"In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is."
Josef Albers

I came across Josef Albers and his color theory a few years ago. It stuck with me, and I still think about it in my work almost every day. With this project, I wanted to see what his research on color interaction could do to product imagery.

The lipstick stays exactly the same from one image to the next. Only its surroundings change. I put that same red against saturated backgrounds and reflections, electric green, magenta, orange, and let the complementary contrasts change the way you see it.

The images go for a hyperrealistic finish, with the engraved monogram and the raw texture of the bullet pushed into sharp detail. It's a visual study, really. An optical exercise.