CUTTING EDGE

THE NEW DIMENSION

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR PHOTOGRAPHY? CAROLINE WILKINSON GRILLS COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER NICK SAGLIMBENI – WINNER OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL AWARD FOR 3D PHOTOGRAPHY – TO FIND OUT HIS THOUGHTS

MAIN IMAGE: “The contrast of beauty and destruction has become a common theme in my work. This image was for a fashion feature, called Warehouse Wonderland, shot for Issue 2 of WMB 3D.”

NOT LONG AGO, digital photography was no more than a sci-fi concept: a computer geek’s fantasy. Now, Pinhole, Lomo and Polaroid are ‘retro’, the megapixel race is a sprint towards gigapixel and super-sensitive sensors adorn pocket-sized cameras – whatever next? A ‘shoot first; focus later’ camera? No, Lytro has already got that one pegged. According to award-winning photographer Nick Saglimbeni, it’s 3D. He’s so convinced that 3D photography is the future that he’s launched the first magazine to feature 3D stills photography and spent thousands developing a new 3D camera that’s magnetising manufacturers like Sony, just to be ahead of the curve.

“Print is not the future of stills photography; tablets and screens are,” claims Nick. “Giant 3D televisions in your living room are the future, slideshows on your iPad or 30in Bravia 3D computer monitors. I feel horrible saying this in a print magazine interview, but when the world goes 3D, print won’t be able to keep up. It will go the way of film.

“At the moment, the industry is in limbo; print is the dominant force, and tablets and phones haven’t fully embraced 3D yet. And that’s okay. For me, the most important thing was to do it first and do it right. It doesn’t matter if everyone understands what my team is doing; what matters is that we are advancing the 3D artform. I knew when I saw the movie Avatar that times were about to change and I thought if James Cameron could make a planet with fictional 9ft creatures and ships from the future all happen in 3D, it should be easy for me to shoot a fashion model in a hot outfit.”

Having tried and tested existing 3D technology and found it to be awful, Nick set upon developing his own 3D camera with an engineering firm. Still puzzled why major camera manufacturers haven’t jumped on the 3D bandwagon with the movie industry, and finding fashion magazines less than enthusiastic about the new media, he published his own title for 3D photography, called World’s Most Beautiful, with the view of changing that. “It’s not surprising the world hasn’t embraced 3D stills when you look at what’s being published: images of dogs and women with balloons – no one cares about that in 2D, let alone 3D. I wanted to give viewers a more visceral experience of what they already like in 2D: the biggest celebrities, fastest cars, luxury locations and beautiful women. My theory was if I delivered all these things in a way that they’ve not been seen before, I might generate some interest.” And it certainly has.

Nick’s first collection of 3D fashion images, called Nuclear Summer, won him this year’s Sony World Photography Award 3D grand prize – the first international award for 3D stills photography. So, is this new category an indication of manufacturers agreeing that this is the imminent future of photography? “I definitely think people are taking notice and I know we’re at the forefront because I put the magazine out a year ago and I’m still yet to see 3D images that have as much depth, that are as sharp as ours, as high-resolution as ours or images where the artist can still retouch the model or scene like ours.”

Nuclear Summer was the first major shoot he did with his new camera and describes it as a very tense day: “The shoot was originally done to pitch to fashion magazines, so I hired a stunning Swedish fashion model, my go-to stylist, brought out my top-tier hair and make-up people and rented a fantastic abandoned gold mine village in the Mojave desert. I was definitely apprehensive: you put all that time, money and effort into a shoot with 2D and at least you can look at the LCD monitor and know if you’ve got the shot. With 3D, I wasn’t going to know if the images were even going to work out once I got home and my team put them through post-production.”

