What Is England Project
Stuart Pilkington, founder of the 50 states project–which I think is such a fantastic idea–is launching a project for 2010 entitled “What Is England?” He’s looking for 46 photographers, each based in one of the counties in England he’s got listed, to take 6 images in 2010 that will represent the photographers style and the county where they live.
Use Their Work Free? Artists Say No to Google
“Both of these jobs were high-profile and gave my work great exposure but both clients still paid me.”
Melinda Beck, an illustrator who is based in Brooklyn, wrote in an e-mail message to Google rejecting its offer for exposure instead of cash (right here).
burn’s Emerging Photographer Grant Recipient is Alejandro Chaskielberg
At first glance burn Magazine seemed to be a collective of hard line photojournalists and documentarians but the selection of Alejandro (website (here) entry (here)) who photographs fictional scenarios signals that maybe the people who work in that field (see the judges list below) are ready for some changes. Good for them for pushing the boundaries. The grant is given by the Magnum Foundation but the rules state that purely artistic endeavors are welcome.
The Judges:
Maggie Steber – Photographer
James Nachtwey – Photographer VII
Carol Naggar & Fred Ritchen – Historians-Authors-Analysts
Eugene Richards – Photographer
John Gossage – Curator
Scott Thode – Deputy Picture Editor Fortune Magazine
Gilles Peress – Photographer Magnum
David Griffin – Director of Photography National Geographic Magazine
Martin Parr – Photographer Magnum
Photography Might Be More Essential Than We Realize
“As our visual education and proficiency continues to increase over time, it will be important for newspapers and magazines to captivate us and draw us in by using photographs in even more powerful and creative ways, let’s hope they are up to the challenge.”
via « Horses Think.
Video From Look3 Festival Of The Photograph
John Harrington is filing video reports from the Look3 Festival of the Photography in Charlottesville, Virginia (here).
burn Magazine Emerging Photographer Fund – The Finalists
David Alen Harvey’s online magazine burn has a $10,000 grant that they’re giving out for the first time to one of 11 finalists. They just posted the last photo essay (here) on the magazine site and they’re announcing the winner at the Look3 Festival Of The Photograph this weekend.
Go have a look, there’s some good work on display and it’s amazing to see how David and his raucous group of photographers have built a strong presence for photojournalists and documentary photographers online.
Good luck finalists.
The Daily Show Checks Out The New York Times
Edition One Studios Makes Books For Photographers
Ben Zlotkin is the founder of Edition One Studios, a company that makes books for photographers (here). I wanted to ask him a few questions about publishing short-run photography books, because I feel like there’s not a lot of good information available on the subject. Also, I was curious if it really is that hard to satisfy a photographers needs when it comes to DIY books.
APE: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your business?
I completed an MFA in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute a number of years back. I wanted to put my final project into book form as I thought the sequential presentation worked best and the intimate proximity of a book vs. a large print on the wall seemed to articulate what I wanted to say best. I looked at some online options and ended up with a local vendor. In the end, the books were a hit, but very expensive and the printing was poor at best. I shoot black and white medium format film and anyone who prints digitally can tell you that B&W is tougher than color. A year later I was teaching photography off and on and decided I could make a better book, that felt more like those I was buying from established publishers. So I did.
APE: You’ve probably read online that many photographers are not happy with the quality and consistency of the cheaper print on demand companies?
The big complaints in the digital book world come from ‘serious’ photographers. Many of the online options make excellent consumer products, and we often send clients looking for one-off family photo books, or travel books etc. to Blurb, Apple or Lulu. We think all of these companies are perfect for that.
The mistake made by these vendors is that they market to professionals whose demands are greater than the average consumer and in the end more than they can handle.
We think professionals and serious amateur photographers want the following:
Accurate and consistent color- we own our own printers and calibrate hourly. Plus, we’re photographers.
Better built books- stronger bindings, more decoration options such as true foil stamping and dust jackets.
Custom books- no preset formats, page counts and cloth color options.
Control- we need a PDF and that’s it. Most people use InDesign or something similar to get that done. We don’t offer template software, and have learned that people really like that. If they do not have the tools to layout their book, often they know someone who does.
Service – making a book is an expensive, and sometimes confusing process. We answer the phone, we know good editors, and even allow visitors.
APE: How is it possible to maintain high standards for color and printing while keeping the costs low and still make a profit?
