An interactive photography web site has allowed at least one advertising creative director to be in two places at one time. Chris Conerly, President and Creative Director of Art Direction, Inc., logs onto Grover Sterling’s web site to see photos of his client’s products moments after they’re photographed, fine tunes the camera angle, and provides direction on any necessary retouching. All from his office computer. Sterling’s clients can even bring the image into their layouts to make sure it’s working in context with the rest of the ad.

Sterling has spent the last couple of years refining the technologies necessary to create this state of the art web site. He can expose an image, post it to his web site and a client can see the result in a matter of moments. Initially, Sterling’s goal was to make the site compatible with multiple browsers and monitor sizes. In the last year or so he has instituted a complete overhaul which concentrated on maximizing upload and download speed. The first page loads in under 10 seconds. The pages that follow will open within in about two or three, and the files are large enough to see detail.