If you’re anything like me, you’ll think James Cameron broke the 3D mould producing Avatar, as since then, every 3D movie seems to be painful to watch – often literally; offering headaches as a free concession for the constant barrage of flying images as you’re forced to focus on different areas. So why should stills be more enjoyable? “It’s a more tranquil experience: it’s a frozen moment in time so the viewer can choose how long they want to spend with that image and how to digest it,” says Nick. “We’ve studied factors like where the eyes naturally want to focus, how much depth-of-field is tolerable to the brain and at what point something is too close or too soft before it becomes frustrating for the viewer to look at. Focusing and depth-of-field are critical, but you also have to make sure the lighting falls on the subject the same for both eyes: if you have flare in one eye and not the other, when the images are combined the brain gets confused.”

Nick’s cutting-edge technology was borne out of researching the work of successful 3D cinematographers like Mauro Fiore and learning from their frustrations so he didn’t make the same mistakes. But how does Nick’s camera bypass these pitfalls? Who knows?! Talking to Nick about the functionality of his camera is a very cloak-and-dagger experience, but you wouldn’t expect much else when money’s involved. With big camera companies and Japanese businessmen knocking at his door, I didn’t have much chance of getting the information for free. But he did say this: “Put it this way, it’s far less complicated than people probably imagine. My prime focus is on image quality and when I look at conventional 3D technology, the lenses are poor and sensors are awful. I built my camera with that in mind. I wanted gigantic sensors, gigantic frame sizes and still use the same amazing lenses I’ve used my entire 2D career. I was a cinematographer in my previous life and I’m a nerd about glass, so when I used 3D cameras with their 1cm lenses, I knew I couldn’t shoot anything of quality, and certainly not at a professional level. Half of what makes our system different, though, is the way the images are edited: my genius post-production supervisor and I have developed algorithms for processing 3D stills photography, which can’t be done using conventional software like Photoshop.”

In the face of millions of new amateur and aspiring professional photographers, Nick is certainly taking the adapt-or-die concept seriously. “Anyone wanting to make a dent in this industry must either be extremely talented or have a ton of money to invest in PR. I have a team of artists and my job is to ensure we stay at the cutting edge as the industry evolves.” So is Nick at the helm of the next generation of photographers or a commercial photographer trying to carve a place in a saturated industry? You decide. But one thing’s for sure, if 3D does go mainstream you won’t be able to hide behind your camera anymore, according to Nick. “DSLRs have made it so a monkey could pick up a camera and take a decent shot: people who don’t even know what an f/stop is are calling themselves professional photographers. For me, the pre-Instagram, pre-digital days of film was the golden age of photography and that technical side of shooting is going to return with 3D. It’s very exciting.”

Despite Nick’s enthusiasm for his progressive ventures, I can’t help but think that having to look through red-cyan glasses to view a still image isn’t going to make it into the mainstream. Nick tries to convince me otherwise: “You’re right. The glasses are a huge roadblock. One of the frustrations is that releasing 3D in print is extremely limiting as you’re forced to revert back to the old 1950s red-cyan glasses technology. I could have the biggest star in the world on the front of my magazine, but if people have to put on glasses, no one takes the technology seriously. It’s limiting at the moment, but we’re six months to two years away from a transformation. One of the reasons people don’t notice what’s happening in 3D technology is because it is still perceived as an antiquated technology. I don’t think people realise how right around the corner we are from the industry transforming. Once Apple go 3D, it’s all over.” ▪

Pull quote: “ONCE APPLE GO 3D, IT’S ALL OVER”

Picture notes:
1) Visit Nick’s website to see these images in 3D.
2) Kim Kardashian was the inaugural cover model for WMB 3D, shot at f/5.6 and by diffusing multiple flashes with silk.
3) Warehouse Wonderland series was shot using a mixture of sunlight and ProFoto Acute 2R strobes.
4) To get the scattered light effect on the model, Nick had shards of mirror stuck to a sheet of cardboard and bounced flash off the walls to fill in shadows.
5) Nick uses wind fans to create movement.
6) The series Nuclear Summer, was all shot using daylight at f/8.

Sidebar: To see Nick’s work as it’s meant to be viewed and behind-the-scenes videos, visit: ww [sic] or simply use your mobile device to scan the QR code below. To learn more about Nick’s 3D magazine, visit: www.WMB3D.com or search WMB 3D in the App store on your smartphone for the digital edition.

