Telkomsel Image Bank 2023: Halo & VAS

Some projects end when the deliverable is handed over. This one was built to keep going long after we wrapped, an image bank meant to carry Telkomsel's Kartu Halo and Value Added Services campaigns through an entire year of content, across formats we'd never even see used.

That kind of brief changes how you think before you ever pick up a camera. You're not chasing one perfect frame. You're building a vocabulary, a set of visual languages flexible enough to be cropped, recolored, and repurposed into whatever the brand needs next.

Halo needed reinvention. The previous stock shots leaned darker, moodier, and the new direction asked for something bolder and more modern, lavish without losing warmth. We built lighting with a premium feel, generous but controlled, giving good skin illumination with medium contrast and color that felt vibrant rather than loud. No backlight touched the talent directly, yet the lighting still carved out dimension, shape emerging from control rather than drama. The backdrop shifted too, a red maroon deepening into a subtle magenta, positioned and repositioned to follow wherever the talent moved.

VAS asked for something else entirely: contrast, vibrancy, motion. Side lighting gave the talent real dimensional shape, an approach close to cross-processing, colors pushed until they felt saturated and alive. Where Halo was about composure, VAS wanted energy that read instantly. Phones held mid-scroll, hands mid-gesture, expressions caught in the split second between one feeling and the next.

Working across two distinct moods within a single shoot flow demanded a kind of lighting architecture that could adjust without being torn down and rebuilt each time. A consistent core setup, refined and shifted setup to setup, kept the days efficient without sacrificing the specificity each product needed. And because the sheer volume of imagery required for a full year's rollout meant thousands of frames, not tens, that efficiency wasn't a luxury. It was the only way the math worked.

We also played with angle throughout, letting the camera move handheld through medium close-ups and three-quarter framing, chasing perspectives that felt less staged and more alive. Because an image bank isn't just a collection of assets. It's a brand's visual memory for the year ahead, and every frame in it needs to earn its place.

Nurulita Adriani
Advertising photographer of HIRA Imaji, Jakarta.