Gingko Bioworks has an amazing way of making incredibly complicated, cutting edge science not exactly easy to understand, but fascinating and inspiring. From a visual perspective we could not be happier - for as long as we have created both stills and motion for them, their lab spaces have always looked like they come from a decade in the future and they are consistently evolving with the growth of the company. Long symmetrical work benches are punctuated by robotic arms and three dimensional renderings. Ginkgo believes a better future can be engineered through thoughtful and forward thinking biology - that the new frontier of programing has more to do with DNA than circuit boards. To us it sure feels like a world we’d like to live in.

As they have many times before, Ginkgo asked us to create a library of portraits featuring their scientists in the lab. They asked us to differentiate this body of images with a warmer aesthetic. Not an easy task in a white and sterile environment. To accomplish this, we used a few techniques. The first step was choosing reds, yellows and purples for accent colors to pop off of the beautiful daylight and bright whites of the lab coats. The real warmth of Ginkgo definitely comes through from their team - they are an uncommonly welcoming and energetic group, and honestly make every shoot day a pleasure. Moving in tighter and capturing candid and warm human moments helped us create a set of images the client is thrilled with.

On the technical side… these images were captured with the Phase One IQ3 system. The environmental portraits were shot with the Schneider Kreuznach 45mm LS f/3.5 and 80mm LS f/2.8 lenses, while the macro detail shots used the 120mm LS f/4.0 Macro. All supplemental light came from Fiilex Q1000 Fresnel LEDs that allowed us to dial in color temperature to match the ambient in different parts of the lab.

The Team

PHOTOGRAPHER: Tim Llewellyn

ASSISTANT: Dave Sondrini

DIGITAL TECH: Matt Lambrose

CLIENT: Ginkgo Bioworks