The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
I have a strong affinity for Mexico, the place and its people. I have been traveling there since I was a little boy and have returned numerous times for personal and professional photography projects.
I visited the state of Tamaulipas for a couple of days and created this series of photographs on farm workers.
On a ranch just north of Tampico, I came across migrant workers harvesting onions from the fields. This part of Mexico, just south of the Tropic of Cancer and a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico, is ideal for growing onions, hot chili peppers, and soybeans – its rich, tropical soil yielding multiple crops year-round. The onion harvest is a hectic operation that involves picking the onions by hand. Once cut, they are left in the fields to dry before being trucked to a shed to be sorted, packed and ultimately shipped to market. To work the fields, a nomadic group of Tamalín Indians makes a yearly journey here from the tropical state of Veracruz. Their weather beaten faces tell a story of many years of hard work in the fields under the relentless sun. I made these images in a shed, close to the fields where they worked – in the middle of their day.
As a “commercial” photographer, I really enjoy what I do. Of course, there are great characters and stories to capture in any shoot – but I continue to be intrigued by real, every-day people. I try to seek them out whenever possible, like I did the migrant workers on this ranch. You can’t make any of it up – the authenticity of their faces, their culture, how they carry themselves or what they face in the reality of their day is endlessly rewarding for me.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
After being based in Chicago for decades, in July of 2019, I branched out and started a nomadic photography journey to pursue more of the work I love around the world. I had nine wonderful months of travel and adventures before COVID-19 changed my plans.
My story is a story of pivoting—of having a plan that needed to change but sticking with what is true to me. Like so many people, I have not had the 2020 I originally envisioned, but I am grateful to be healthy, to have generous friends, and to have found new faces to photograph and ways to experience the world around me, wherever that may be.
I have started a new project, and I’m calling it “Reintroducing America.” From 1935 to 1944, the US government-sponsored FSA program hired photographers and writers to “introduce America to Americans.” Those photos today work as a time capsule of that era. While I do not fancy myself as being at the level of those famed photographers, I do feel the need to document this strange time. We are a divided nation—there is no arguing that—but as I’ve been traveling around and talking to people, I find that even when we have completely different points of view, we are still living through this crazy time together, and we always find some way to relate. I am one person and currently sponsored by no organization, but I am going to do my best to document the many faces and stories that make up our country, one person at a time.
I love people. I love people’s stories—their joy, their pain, and the many realities of life. I will always keep telling these stories.
Eileen’s Caption:
When planning my drive out west, I looked at campgrounds and Airbnbs between Kansas and California, and I stumbled upon an Airbnb in a ghost town in Cisco, Utah. It had no running water and looked rustic, but obviously, I was intrigued because I wanted to photograph it. I booked myself a spot.
When I arrived, I met Eileen, the visual artist who is the sole year-round resident of Cisco, Utah. She acquired the land in 2015 and has been rebuilding since then. Fun fact: Eileen is from the Milwaukee area and was living in Chicago just blocks from me before she left. But we never met until I arrived at her ghost town.
I admire Eileen, as this does not look like an easy place to live. While I was here it was over 100 degrees, and in the winter it gets really cold. But she is working to create an artist-in-residence program so others can come and be inspired. I spent some time photographing and talking with her. Then I went to my cabin and watched the sun set and the stars come out. I realized if I had another few days, I’d want to stay here too. (I included some photos of my “hotel” and the land because I really did love it.)
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
The portraits of artists appearing in this book “A R T I S T S” were taken in and around the city of Richmond, Virginia, over a six-year period. As a photographer who previously spent many solitary days making landscape images, I found the time spent with these artists to be nothing less than thrilling. Every portrait was collaboration with its subject, and to share ideas with each of them was revelatory.
I left Richmond to study photography as an undergraduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute. When I returned to my hometown in the mid- 1970s, I had been on the West Coast for five years and knew nothing about the art scene in Richmond. Soon thereafter, as I began my MFA studies in the VCUarts Department of Photography and Film, it was my good fortune to meet artists who were doing great work, and who were interested in what I was doing. Willie Anne Wright, George Nan, David White, Rob Carter, and Myron Helfgott were among those influential teachers who made me feel
at home and helped me to gain an artistic footing here. When I decided to undertake this series of artist portraits in early 2014, I started with these individuals.