SPOTLIGHT

My Jamaica

Multi-award-winning photographer Nick Saglimbeni, who recently launched his retouching tutorials, was in Jamaica showcasing his skills for make-up artistes and photographers when the Jamaica Observer Celebrated Fashion’s Night Out on September 6, 2012. Saglimbeni, who has photographed national and international campaigns, is perhaps best known for his work with popular American reality stars the Kardashians. In August 2011, Saglimbeni also created and launched WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful, the first magazine entirely photographed and designed in 3D. SO sat down for a chat while he did a photoshoot at Fort Clarence Beach.

What is your impression of Jamaica so far?
Well, I’m American, so my impression of Jamaica was what I saw in the movies. I mean I pretty much expected to see Taye Diggs walking around everywhere like in the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It is such a beautiful country. I love it so far. The first place I wanted to experience was the beach.

What has been your most memorable meal in Jamaica?
Though I just got here yesterday, I have sampled quite a bit. I had jerked chicken and yams at Scotchies in Kingston. I have tried guava jam as well. I love how rich and smoky the flavours of the food are.

Name some of the countries you’ve visited.
Well, over the last couple of months I have been to Brazil, London, Egypt, Morocco, China and Kenya. I prefer the more remote places like Kenya and Morocco.

What is your beverage of choice?
I love drinking coconut water straight from a coconut and anything organic works great for me now.

What cologne are you splashing?
Salvatore Ferragamo.

What is the last movie you saw that you loved?
The Avengers. It’s one of the greatest movies ever made. Plus, the Hulk was done correctly for the first time. It was incredible!

What was your last bit of retail therapy?
I am not a big spender. The nicest thing I have now is a Louis Vuitton wallet that Kim Kardashian gave me for my birthday. I really appreciated that a lot.

Whom do you admire the most and why?
I don’t really have an idol per se, but I really admire Herb Ritts. Even though he passed away I still I [sic] love his photography style. I also love James Cameron and Todd McFarlane.

Who are you listening to right now?
I enjoy artistes that can’t ever be duplicated because of how iconic they are; artistes that evolve but never become commercial. So I like Prince and Sade as well. There is also a cool Icelandic band called the Sigur Rós that I like.

Name the last book you read.
Thinking Fast…Slow [sic] by Daniel Kahneman.

Who would call you at three in the morning?
Probably crazy models and my brother Alex.

Who or what inspires you?
I think people who do good deeds even when times get difficult are admirable. We are in a global recession and I’ve seen people turn to crappy behaviour to get by. So the people who don’t change are great.

What’s next for you?
Next week I will be shooting another SlickforceGirl campaign. For this, I use the most beautiful women in the world as heroic characters. Proceeds from the campaign help the less fortunate. We donate to several charities. The first SlickforceGirl was in aid of breast cancer.

What are some of the projects you are working on now?
Well, right now I’m working on the third edition WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful. I also have an upcoming project with Kendal [sic] and Kylie Jenner. I have also been working a lot in China. I’m directing three commercials this fall.

Who are some of your favourite clients that you have worked with so far?
I like incredible and interesting people. They really fascinate me. I also like those who allow me artistic freedom. I enjoyed working with Stan Lee. I also love working with Kendal [sic] and Kylie Jenner because they are new to celebrity. It is always fresh for them, not routine. New models are always great to work with because sometimes you bring something out from then [sic] they didn’t know they could do.

What has been your most memorable shoot?
The first SlickforceGirl shoot was incredible. It was perhaps the biggest shoot I’ve done in my life. It was more like a movie with the amazing special effects and the spaceship set.

Images on the page: Nick’s portrait (navy shirt, large, centre); jerk chicken; a coconut; the Ferragamo bottle and box; The Avengers poster; the Louis Vuitton wallet; Herb Ritts (captioned “Herb Ritts”); the SlickforceGirl “Break through. / The fight begins 9.12.2012” poster.

