Hi Fi adverts in magazines
when there taking these beautiful pictures of Hi Fi in idyllic settings in rooms with wooden highly polished floors and sparse furniture
Where or how do they hide the wires ?
do they cut the cables of for the photographs
or are they dummy boxes
Same for speakers you never see the mass of cables in these settings . In the adverts
Cheers
Same reason you never used to see big old cathode ray tube TVs in show houses. Or the receivers, blu-rays, CDPs, etc, etc. in the pictures with flat screen TVs fixed to walls (let alone the damage to the plaster(board) hiding the wires...
Same reason no-one in cosmetic ads needs cosmetics or men in electric shaver ads never actuall need a shave....
...and same reason Big Macs look more appetizing in the promotional photos.
I've always assumed that they simply don't plug in any of the cables (except for the power cable, if they need to show the glowing screen on the equipment).
...and same reason Big Macs look more appetizing in the promotional photos.
They have spent all their money on hi-fi, so can't afford carpets or furniture.
...and same reason Big Macs look more appetizing in the promotional photos.
The word "more" was very deliberate. 
I've always assumed that they simply don't plug in any of the cables (except for the power cable, if they need to show the glowing screen on the equipment).
Its amazing what you can cut out with Photoshop...............
Elivating this discussion a bit higher I would love to know the mecanics if you like of the photo shoots, on how they actualy hide those fixed power cables in advertisements. Or as i said are they Dummy replicas specificly for promotion and advertising.
Leaf through your old Hi fi Mags and look at some of those Adverts . have you never wonderd. No matter how much you tried you never hide a power cable like they do for these shoots
I did just that.
Is 1984 (HFN) and 1978 (WHF?) old enough?
Not a cable in sight in the ads or the photos of reviewed items.
Chances are they mount the camera on a tripod and take 2 photos with an identical exposure...
1 with everything plugged in and the displays all lit up
and another with the cables all removed, being careful not to move the hifi.
If they layer those photos on top of each other, with the no cables photo on top, then erase the screen section of that photo to reveal the photo beneath, it looks like the powers on and the displays are all lit up without the component being plugged in.
It's easy and takes seconds to do.
Here's an old brochure shot from eight or nine years back. The shots are always organised by the photographer for aesthetic reasons, they don't really worry if the system would work or sound particularly good and certainly wouldn't wire it up unless power was required for displays! They will ad an image to any screens in the shots with Photoshop, if you've ever tried to photograph an image on a screen you'll know it doesn't work particularly well for various reasons (this is the same process used in the mags for any shots of screens, none will be taken "live").
This is the pre-Photoshop version and you can see the floor in particular needed much post-production work. I remember putting that flooring together, it took hours and the room was massive. The model lady was very nice and made tea though 
Nowadays we tend to stick more to standard product images than these "lifestyle" shots. Not my kinda thing really.
I recognise that place from an episode of Grand Designs.
I recognise that place from an episode of Grand Designs.
Yeah, it's somewhere down on the South coast from memory, I think quite a few ads have used it, nice way to help pay the bills on that place! 
I remember when I worked for a large hifi company a few years ago, we did a shoot at a posh place.
Long story, but it ended up with what should have been a simple shoot turning into the maddest 24 hours of my life. I'm not exagerating when I say that the 'Art Director' was just like Fraannc from Father Of The Bride and he ended up in the swimming pool having a hissy fit and crying because the light 'wasn't RIGHT !'. When we got him out, he refused to work on the project any further that day unless we all stripped down to our undies, so that we could 'feel the moment' he was trying to create. Of course, up to that stage I didn't know the true extent of the body piercings that the (female) photography assistant actually had. With chains joining some of them together.
The model ended up getting arrested that night when we all went out (let's jusy say that she wasn't just a pretty face), at one point there were some people of limited height involved who were working at the local Panto (Snow White), a live goldfish appeared in a bag later in the evening and may or may not have ended up in someone's mouth and one of our salespeople ended up having a bucket of custard thrown over him. By a Morris Dancer.
Then we went to the kebab shop.......
Unlikely that I'll be allowed to say what happened next.......there might be people of a nervous disposition reading this.
he he.
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a bit like top of the pops,acts pretend to be singing...
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