Walter Wick's Magic

Inside the studio of the artist/photographer of I Spy!

When I recently visited Walter Wick, the photographer and artist for the I Spy and Can You See What I See book series, I got to see the sets he uses for his pictures up close and personal. I am working on a video story about the visit, which will be posted on the Scholastic Kids Press Corps web site later this month.

The sets were the coolest things in the whole studio. The one I thought was the best was the Jolly Roger set, which will appear in the book Can You See What I See? Treasure Ship.That book comes out on April 1.

Something that really surprised me was how much detail goes into each and every set! As I was looking at the Jolly Roger set, the detail, color, and lifelike look took my breath away.

One page of the book depicts the Jolly Roger Gift Shop. It looks like the sunken ship from a previous page. When I looked at the set, I could see the tiniest details in the splintering wood.

Sitting on the table, the Jolly Roger set was taller than me! Mr. Wick begins his sets by first making them out of cardboard. Then he actually designs them out of wood. Before the pictures are taken, he adds color and props, which are all those little trinkets you see in his work. He has over 15,000 props in his studio!

In a room off the huge open area where he takes pictures sits a big cabinet of containers filled with cars, people, blocks, and anything else that might be needed to decorate a set.

When you step into the workshop, you can’t help but smelling the scent of wood. As Mr. Wick says, “The workshop is where all the magic happens.”

That was what my fantastic day with Walter Wick was like—magic.

—Caitlin Wardlow

PHOTO: Kid Reporter Caitlin Wardlow and Walter Wick in Mr. Wick's Connecticut studio. (Photo Courtesy Caitlin Wardlow)

Comments

[Kate]

I'm so proud of Caitlin....two and a half years ago she caught this bug in my fourth grade when we were reading Scholastic News....now many articles and famous people later she's still writing. I think she's destined for greatness! She even interviewed Barack Obama before he even won the Democratic nomination!