Editor’s Welcome (Adam Scorey)

“Well, to take you[r] mind off of all of our precipitation, our Big Interview this month comes from the city of eternal youth – and sunshine – Los Angeles. Nick Saglimbeni is bezzie mates with the rather lovely Kim Kardashian and, through his infinite genius, he decided that the best way to photograph her sumptuous… err, curves, is in anaglyptic 3D. And why the hell not. He is on a mission, bless him, to bring this delightful and entertaining style of photography right back into high fashion and make it be taken seriously as an art form. He’s even been so kind as to send you (UK only) a FREE pair of 3D glasses so you can admire her, I mean, his fantastic work. He makes all of the 3D images in post-production himself; if you go to his website he will even show you how you can make these images – thanks Nick!”

Page 75

Image caption: Model Aryn Livingston from series Warehouse Wonderland.

Running head: THE BIG INTERVIEW · NICK SAGLIMBENI

3D, or not to be?

US photographer NICK SAGLIMBENI has dedicated himself to the previously derided form of 3D. Jon Severs discovers that with his skills and enthusiasm, he is fast changing perceptions of the genre

Nick Saglimbeni does not need 3D. He is already an award-winning professional photographer working from his LA studio, who can count celebrities, hip hop stars, major magazines and corporations on his client list. He already has a successful tutorial programme that includes over-subscribed workshops and sold out DVDs. And he already has a significant public profile: he regularly pops up on his super-celeb client Kim Kardashian’s TV show and Twitter feed – the latter attracting 14.9m followers. He has basically already got everything a professional photographer would want. And yet, he does seem like a man who enjoys thinking in more than one dimension.

The unruly hair and the sleepy eyes are misleading – as is the other-wordly [sic] LA tan set against perfect white teeth and the general air of Zen. Nick is actually incredibly dynamic, open and eager, his interest peaking at anything new like a dog on an unfamiliar walk. He is a doer, an explorer, and so despite having everything most photographers would dream of, that would never be enough.

But 3D? There were so many arguments against it. For starters, he never really liked 3D. His first experience of the genre was Jaws 3D and he was not impressed, labelling it “gimmicky”. The opinion stuck. And then there was 3D’s reputation. “Most of the 3D imagery in the last 100 years has been woefully unimaginative, and the cameras just got worse, to the point where 3D photography was synonymous with throw-away-camera lens quality.”

Finally, there was the behemoth of his existing business. Nick had built himself an empire from scratch using 2D photography. Back in 2003, he had a studio in a part of town where “junkies would pee on the publicists’ cars” during shoots and for a long time he subsisted on the proceeds of selling his car, eating tinned tuna and harvesting the goodwill of friends as no clients showed up for the first three months after he opened. A model friend then took pity on him and set up a meeting with the publisher of a small Latino magazine called Open Your Eyes. It led to a commission and right from the off Nick spotted an opportunity.

“On a magazine like Maxim, these white girls would have amazing hair and make up and great retouching,” he explains. “In the urban magazines, you would see girls of different ethnicities without access to that extra assistance. I wanted to level the playing field for those girls.” So he did. He hired a make-up team and a hair team that were both experienced with a range of ethnicities and he gave them each a third of his fee. He then went out and spent the remaining third of his fee on wardrobe for the models.

He also pioneered new retouching techniques for darker skin and curvier figures. “When I first started shooting, I couldn’t find any tutorials on working with women of colour. To this day, I still hear, ‘that’s ridiculous, it’s the same to retouch all women’, but that’s just not true. While extremely pale models may worry about things

Pages 76–77

like varicose veins, women of darker complexions are often concerned about ‘ashiness’ or dry and discoloured skin, especially around knees and elbows. Models of Asian, Middle Eastern or Indian descent will often request subtle feature contouring because of their respective cultural standards of beauty. There’s also a misconception that curvy models want to be made stick thin, but in reality they want to be appreciated for their uniqueness, as we all do.”

Nick was making no money off his new pursuit, but the pictures looked great – they were something the market had not seen before and people started to notice. “All of a sudden we got very busy, very fast,” he explains, the adrenaline of the memory lighting up his eyes like twin flash bulbs. “I just wanted to work, so I said yes to everything.”

