rick Banes writes.
Echaroux was surprised by the overwhelming response from his project which got more than 5000 shares on PetaPixel.
“Wow, Woke up this morning and saw this 500 shares??!!!??!?” he said on Instagram.
His video has also gotten more than 40,282 views on YouTube and you can watch it below.
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