Costs aren’t really that low for anyone involved. Our books are more expensive than some in smaller quantities and cheaper than most in larger quantities. We have spent money on a proprietary RIP for our presses and have top end calibration tools – we calibrate 6 or more times per day. More importantly, we are old-school wet lab printers, and my rule is that you cannot play with the presses unless you have worked in a wet lab with both color and silver gelatin prints. Nothing teaches you color better than burning though what little money you have wasting photo paper in the lab. We look at everything that comes off the press. If a job is 10% too magenta, we stop it and contact the client to sort things out. No one else in our industry does this that I know of.
We’re a new company, and marginally profitable with our current levels of efficiency. We think we offer solid pricing and really solid service. Most of the value we add is not ‘digital’ – the foil stamping is done by hand with a 300 degree metal plate, the custom book covers are glued by hand. There is no easy way to make nice books – perhaps this is our advantage. No everyone is as excited as we are about color, glue, and paper cuts
APE: Can you tell me on the printers side what do you do to ensure high quality?
The key thing to know is that all of the digital book makers are using the same basic tools. The printer run down is HP Indigo, Xerox Digital Presses, and Kodak’s Nexpress. All of these are really glorified laser printers with 600 dpi per color channel. What matters is the software you put in front of them, and the materials you put in them.
We use really high quality very smooth uncoated paper, and pretty cool software with lots of color control. As noted above, we look at the prints and are constantly making adjustments on our clients behalf. We make hard proofs – in fact, we offer complimentary proof prints to everyone who asks. When the book is ordered we add of a proof cost and that gets the client a complete printed unbound book for a nominal fee. We print two of them and keep one, because if changes are needed, we can then sit on the phone with the client, look at the proofs at the same time and talk about the image needs. There is no other way to do this.
APE: Can you tell me from the photographers side what do they need to do to ensure the book comes out the way they want?
Most important is to plan their book out and edit until they have a solid project. Then they should ask someone they trust to edit it again. This is the hardest part of making a book. People usually underestimate how long this will take by months, not days.
On the technical side, if you want consistent prints, make consistent files. Your target is 300 dpi, 8 bit, flattened images. Max quality jpegs work fine as do tiffs. There is no point in using 600 dpi file. All that will do is slow you down when processing the data. Once a client has a file with all of the images in the book, they need to be sure that the color profile for each image is the same. If they are from a digital camera, and all sRGB – they can leave them as is. If some are digital, some are scanned, and some are unknown, then convert (not assign) them the Adobe 1998 RGB profile in PhotoShop.
Once a potential client is this far, they should contact us and request some complimentary prints. We’ll take 5-10 images and print them out, then mail them for free.
After the images are prepared and sized as desired, then they should bring them into InDesign, Quark, Aperture or the application of their choice, and start to layout the book. In the end, they’ll make a PDF and send that to use. We’ll send them a helper file for this final and easy step.
APE: It seems like niche photography books can really serve a purpose in the market but can the photographer ever make a profit or is this entirely just a vanity project?
Making a profit is hard, but many of our clients do. I am constantly talking people into cheaper softcover books when they order a more expensive limited edition of hardcover books. The reason is that you inevitably want to give some books away, and this cuts your profits down badly. You also want to offer a product that is at a lower price point for those who cannot afford a $75+ book. If a client is a fine art photographer, then there is nothing better than releasing the book when a gallery show is up. People will buy the book who cannot afford an expensive original print, and people who can afford an original print will buy the book just to have a sampling of the wider body of work. Lastly, we encourage people to make portfolio sets. Perhaps they buy 50 books from us, and print out 25 original prints for an image that is in the book. They should sign and number those prints, then sign and number 25 of the books. Package those sets and sell them at a premium. Perhaps this set sells for $400, and the print cost them $5 , the book $45, and their time to package it al up $15. So they are out of pocket $65-70 for a $400 sale. I see this work everyday.
For the commercial photographers, and galleries, the books are really marketing tools. I’m happy to make a package price with a commercial photographer for a book set where the same contents is bound two ways, perhaps 5 cloth bound hardcover portfolio books and 45 cheaper softcover leave-behinds. The contents is the same, and we only set up for the job once. The savings can be passed on to the client easily.