Everything originally meant just the urban magazines, but soon he was shooting hip hop artists such as Nas, T.I. and Birdman, and shooting campaigns for Sony and shoe brand Skechers. Then other photographers started requesting one-on-one tutorials to learn his pioneering retouching and the point came when he was teaching more than photographing, so he recorded tutorial DVDs and they sold out. Then the Slickforce studio he had set up was getting requests for more services, so he expanded it to provide everything from retouching work to shooting locations. Opportunity kept presenting itself and Saglimbeni, like a good businessman, grabbed it. “I still ponder at how we got so big, so fast,” he says, looking genuinely puzzled. “I think people were intrigued that we approached the market from a new angle.”

And yet despite having a photography empire to maintain, despite having no real love of 3D, and despite 3D being a largely ignored corner of photography that the establishment were ashamed of, Saglimbeni has spent the last few years devoting himself to 3D photography.

It’s partly the fault of an old university tutor Nick met up with a few years ago. The tutor was pointing out the advantages of discarded filming techniques and suddenly Nick saw 3D in a whole new light – no longer was it this pointless footnote to photography, it was just like the urban models, misrepresented and in need of a level playing field with a different angle. “I had this idea that with 3D I could explore concepts that traditional photography wouldn’t allow. I could create a spatial awareness that simply doesn’t exist in traditional photography.”

However, though Nick may talk with the fluency of a 3D expert now, when he started out he knew nothing. So he started researching the genre, posting on 3D forums and studying the cinematographers who had brought 3D to mainstream cinema just as he wished to for stills. He found that 3D is basically a trick of the mind – you make the brain see two images as one, and, a little befuddled, the brain makes this into a 3D image. You can set up this confusion trick in a number of ways but the two most popular are the traditional anaglyph method and the circular polarisation method used by the big Hollywood films such as Avatar.

Circular polarisation is where a video projector switches between left and right eye frames 144 times per second – bamboozling but effective. Anaglyph is a little simpler: the 3D photograph contains two images of different colours (generally one red, one cyan), so when seen through the familiar red/green filtering glasses creates the 3D effect. Artistically, anaglyph made no sense, but with his business hat on, Nick saw it was the best option.

“I was never keen on anaglyph,” he says, and his face suggests his opinion has not changed that much. “I love to use colour, so it was pretty horrifying to restrict that. But full-colour 3D technology is not readily accessible to the masses and I wanted anyone to be able to view the images I would be making, in any part of the world, for next to no cost. And that meant anaglyph.”

Anaglyph 3D is cheap to roll out as the glasses cost very little to make and it can work in print as well as on digital devices. If Nick was going to make a splash, he needed to be in the pool where the majority of people could afford to swim. And if he was going to reach all these people, he needed the images to be something that they had never seen before, so much so that they forgot any outdated stereotypes they held about the genre. The problem was, there wasn’t a 3D camera on the market in his view that could achieve that. So he built one. Or rather, he designed one and his friend German Pinchevsky built it.

Pushed for details of this creation, he looks uncomfortable for the first time. He fears people ripping off the design so restricts information to the following: he has two cameras, a large one for studio work and a lightweight model for travel work. Pictures taken on the smaller model, he says, won’t look any different from those on the larger model to most people, but he can tell a small difference in sharpness between the two.

And that’s it on the camera. However, he is more willing to open up about how making 3D images is different to 2D. “Certain images, perspectives, subject matters and focal lengths are much easier on the eyes – and brain – than others in 3D,” he says. “For example, when objects get too close or are too far away from the camera, it just does not work. Also, in terms of composition, you can find specific poses or set ups that make the subject of the photo pop off the page.”

There are also focus issues when shooting in 3D. In real life, the brain sees everything in focus, and in 3D it expects the same experience, so the depth-of-field techniques in 2D have traditionally not been used in 3D as it can be jarring. So keeping everything in focus is a good idea.