Since then, I have met and photographed many artists, initially at the suggestion of the people with whom I began the project. To say that this experience has been a source of discovery and inspiration is an understatement. Simply put, interacting with all of these creative people has been amazing. It has instilled in me a much greater understanding of how important our arts community is, personally and collectively.
During my long career as a commercial photographer, I worked with many talented designers and art directors, including Rob Carter. He and I traveled around the country making aerial photographs for a Best Products Annual Report in 1983. Rob designed this book with stunning results, and I am immensely grateful once again to have had the opportunity to work with him.
The first public presentation of these portraits took place at the Richmond headquarters of Capital One (June 2–November 21 2017), thanks to an invitation from Art Program Manager Francis Thompson. On behalf of 1708 Gallery, board member Amie Oliver subsequently organized a two-part satellite exhibition at Linden Row Inn (January 15–July 8, 2018). More recently, VMFA educator Jeffrey Allison assembled a show of the portraits for the Richmond International Airport (February 3–August 2, 2020.) Selected portraits were also shown at Richmond’s Glave Kocen Gallery (June 15–July 18, 2020).
First and foremost, I hope this book will extend the recognition due these artists who have been so instrumental in the growth and visibility of Richmond’s cultural landscape.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
I was working on a photography series in Queenstown Tasmania called After they left which is an ongoing essay on mining towns that are a shadow of their former self when I first met Ingo Hansen. He was renovating an old hospital and turning it into a hotel, and we ended up having dinner together. I was captivated by his ability to recollect the past, and the town of Andamooka, where Rear View Mirror is set, sounded like it was from another planet. I knew right then and there that I had something special, and he told me to come visit him as the town was having a reunion.
I work as a commercial photographer and director with large crews; I enjoy the structured nature of this process and the collaboration with specialists. However, I do love the freedom that comes with breaking the rules and getting on the road with just my camera. There is something special in working organically, and it is the excitement of the unknown that I am drawn to. There is an unmatched opportunity to really dive deep into creativity without the usual constraints of life getting in the way.
I think coming through the ranks as a photographer has made me much more resourceful than most directors, being able to compose and shoot my own frames. I love taking the time getting to know my subjects, really embedding myself in their world… similar to Louis Theroux, but then applying an Emmanuel Lubezkin lens to it. While I do look at some of the frames and think they could be technically improved if I had a bigger crew with me, there is also a power that comes from being nimble and as I try to push the emotion that occurs from trust formed over time.
I originally went to Andamooka for 10 days with Ingo, as he gave me the guided tour I was shooting B-roll. I then interviewed him properly and with delving into his past, I realized how engaging he is and how vibrant life was in the days gone by. His ability to transport the listener into another world with his storytelling was impressive. Most of the past residents lived there in the hope of finding opal, and as I was sitting there in a small miners shack in the middle of an interview it dawned on me, Ingo was my rare stone… he was the rough and raw that you would expect to find in the desert, yet unique, articulate and polished.
Ingo had so many riveting stories from his days there, it was hard to limit it to just a few, but I wanted to really give the audience a taste of his world and leave them wanting more. Once I was in the edit, with the assembly and the narrative sorted, I organized another trip back with Ingo and this time I could be more specific with a shot list to match the chosen frames. Just prior to shooting Ingo had a serious health turn and his license was temporarily taken away, so I flew to Adelaide and drove to Andamooka with him. During the 6-hour drive I realized the film’s narrative had evolved, he was doing some serious soul searching and I needed to interview him again and flesh it out.
Music is such a big inspiration in my daily life, and with the film I needed the score to amplify the hauntingly beautiful landscapes and build emotion around Ingo’s world. While Ingo is the protagonist, I felt like Andamooka and the land was as much of a hero as Ingo was. I remember seeing the sunrise one morning over the countless piles of dirt in what can only be described as an alienesque landscape and was listening to Tillman Robinson’s Deer Heart album, it was giving me goose bumps as I imagined my visuals together with his score. He is a composer I’ve wanted to work with and I really felt that his artistic sensitivity would accurately complement the desolate and evocative landscapes captured in Rear View Mirror.