APE: Now for the real test. If anyone has a book project and they’re willing to test out Edition One email Ben at: info@editiononestudios.com and put APE as the subject of the email. Ben will pick one person out and give them a $300 credit or 25% off. After you’ve printed your book you can report back and tell us all how it went.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Old Cameras New Attitude
I was pretty surprised a couple days ago to see Timothy Greenfield-Sanders starting a new portrait series on the Huffington Post (here). This is an incredibly encouraging sign as I strongly believe that photographers need to get out there and forge a path to the future. A photographer of Timothy’s caliber–contributing photographer for Vanity Fair, collected by major museums, multiple publishing deals and film projects cooking–doesn’t need to be looking for paths to the future, but those are the photographers who can really get people to take notice. I know what he’s doing may not seem extraordinarily radical to you, but these online media companies have been really slow to recognize the value of high quality photography in capturing an audience and bringing in advertising. That will change. I asked Timothy a couple questions.
APE: How did you get started contributing to the Huffington Post?
I first met Arianna Huffington in 1997 when I photographed her with the 20×24 Polaroid camera. She was extraordinarily bright and engaging and we stayed in touch. When she started The Huffington Post, Arianna asked me to blog for it and to recommend a few friends. I did both. Since then, The Huffington Post has grown into one of the most popular and important sources of news and commentary, period.
APE: I might label you an unlikely internet pioneer, because you favor a photographic process that uses ancient cameras and discontinued film, yet here you are at the forefront of the internet revolution producing original online content for a collective reporting site. What are your thoughts on photography and the future online?
I’ve been shooting large format portraits for over 30 years. In 1978, I bought a 1905 Folmer and Schwing 11×14 inch studio camera and for decades I shot black and white Kodak Ektapan film. My 1999 exhibition at Mary Boone Gallery in New York consisted of every artist, art dealer, art critic and art collector I had shot to date… all 700 of them. When Kodak discontinued my beloved Ektapan, I moved down to 8×10 and over to color chrome. I now shoot color negative, as chrome can no longer be printed without scanning. And of course, all along I shot 809 polaroid. We all know where that story ends.
But I use computers heavily, and find digital photography terrific in many ways. I also make films, so we have HD cameras and a full Final Cut Pro editing suite in the studio too. It’s just that I love the look and feel of large format. The beautiful old lenses, the shallow depth of field, the wonderful wooden camera itself, even the challenge of limiting yourself to just a few frames. I think they all contribute to my portraiture. And of course, one huge advantage shooting large format has over digital origination is the ability to print very large and very detailed.
I think my photographic style lends the work a certain elasticity that allows for a variety of sizes and contexts. The images are readable as thumbnails all the way up to 58 x 44 inch exhibition prints, regardless of whether the context is a book, magazine, blog, film, or museum show. What’s interesting is that a viewer interacts with different sizes and contexts in completely different ways. The work doesn’t change; the viewer does. But of course, these days, the media is changing too. The web audience is simply huge. Far more people will see my Sandra Bernhard portrait on Huffington than they would have in a magazine. To me, it’s just another avenue. I don’t see why there can’t be beautiful portraits on the web.
APE: I’ve just openly criticized Photo District News (at the prodding of several observant bloggers) for picking an all white jury for their 2009 Photography Annual awards. You’ve just finished a book project and film called the Black List where you feature prominent African Americans and tell their story. Do you think the media industry still has a long way to go in giving African-Americans equal opportunities and coverage?
Observant bloggers are best! I find it disappointing and sad that Photo District News would pick an all white jury for its 2009 Photography Awards. I’ve spend the last 3 years producing and directing “The Black List: Volume 1 and Volume 2” (as well as photographing all of the subjects in the film). 40 remarkable, gifted, unique African-Americans, from Toni Morrison to Colin Powell to Chris Rock to Angela Davis, to name a few (see the project here). Working on this project has really opened my eyes. I remember showing “The Black List: Volume 1” at a prominent film festival last year and after the screening we did a Q & A with the audience, which was about 50/50 black/white. To my amazement, the festival director only acknowledged questions from the white people in the audience. It was as if the African-Americans sitting right in front of him were invisible. There’s been some mumbling about “post-racial America” since the election in November, and maybe that’s the attitude PDN had when picking their jury. But having done The Black List, let me tell you, we’re not there yet.
If you want to see more work from Timothy visit his website (here) and keep an eye on the Huffington Post. His agent, Stockland Martel has a blog (here) where I discovered his new publishing venture.
Photographer Alexx Henry Shoots A Living One Sheet
Excellent video here from photographer Alexx Henry as he turns his normal One Sheet (movie poster) shoot into a living image using the RedOne.
