Pullitzer Prize winning photographer Barbara Davidson turned to an unorthodox camera for her new photo exhibition: a Volvo.
Forsman & Bodenfors new work for the brand features a photo exhibition by Davidson shot entirely with the Volvo XC60’s City Safety system. Davidson used the City Safety camera located on the car’s front windshield to capture moments of life as viewed from the Volvo and the resulting exhibit, which she also curated, opened at London’s Canvas Studios on July 4. Forsman & Bodenfors also put together this “Moments Feat. Barbara Davidson” spot documenting the process. Davidson explains at the opening of the spot that she in a car accident as a young girl and was told that she survived “because the car was a Volvo.”
It’s an extension of the “Moments” campaign which the agency launched for Volvo last month with a spot directed by Gustav Johansson.
“I would say, ‘Turn right, slow down, move a little to the left,'” Davidson explained to The New York Times. “I was essentially framing my images in the screen that they had created for me in the car so I could see how they would look. Later, I edited pulling screen grabs off that video.”
Amateur photographers shouldn’t expect to be able to replicate the experiment, however. As The New York Times points out, Davidson’s car was “hacked by Volvo’s computer experts to allow her to see the camera’s video output in real time and compose images as a precision driver shepherded her through Copenhagen earlier this year.”
“I think the car camera has incredible artistic potential,” Davidson told the publication, “and conceptual artists in particular are going to want to explore it. The fun part for me was that I was able to turn off my photojournalist mode.”
See some of Davidson’s photographs here.