To begin with, Nick dutifully kept to all these rules, shooting at f/16, guarding against motion blur by shooting with “ridiculously high ISO” and making sure everything was at the right perspective. Yet in the set of photos he eagerly shows off that quite a few of these rules are broken. He grins.

“I went back to taking artistic liberties and saying, this is how I want you to see my image,” he says. “It wasn’t about technology, which was what most of the other 3D photographers were focusing on, it was about the aesthetic.”

He was only afforded this freedom to experiment, he reveals, because his post-production supervisor at the Slickforce studio, Joyce Park, had dedicated herself to mastering the creation and retouching of 3D images.

To create a 3D image you have to align two images exactly – and

Pull quote (p. 76): “I went back to taking artistic liberties and saying, this is how I want you to see my image… It wasn’t about technology, which was what most of the other 3D photographers were focusing on, it was about the aesthetic.”

Pages 78–79

Pull quote: “Certain images, perspectives, subject matters, and focal lengths are much easier on the eyes – and brain – than others in 3D… For example, when objects get too close or are too far away from the camera, it just does not work.” Nick Saglimbeni

WHAT’S IN THE BAG?

For his 3D work, Nick has a pretty familiar set-up aside from the custom cameras. The gear he carries changes depending on what he is doing or shooting, but the standard kit is as follows:

Camera: Saglimbeni3D custom-built (two camera models, one for studio, one for travel)
Lighting: ProFoto Pro7A & Acute2R 2400 packs (all strobes)
Grip gear: Silks, softboxes, reflectors

Pages 80–81

Image caption (p. 80): Model Jessica Burciaga from WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful magazine.

everything in that image has to be aligned in the same way. It is a tough job. Then you have to optimise the colours for the anaglyph process to work – also not easy. If you have any patience left after that, you have to work out how to retouch those images. Joyce managed to do all of this to an exceptionally high level of accomplishment. “It meant we could suddenly do in stereo what we had always done in 2D – and more. That was a massive leap forward for the genre,” says Nick.

Understandably, Nick wished to show off this achievement. He could have just stuck the images on a blog for free, but that is not the work of a businessman. So instead, he joint-funded with another investor the world’s first fully 3D magazine, World’s Most Beautiful (WBM) [sic — WMB], full of a schizophrenic blend of his self-shot glamour, travel and high-class advertising, all in 3D. He released it in print, for Apple and Android last September, and he stuck the most written about and curviest celebrity in the world, Kim Kardashian, on the cover. It hit international headlines.

Since then there has been a second issue and there is another edition in the offing. Nick describes the audience as “fanatical”, but is happy to admit it has not got a mainstream audience. He never really expected it to. He modestly, and without any resentment, explains that 3D photography’s journey to the mainstream depends on someone more high profile than himself to push it on.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a big rush to shoot 3D until one of the major players like Apple or Canon begins promoting 3D products or workflow,” he explains. “Right now the cost and complexity barriers are too high for the market to take it seriously. As for consumer desire for 3D, that depends on the ability to create glasses-free, or at least colour 3D for the mass market. Currently that does not exist.”

It almost seems deflating that a man who has put so much of his personal time and money into 3D cannot push it through into the mainstream alone – this was the guy who went from tinned tuna to Kim Kardashian after all. But Nick is happy with his role. He is the first stepping stone across a broad river and it has not gone unnoticed – in April the Sony World Photography Awards offered a prize for 3D photography for the first time and Nick brought home the victory.

And you should not feel too sorry for him. He is a businessman and he did not go into this blindfolded. 3D will eventually hit mainstream photography and, as he says: “Once a 3D iPad comes out, it’s already going to be too late. You’ll be dealing with the same overcrowded marketplace that you currently have with DSLR photography and the app market.” Nick would not be foolish enough to make that mistake, now, would he?

www.nicksaglimbeni.com

SHOOTING IN 3D – TOP FIVE TIPS

1. Objects which are in the distance do not come out well in 3D as you have little perspective to work with – the same goes for objects that are too close to the camera.
2. Motion blur is a major headache for 3D in more ways than one – it confuses the eyes and brain and is uncomfortable to view. Tackle this by using a high ISO.
3. Position an object or model to maximise its 3D potential – dynamic poses with curves and angular extremes work best.
4. Be very careful about focus – most 3D photographers will shoot in f/16 to keep everything in focus so that the 3D image is comfortable to view. If you go against this, be very selective and careful in what you decide to have out of focus.
5. Don’t be afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of 3D. In theory, you should be able to do anything you can do in 2D, it is just a question of making it work.