I think this is such a great way to treat photography online where the shoot is still essentially a stills shoot the the results are not a video that suddenly needs a plot, sound, editing, graphics and on and on.
Visit his blog to see the web page with the final result (here).
Photobook Reviews
Review Santa Fe 2009
UPDATE: A couple posts from reviewer Elizabeth Avedon: http://elizabethavedon.blogspot.com/
Review Santa Fe just wrapped up and I talked to one person who said there was some amazing photography on display. Hiroyo Kaneko of San Francisco, won the Santa Fe prize (here). I think only Emily Shur was blogging about it (here) and it looks like she will have a recap shortly and she has a great recap. Honestly, if I were them I would take any bloggers from the qualified pool, waive their fees and pay for travel and hotel; if they agreed to write a short post each day and then recap the whole event. It’s the same as taking out advertising on websites and in magazines.
Again this year they have all the entrants work up on a site (here) which is so great for the reviewers. I can tell you that many times, several years after I’d done reviews, I was scratching my head trying to track down a photographer I thought would be worth considering for a project.
PDN’s All White Photo Contest Jury
Stan Banos of the blog Reciprocity Failure was dangling some blog bait a few weeks ago (here) when he published a piece about the 24 white jurors from this years PDN Photography Annual. I didn’t take the bait because picking on PDN is not something I particularly enjoy or find moves the conversation in an interesting or positive direction. And, having worked in the magazine world I understand and grew to hate one of the biggest failings of magazines that leads to stupid things like this happening. They don’t give a shit about the community around them. Editors do, photo editors do, writers do, photographers do, but collectively you would never see a magazine try to make the little slice of the world they live in better (that would cost money). This is why there is no loyalty among readers. This is why magazines are losing relevance. This is why new media is exciting.
This is why no one issues a standing order at a magazine to broaden the demographic.
Well, the blog bait just got huge:
“Rather than see the world of photography dragged through the mud and a cloud hang over PDN Duckrabbit have announced that they are offering $1000 to anyone who can credibly defend the all white panel.”
http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2009/06/pdn-passive-racism/
“Stan Banos claims PDN’s action is in part an example of ‘passive racism.’ Surely an outrageous slur on the photographic industry? In the absence of PDN feeling the need to respond, duckrabbit are offering $1000 to anyone who can prove Banos wrong.”
So why did PDN do it? Passive racism probably fit’s the bill. If one of their objectives was to build a stonger community, this kind of thing would have never happened.
Ignoring it seems like passive racism too.
UPDATE: Comments Closed.
Photographers Looking For Agents – Q & A With Deborah Schwartz
One of the top questions photographers ask me is “how do I get an agent” but since I’ve never been a photographer I really have no clue how you get an agent. Recently a photographer in LA with some nice work emailed me after getting zero response from the agents he’d been contacting and I started to wonder what it takes, if you’ve got good work, to land an agent, so I called up Deborah Schwartz (dsreps.com), an LA agent I used to work with and asked her a few questions.
APE: Do you get inquiries from photographers looking for a rep?
I get them all the time, but I just don’t have the time to respond, even when I find the work interesting.
APE: When you brush someone off because you can’t take anyone on at the moment but tell them the work is great do they email you back angry, because you think their work is good but you won’t represent them anyway?
Sometimes the response is angry, but most of the time they write back with more questions and eventually I have to be rude and not write back because I just don’t have time. No matter what, I basically feel like I have to be rude at some point along the way. It’s not intentional but I’ve gotten to the point where I need to prioritize my work, and I don’t have time to get everything done that I have to get done. The two things that have made life more difficult is that everything has gone digital, which means more work to go through and edit for my photographers and tons more email coming in from all directions.
APE: It wasn’t always this way right? Before the web blew up people had to write you a letter, send you a book or come see you right?
I’m sure that it was difficult for reps to keep up even then, but now there are just too many photographers trying to get the attention of reps. I think that in the same way that a photographer needs to put together an amazing promo piece to sell themselves to an art director, they’re going to have to do the same thing for reps too.
Not to long ago, I think that photographers began to look for a rep once they were too busy to handle all of the work that they had coming in. Now, it seems that people put a portfolio together, put together a promo and then start looking for a rep as if that is the next step in the process. Add this to the fact that the economy is bad right now and imagine how many photographers are out there looking for a rep.