While I was only in Andamooka for a short time, I made some really good friends there and I can see why the desert has a strong pull. Countless others like Ingo keep returning to clear their minds and ponder on life. There is something about seeing an endless horizon that is good for the soul….void of skyscrapers, traffic lights and less disengaged people rushing around for unachievable happiness.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
This series originated on a road trip from LA to Indiana four years ago. I knew I wanted to make a series while on the road but wanted a focus.
I have always been most interested in sub cultures. As an expat from the UK moving to America getting on for twenty years now the vast landscape you have here and the open road depicted in road movies has always fascinated me and fueled my photographic desire.
The idea for Women Truckers came to me before I departed Los Angeles when I was planning the series. I ran it by a few trusted friends in the film business and started to write a series of searching question to ask the women drivers who I met at the truck stops. I came up with a list of about 12 written out in a sketchbook knowing that this would come in handy when I was faced with someone I had never met and would provide context for the story.
I use my iPhone to record the interview and then later transcribe them into a text document.
My first stop was late in the evening driving out of LA near Ontario on the 10 freeway. There was no light left for a daytime exterior shot so I headed inside the truck stop and had a good scout around. I got some strange looks from people inside as I had a vintage film Hasselblad 501 cm hanging from my shoulder and a light meter, which people always wonder what it is.
On my first look around a real working truck stop I realized this was predominantly a man’s world. There were a plenty of men eating junk food, looking for spare parts in the store, paying for gas. Then I discovered that they had areas for showers and washing clothes. I was discovering a new underworld where drivers, men and women lived out of a suitcase on the road for around three months at a time.
Women truckers would be hard to find, they are about one in twenty on the road. I found a games room with pool table and sitting there in this sparse dimly lit room was a women and her young daughter who was wearing headphones. I opened the door, walked in and plucked up the courage to ask her if she would mind having a portrait taken and if I could ask some questions about being on the road and a female. Regina Campbell and her daughter Shelby who rode with her in the summer turned out to be open to my request. She too was heading to Indiana so we discussed route to break the ice. It turns out she has been driving for seven years, has a BA degree in sociology and formally worked in law. One point she made stuck with me in her words “ its one of the fairest places for a female to earn what a male earns”. She then told me many of the solo women drivers stay in their cabs and don’t come out at night for safety.
Regina was my first subject and over a period of about four years I now have about twenty-five subjects and interviews. Once I did a commercial shoot in New York and booked a one-way flight knowing that I wanted to drive back to Indy in a rental so I could make more truck stop portraits. Always with these kinds of portrait series you get quite a bit of rejection and resistance. There were times I spotted a woman who had an interesting face or who seemed like a character but they were not interested to be photographed or talk. That’s when you can feel deflated and start doubting your idea. Then you find someone who is really open to it and can’t stop talking and you are back on track.
My first edit seemed a bit monotonous just having portraits only. Luckily in most of the stops on the road I captured landscapes and details to tell the story of the road and show the truck stop as an American subculture. I would drive through the entrance which said trucks only and park my car right next to these huge 18 wheelers and start shooting details of trucks and anything which I thought was worthy of setting the scene to go alongside my portraits. Many of these wider shots included men, which I think is ok because they are a big part of this landscape.
Four years later and I’m still editing and pairing landscapes with portraits and wondering if this or that is a good shot. Finally it was time to show this work and get some feedback from editors like Suzanne.
I continue to shoot this subject and I have a whole binder full of color negatives of women truckers and the truck stops landscapes. One day this could turn into a larger body and printed book. I plan to make a zine next of some of my favorites to try it out in print and start paring up more and seeing if I have something worthy of ink. If anything it has been an exercise in documenting culture for me and I have learnt a great deal from talking with these strong women about life on the road.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Personal projects have always been an important part of my career as a photographer. I’ve been lucky enough to have found some success from previous projects where they have been published in coffee table books, magazine articles and presented in print in various venues. The importance of personal work for me lies in the fact that unlike my commercial work the vision is completely my own. It’s also been a place for me to challenge myself. I love to have many options for lighting in my “bag of tricks,” and often it’s personal work that allows me the freedom to try new ideas out.
