While not the first agency to employ photography in advertising, JWT was an early adopter of the medium and put it to innovative use.
The London Office especially was involved in sorting out problems with photographic layout, lighting and view angles that were unique to advertising. George Butler in his memoir “Bush House, Berlin and Berkeley Square” relates the challenges involved in getting overhead shots (never undertaken before) of foods, and working out lighting issues so that images could be reproduced in newspapers. He wrote:
“Shaw Wildman saw that nobody in photography outside the firm grasped what advertising needed or what the newspapers could print. And so he bought a camera and in a very short time, without any formal relationship with Thompsons, he’d set up a studio in Gordon Square and was doing most of our photographs. He’d perfected a type of lighting which was 80 percent light tones with just some dark accents, which no other photographer had bothered to sort out, so that it wouldn’t collect too much ink and it would print as well as possible in the newspaper.”