APE: So, do you think a lot of the volume is coming from the simple fact that there are a lot of people who can take good pictures, put together a website and then just start emailing agents?
Yes, I do think that this is happening. Three things that I see a lot are, photographers whose work I like, but I can see that they’ve not done any work yet which is a problem because they don’t know how to deal with clients, estimating, creative calls, meeting new potential clients and all that goes on with shooting professionally. I really don’t think that photographers should look for a rep before they have some of this experience under their belt.
The second thing that I see a lot of is portfolios that look like they’re copying what is trendy right now, not a real point of view or vision.
Thirdly, I get inquiries from people whose work is similar to my other photographers. I do not want to have any more crossover in my group. Too much competition within one group of photographers creates a different set of headaches for a rep.
APE: Do you think that there are more photographers than there has ever been and there are more good photographers than there’s ever been?
I think that there have always been great photographers out there. I do think there are more good ones who are not getting work, but that’s just because the economy is bad. And in general, yes, there are more photographer than ever.
APE: Is there a big difference between being a good photographer and having a career in photography?
Yes, of course. It’s about the ability to get out there and relate to people, so they like you and want to see more of your work. Then, not only does your work need to be good but you need to follow through with giving them that quality of work on a job. It’s one thing to take good pictures on your own but to be able to do it on an assignment or under difficult circumstances is entirely different.
APE: When photographers contact me saying that they’re looking for a rep the first thing I ask them is why would you want someone to take part of your income away. It seems like the time to get a rep is when you’re too busy to handle certain aspects of your business.
That’s the way it should be. It seems though that a lot of the time photographers look for a rep because they don’t know where to turn after they’ve created a website and sent out promos, and they’re still not working, so now they need help. This might sound harsh but if you’re getting out there with your work, and sending out promos and you are still not getting a response, then you’re doing something wrong. Like maybe the work is not up to speed yet, or you need to be patient. It takes time to build relationships with clients and to build a base of work.
APE: Are there reps who will take photographers where you see the potential in the work and you help them?
When I look back to when I first started and was trying to get established as a rep I only had photographers who were just beginning to get work. I saw something special in the work, so I told them what they needed to do with their portfolios in order to be ready for a rep and they came back and had done it. Then I took them on.
I am still able to do this sometimes, but it is all about timing. For example, I’ve worked with photographers on a freelance basis for a year and suddenly I had room to take on someone else and since I had been successful in getting them work during that freelance period, I felt that it would be a good move to take them onto my roster. So, their patience paid off and we were also able to get to know each other and see how we worked together in that time as well.
APE: How do you know when you can add a photographer?
I have a limit of 12. I know every agency is different but since I edit my photographers work–which is very time consuming–that’s my limit.
APE: But the photographers would probably like you to have less?
Yes, but they understand that I have limited it to what I can handle. I might want to take on more photographers whose work I love but I’m not going to do that at the expense of the people I already handle. My priority is to take care of my photographers, the photo editors, art directors and art buyers who we work with.
My agency is a bit different from the model where you have one of each style of photography; all my photographer have a style that I love and that I know I can sell because I can relate to it and I believe in it. I don’t have car photographers for example because I just don’t get that kind of work. I just feel like I wouldn’t know what a good car book was, and I would have a hard time getting passionate about selling car photography.
APE: So, the question you still need to answer now and every photographer wants to know is “what does it take to get a rep?”
I think that you need to be at that point in your career when you need help to keep up with the work that you are getting, and when you have met the person who feels like the right match for you.
Being a photographer is a huge investment of time and money. You need to be able to show an art director that you not only have a good eye, but also that you can put it together in a unique way. Then, you need to get out there and hustle like a mad dog.
Some people think that a rep is just there to get you the work, but I am one half of a team. Photographers need to be proactive in getting out there themselves shooting personal work, meeting with people and getting editorial work. In order to make it, you have to be really likable, professional, responsible and a really fantastic photographer. If you are all of these things, you will be getting work and you will need a rep on your team.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is they have a portfolio and then they just wait for the work to come in. If you aren’t constantly pushing yourself and growing as a photographer–you see this all the time where the work doesn’t change and the book is the same from year to year–then you’re dead in the water and not getting work and will continue to not get work. You need to be testing and shooting for yourself all of the time.
APE: I’m sure you’ve had a situation where you lose out jobs to photographers with a style that’s not in your camp, do you then consider hiring a photographer with a hot style of photography?