I’ve always been fascinated by motorcycles, although I’ve actually never rode one…yet. Sure, I’ve been on scooters and mopeds, but never have I experienced the thrill of the open road on one of these two-wheeled beasts. Personally, I tend to be drawn to the classic street bikes from Triumph, Indian and Honda, as well as many custom bikes. Being on the road a lot here in California I see bikes everywhere and thought it might be interesting to make photographs of the riders. I have been shooting the bikes as well, but it’s the riders that take center stage.
I photographed my first subject, Cortni Joyner, an actress I have shot several times here in Los Angeles on March 11, just before the Stay-At-Home orders were placed. I was crushed. The pictures were exactly what I wanted to make, and now I am handcuffed. Of course, I had no idea what was to come of the quarantine, but I began to prepare how I would work once things lifted…little did I know where we’d be still today. Thankfully, my regular workflow was already halfway there as far as being capable in the new normal needs of safe photo shoots. Using a CamRanger 2, I am able to send wireless jpgs to a tablet, computer or cell phone. An added feature allows me to also send near real-time images to a shared folder to anyone with Internet access and permission to that folder. Add all the face coverings, temperature checks, Lysol wipes and safe distance and much of the criteria are met. After about five weeks, I was of course antsy to work. Since LA was still frozen, I began to speak with some other subjects I’d been in touch with about doing a “safe” shoot. We made the necessary precautions and arranged a shoot date.
From a technical standpoint with this project I began with the premise of pushing a new style of lighting that would at a much higher aperture than I normally shoot as I tend to lean toward f7.1 as my go-to and wider apertures for lower depth of field in other cases. Here I am shooting at f20 or f22 in most cases. As an additional challenge, I am creating a studio look in my home. To do so, I am contending with distance limitations, a stairwell, lower ceilings in the “studio,” and furniture of course. I am using Westcott FJ400 Portable Strobes and modifiers, as well as V-Flat World V-Flats along with seamless paper and black velvet. I am shooting on a Canon 5DM4 with a variety of Canon Lenses, the Camranger 2, an iPad, Sekonic Meter, Hoodman Memory Cards and my Spider Holster Pro camera support.
The pandemic has certainly presented challenges as well, and I have been careful to make many precautions before agreeing to a photo shoot. That said, I am using that to also carefully curate the subjects I want to make portraits of, and not just choosing every motorcycle rider I see. Often the choice is made on the bike first, and then if I like the subject’s look, I approach them. Given the current climate, Instagram has been a great tool for this. My second subject was literally found from a random post that appeared on my feed, and I made two new friends as a result.
The most important aspect of MoTo has been to just create. I go nuts when I don’t have time to make images. Keeping my creative mind active is so critical because I am able to control that. So much, as we all are experiencing, is controlling us right now, so I feel it’s imperative to be able to choose a path now. Between shooting and retouching the images I have been able to continue to keep quite busy while the out of my control pieces start (hopefully) to fall back into place/become a new norm of how we will work.
Ikedi O. Onyemaobim photographed with his 2004 Triumph Thruxton 900 “Wolf”
I met Indian Motorcycle rider and Los Angeles Gym Owner Pieter Vodden for the first time during a commercial photo shoot last year. Then ended up at the same gym a few months later for another shoot and saw his bike parked in front of the location. This stuck in my mind so I approached him after I began the series.
Vodden’s Indian Motorcycle glove still life.
Actress Cortni Joyner (CW’s Into the Dark) was my first subject for MoTo. Thankfully, I had worked with Cortni a couple times so she was comfortable with me establishing the ideas I had scripted before beginning to make these portraits.
Muscian and Actress Nina Bergman stepped in like someone out of Mad Max. The Danish talent became a connection through her agent who represents many of the fitness athletes I photograph on commercial assignments.
Former BodyBuilder Stan McQuay was one of my first assignments for Muscle & Fitness Magazine in the early 2000s. Thanks to social media we have remained aware of one another. He posted about his new custom show bike and was very happy to ride it over to be a part of my project.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
This ongoing series entitled DRIFT, named equally for wind blown snow and for my meandering outdoor search for subjects – not to mention a car steering technique- began in New York City in 2006.