BIOGRAPHY: Nick Saglimbeni has been a professional photographer since 2003. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, he moved to Los Angeles to study cinematography and opened the SlickforceStudio in downtown LA. He is one of the leading glamour photographers in the US, and won the Sony World Photography Award for 3D earlier this year.

CONTACT SHEET

Images in the next dimension

As the Kardashian family’s personal photographer for the past five years, Nick Saglimbeni sees the world a little differently than most. “I have a lot of fun with my work,” said the owner of SlickforceStudio in downtown Los Angeles as he was preparing to judge the Miss California pageant. “I guess the girls saw me in the Kardashian show and said they wanted me to be a judge. I’ve never judged a beauty pageant before, so it’s bound to be a hilarious adventure.”

Saglimbeni has made his career out of trying new things. He moved to California from Baltimore in the early 1990s to study cinematography at the University of Southern California. He soon realized cinematography would not be his career.

“I saw a lot of cinematography jobs going the way of YouTube, and I thought, I don’t want this to be my future,” Saglimbeni said. “Photography was just starting to get exciting then with DSLRs and HDR [high dynamic range], and there were so many new technologies to explore that didn’t cost you $20,000 if a shot went wrong.”

Now he’s backing what he thinks could be photography’s next big thing: 3-D. He’s developed a still camera to shoot it, and the magazine WMB 3D: World’s Most Beautiful, to showcase the captures. “Some people say it’s a gimmick, but when Versace or Nike or McDonald’s or whoever realizes that when people see their products in 3-D, they have an immediate visual and emotional experience, and they’re going to want it. Just you wait!”

“I’d been watching ‘Avatar’ and I remember thinking, Why is no one doing this with still photography?” Saglimbeni says. “I think of ‘Avatar’ as a kind of B.C. and A.D. dividing line in the industry. No one took it seriously before that movie, and now everything is shot in 3-D.”

Before he could create a sea change in photography with 3-D, he needed a camera. He sketched something out, and for the next six months he and engineer German Pinchevsky worked on a prototype. Eventually, with the additional help of post-production supervisor Joyce Park, they designed the Saglimbeni 3-D system. Not only does it take 3-D images, but the images can be adjusted after they’re shot. It should also solve a common 3-D problem.

“People’s biggest complaint about 3-D—other than they hate wearing those goofy glasses—is that they get headaches or motion sickness from looking at it,” Saglimbeni says. He and his team purposely chose lenses that minimize eye strain and comfortably trick the brain into thinking it’s seeing a third dimension.

“You can see the model’s hair as it is frozen in a moment in time and almost feel as if you are there,” he says. That was evident on the covers of the first editions of his magazine. His friend Kim Kardashian graced the first, Gabrielle Union the second. The celebrities lent the magazine instant legitimacy and helped attract attention. “The text literally floats behind the models and the ads—which are also in 3-D—and pops right off the page.”

For the first time, this year Sony World Photography Awards created a 3-D category. It was no surprise to Saglimbeni that he and his team took home the grand prize.

Even with that success and attention, Saglimbeni says photographers continue to ignore 3-D. “I think we’re still a bit ahead of our time,” Saglimbeni says. But then, time flies.

— Jen Christensen

Photographs on the page: top right, on location at the abandoned mining village (WMB 3D “Nuclear Summer” shoot), crew with a softbox and camera in front of a derelict wooden house; printed credit on the image: “Photography by Joyce Park for SlickforceStudio.” Bottom, inside the warehouse (WMB 3D “Warehouse Wonderland” shoot), a model in a green dress on a catwalk, the photographer at the 3-D camera in the foreground; no credit printed on the image.