No, only because trends change and I feel that chasing them is a waste of time. Plus, like I said before, I like a particular kind of photography so I stick with that. I can only sell what I believe in and I believe in photography that is authentic, humorous and sometimes a bit ironic.
APE: I will hear art buyers say that you don’t need a rep to get a job but do you think that’s really true? Are they really willing to hire photographers who don’t have a rep backing them?
I think that’s true. I mean, if you have a great crew and you know the business and understand the art of estimating then no, you don’t have to have a rep in order to land a job. On the other hand, if you are not adept at this, it can be a hassle for an Art Buyer to have to walk someone through the entire process and not all Art Buyers have the time to do deal with that. And, their ass is on the line too, so if you estimate incorrectly and you do get the job, it will make them look bad having to go back to the client for more money.
APE: Any more advice for photographers?
Don’t put all of your energy into getting a rep. Put your energy into shooting and doing good work. And, stay on the radar of a rep that you really want to work with, without being pushy. If you are green and a good photographer, work on getting experience as a shooter. That’s most important. If I say your work is good and to stay in touch, get out there and get more experience and stay in touch with that new work. Continue to hone your skills and to hone your vision.
APE: Is it possible to take someone who’s work is great but they’re just green and get them work based on the Art Buyers trust in you, your ability to produce a shoot and put together an estimate?
Probably, but here’s the downside to that. I have built relationships with Art Buyers and Art Directors for the last 15 years. I have to know that whoever I recommend for a shoot is going to do an amazing job on all levels. There’s just too much at stake to take chances. It is not just about packaging someone well with a good portfolio, website, promos and representation. I need to really know that they can back it up.
In the end the rep-photographer relationship is a serious. It’s like a marriage. You don’t get married after the first date.
I think that if you are a good but green shooter you will be even better if you have some business skills and experience behind you.
APE: I understand but I hear from photographers who look at those who have reps and are getting a lot of work and making a lot of money and they say I can shoot like that what’s the big deal?
That’s just copying other people. Whenever I hear that I think, they just don’t get it. It’s not about “I can do that,” what other people are doing. It’s about getting out there for yourself and shooting what you love because you love doing it. Have a strong vision and have something to say that people want to hear. Copying is just chasing trends and if you’re trying to do what everyone else is already doing you’ve missed it, because it’s already happened.
Tomas Van Houtryve – North Korea – Secrets and Lies
PDN Photography Annual 2009
PDN has the images from this years photography annual up online (here).
The Marty Forscher Fellowship went to Matthieu Paley and the student award went to Michael Mullady. Nikon Storyteller Award went to Ambroise Tézenas. The Arnold Newman prize went to Jeff Riedel and the Student Award went to Carl Kiilsgaard of Western Kentucky University. Cheers.
There’s some great photography in the winners gallery. I always liked looking through the advertising section so I could match a photographer with a campaign. On the editorial side I saw very few images/photographers that I wasn’t already familiar with, but I think that’s fine. It’s still good to celebrate the great work that was done last year. Corporate is another category I like seeing and discovering photographers, because I don’t follow that side of the business.
In the personal section there’s an incredible surfing image by Ed Freeman that I was bummed to discover is a composite. Ed labels the photography as Fine Art on his website (here) and explains that they’re retouched but I wouldn’t have been able to publish them editorially (back when I used to look in the personal section for images to publish).
Also in the stock category there’s an image that produced a little bit of controversy.
Over on You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice they’re calling it a rip off (here).
The similarities between what’s being dropped, subjects and framing make it too close to ignore but a commenter on YTWWN shows (as we all know) that nothing is new, everything has been done before (here).
Then finally there’s student work. It’s always nice to see students who can already take great pictures.
Sir, We’re Not The Taco Stand
“Sir, we’re not the taco stand” I clearly remember an argument with my editor once where he stood there for half an hour trying to tell me that the shoot budget needed to come down and I tried to explain that no, if he wanted to pay less then we needed to change the shoot not just tell someone to make it less. Explaining it in “real life” terms, that we’re ordering the tenderloin and if you want to pay less just order a hamburger seemed to help.
On a similar note there a new documentary out about writer Harlan Ellison called Dreams with Sharp Teeth. Remember this line from the writers strike:
“I should do a freebie for Warner Brothers? What is Warner Brothers – out with an eye patch and a tin cup on the street? Fuck no! . . . I sell my soul, but at the highest rates. I don’t piss without being paid.”
“The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.”