The contrast between delicate individual snowflakes and the humbling and disabling power of a snowstorm has always fascinated me. I see vehicles becoming blanketed in snow representing that dichotomy whilst providing interesting forms, textures and color compositions.
Most of the images were shot close to my home in Brooklyn. As the cars are densely parked in that area I never have to venture more than a few blocks each time I shoot. Every vehicle provides a unique canvas but I’m often drawn to the ones with interesting colors, carefully studying every angle, seeking out elements that arrest my eye.
Snow dampens sound and for me, that tranquility, combined with bitter cold and scarcity of people, allows for a heightened level of concentration and patience. As a result, these images feel very personal and remind me of why I fell in love with photography at an early age.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
According to the website farmworkerfamily.org, between 1/3 and 1/2 of all farmworkers in America reside in California, which means that there are roughly 500,000 – 800,000 farmworkers laboring in the state’s fields and orchards and approximately 1/3 of them are women.
Mily Treviño-Sauceda and Mónica Ramírez had both spent years organizing and representing farmworkers before they joined forces in 2012 as co-founders of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas (The National Farmworkers Women’s Alliance). It was the first national organization to represent the country’s 700,000 women farmworkers, uniting one of the most vulnerable groups in the American workforce.
The intention of my group portrait was to have the dozen women farmworkers that agreed to be photographed stand in for their (approximate) 200,000 counterparts. I wanted to create a sense of infinity with just a few subjects.
After the group portrait was finished my crew and I set up a simple portrait station on the back of the equipment van in order to honor each woman individually.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture reports that California produces 1/3 of the country’s vegetables and 2/3 of the country’s fruits and nuts, which means that these women are responsible for providing Americans with lettuce, apricots, grapes, apples, almonds, broccoli and avocados to name just seven of the 400 agricultural commodities produced in the state.
Keeping these women safe and healthy is the mission of the Alianze and while the organization is addressing numerous issues from domestic violence to workplace environmental concerns and sexual harassment, Treviño-Sauceda says, “There’s still a lot of work out there we need to do.”
If you can donate to this organization and help these amazing women, please do as they are the ones keeping fruit and vegetables in the markets: https://www.alianzanacionaldecampesinas.org
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Clemens Ascher graduated from the Miami Ad School Europe in Hamburg, where he completed his qualifications as an art director and commercial photographer. His talent was already discovered while he was still studying and won him awards such as the ‘German Student of the year’ from the ADC.
Once he graduated he completed a long-term photography assistant job in Hamburg, before launching his freelance photographer career in 2008. Since then he has participated in several group and solo shows in Austria and works for international clients.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this new revised thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Artist Statement (Repeat post to honor Coney Island):
“Coney Island, a black and white retrospective” is my photographic journey of the past ten years shooting at Coney Island. My photographs, of Coney Island, Brooklyn NY, represent my vison of an ever-changing canvas of people and experiences by the water’s edge, on the boardwalk and the streets that surround. They bring the viewer into a place that is intimate, gritty and unretouched by society. The people are who they are and have no excuses or facades. The rich black and white tones strip away the screaming colors and even sounds of the seashore park and its patrons and leave the viewer to just be fixated by the subjects alone. I am pleased to present this compellation of some of my favorite images from the area I so love.
To order a copy of his book ($40), please contact him here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
When the world started to shut down due to Covid 19, all my future shoots were cancelled/postponed, and like many other parents suddenly my wife was working from home full time, and we had lost our childcare. Since I had no future work, I was there to take to over the childcare full-time for our daughter Mabel who was almost 2. She’s a kid with a lot of energy, she wants to be out running, chasing squirrels, climbing stairs, or just about anything active. Since I could no longer take her to the playground we only had a small grassy park in our neighborhood and our backyard as our little world to burn out her energy.
I take a million photos of her already to share with our families on the East Coast, but suddenly I found myself taking more and more since we were together 24/7. I would shoot a photo either on my iPhone or mirrorless that I bring everywhere, and then I started to notice funny similarities between some of my sports and fitness work. Sometimes it was the light and lines, sometimes the pose, and sometimes it was just a funny coincidence. I quickly realized that at times I couldn’t help it, I was trying to frame photos the same as I did at work, when she was just playing around. After a few weeks I started to dig into the drives, and match up the photos for fun, and then I started posting them on my instagram account. I’ve kept my instagram mostly work related for the last year, so this was suddenly making my daughter more public on there, but in a funny way. After a few shots I started getting so many messages from people to keep it coming, and they were looking forward to it each time. In the end I did 16 match ups with Mabel and athletes like Mike Trout, Tony Hawk, Megan Rapinoe and more. My time with Mabel is a break from all the craziness in the world right now, and I think these photos matchups were a simple way to keep things light, when it all seems so heavy. At one point I was stressing that I didn’t have a “corona project” like everyone else was talking about, and then I realized I didn’t need to come up with one, my project was our life together, and I just getting to shoot that is the best project possible.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Correfocs are some of the most interesting and dangerous things I’ve photographed in my life. In the correfoc, a group of individuals will dress as devils and light up fireworks that are fixed on their devil’s pitchforks. Most of these dancing devils will move to the sound of a rhythmic drum group, as they set off their fireworks among crowds of spectators. As a spectator it is your choice to participate inside the ring of fire or watch from a distance. The spectators that participate dress to protect themselves against small burns and attempt to get as close as possible to the devils, running with the fire.
The first time I experienced this celebration, was while I was living in Barcelona. I saw it and thought it was the most insane thing, running around with blazing fireworks attached to your hands? Crazy! But truth is, it was also something very visual and exciting. Correfocs reminded me of an anarchist protest or a punk rock concert mosh pit. Observing all these people running around and pushing against each other in devil outfits with fire coming out of their hands was in a way a reflection of how they where not afraid of living on the edge.
Photographing this experience was a thrill. Everywhere I looked there where flares and little dots of light coming towards my camera. The energy was high, a frenzy. Everywhere I pointed a shadow or a highlight would create a beautiful abstract representation of what was happening. People where pushing against each other, running away from the fire, as of me I was trying to get as close as possible and I was trying to capture the atmosphere and the people, when it was time the fire came close and I just didn’t stop pressing the shutter.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
I discovered the New York City and Los Angeles based non-profit Refoundry a few years ago, and immediately offered to volunteer my services at their New York location. Their “mission is to provide formerly incarcerated people with the skills and opportunity to achieve financial independence and become leaders and job creators in our communities”. Refoundry works to break the cycle of incarceration and give people a sense of self-worth and empowerment. It is a cause I believe in, and it is a cause worth amplifying, especially now. Their Hand in Hand™ Project, documented here, is ongoing within the greater scope of their mission.
Below is Refoundry’s description of the Hand in Hand™ Project, used with permission:
“68 million Americans have a criminal record; when arrested their hands are ‘printed’ for identification. In this way the state coopts identity and brands these individuals as criminals for life, disseminating that ‘record’ throughout our society in ways that create barriers to employment, housing, and essential services for millions of our fellow citizens.
Refoundry’s Hand-in-Hand™ Project is designed to contrast this process, creating a new association with hand-printing – one that’s positive and creative, and that allows formerly incarcerated people to reclaim their identity and self-agency while embracing, and being embraced by, the larger community.
The one criterion of the program is that people can’t paint their own hand, but must place their hand in the hand of someone else to paint, and in turn take another’s hand in theirs to paint. This process employs safe yet intimate touch within a common creative process, providing space for value, trust and empathy to flourish between individuals and communities.
When displayed in large numbers, the visual impact of hundreds of hands simultaneously projects the uniqueness of each individual and the power and strength of community – our community. Refoundry’s Hand-in-Hand™ Project invites diverse people from many different neighborhoods, of many different colors, with many different stories – and draws them together, hand-in-hand, in a single expression of creativity, individuality and community.”
To learn more about Refoundry’s mission click here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
These images of fisherman bringing in the catch in the early morning at Mafia Island were really a result of waking up before sunrise in the morning and walking down the beach from the little hotel my family and I were staying in. I was not conscious of taking pictures. I was more absorbed with the beauty and witnessing what looked like a ‘biblical’ experience. Here time seem to have had stood still. I hardly raised my camera…not wanting to intrude and disturb what I saw and felt. The fishermen were oblivious to my presence. It was only on my return to London that I discovered what I captured. Editing was easy as there were not many images at all!
Mafia Island is a tiny island of the coast of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The word Mafia is actually a Swahili word and is not connected to ‘Mafia from Italy’.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Quick Pickles is a collaborative project between myself and Publisher Cheryl Koehler, of Edible East Bay Magazine, in the SF Bay Area in California. We wanted to create an eBook that would inspire folks to make beautiful quick pickles in their kitchen. I got to work with some tempting flavor pairings, and developed recipes for many concoctions including: carrot ginger, asparagus basil, cabbage hot pepper, and garam masala cucumber.
The quick pickles “quickly” came to life in my photo studio and when we published our eBook, I blogged it to my base. The line of the email was, Pickles in Cupcakes? Maybe Just A Few, it was a metaphorical line to suggest we were really creative and maybe you could use them in your cupcakes. This line came from my favorite children’s book of all times, Warthogs in the Kitchen. This book taught math and generated an interest in cooking by having sloppy fun with warthogs in a kitchen.
Well, I received thousands of hits on the blog and Instagram post and dozens of requests for a recipe for pickles in cupcakes came into my inbox!
So, I delved into my past as a pastry chef for Hyatt, remembering that I used to make a red velvet cake with beets instead of food color. So pickled beets were a natural for a red velvet cupcake and it was a whole lot of fun to make, too! It turns out that they pair well with rich butter, fluffy cake, and cream cheese frosting. And the color is a deep ruby chocolate.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
In science, we are often contemplating the future by evaluating the past. The portrait obscured by reflections represents the idea of looking forward and backward in time. The ambiguity and the unknown come to the surface, clouding our vision of the past and the future. These portraits explore the uncertain futures of the next generation that will be struck the hardest by the impacts of Climate Change. Just as these images suggest, we are intertwined with the natural world and will need to find our path. My 13-year-old son, Björn, inspired the “Reflecting Forward” project. During one of our many daily chats, he asked about Climate Change and what the world will look like in the future. I realized I had only murky visions of that future myself and could not give him a clear answer. As a father, I hated the fact that I could not provide much clarity for Björn and knew I needed to explore this idea with a photography project. “Reflecting Forward” was born.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
“Noah” tells the story of Noah Patton, a young man from Flint, Michigan, who was going down a one-way street backward. With a gun on his hip and always in search of the next lick, he had many enemies and was living on borrowed time. However, like his hometown, Noah is striving to rise from the ashes. With the support of his pastor, he is turning his life around and helping to positively shape the future of his community.
Artist Statement
Noah caught my eye the second he walked into the room. I was seated at a table with a group of men, mostly ex-felons, at the Joy Tabernacle Church in Flint, Michigan where I had been commissioned to create a video on resident engagement by Community Leads. I had been introduced to Pastor McCathern as a potential subject. When Pastor opened up the church doors to me he said: “if you want to know my story, you have to hear the stories of my council.” That’s when Noah entered, gently placing his sleeping toddler down on a couch and taking a seat across from me. He looked up at me and said “I got a story that’s meant for the movies.”
Directed by filmmaker Dana Romanoff and edited by Blue Chalk Media, “Noah” tells the story of Noah Patton, a young man from Flint, Michigan who was going down a one-way street backward. Backward past abandoned homes and empty schools and the sounds of bullets echoing louder than children’s laughter. With a gun on his hip and always in search of the next lick, he had many enemies and was living on borrowed time.
Flint is a city built on the American Dream. With the disappearance of industry, it became impoverished and neglected, and so did its residents. The water crisis is just one more tragedy piled upon a mound of oppression.
But Flint is a city of survivors. And like the phoenix, Noah and his city are rising from the ashes. Noah returned to his deep-rooted faith in God, and with the help of a pastor, he is turning his life around and helping to positively shape the future of his community.
Noah’s story provides an entry point into the discussion about the role of grassroot efforts in urban revitalization. Flint is a city looking to build itself up from within by empowering its communities from the ground up. Both Noah and his pastor are examples of such grassroots efforts. Today’s political climate, and the often harsh rhetoric about inner cities, make the discussion about resident engagement, and Noah’s story, ever more important.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
