The Daily Edit
New York Times Magazine : Holly Andres

Wednesday: 5.29.13

Design Director: Arem Duplessis
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Art Director: Gail Bichler
Deputy Art Director: Caleb Bennett
Deputy Photo Editor: Joanna Milter
Photo Editors: Stacey Baker, Clinton Cargill, Amy Kellner
Designers: Sara Cwynar, Raul Aquila, Drea Zlanabitni

Photographer: Holly Andres

 

(click ad to see today’s visual interview )

 

Sam Jones Launches offCamera

Sam Jones is a go-to photographer for many magazines, studios and ad agencies when it comes to shooting actors. In over 20 years of shooting he’s noticed an unfortunate trend working for magazines. Less time; less control over wardrobe, location, heck even what side of the face you get to shoot; less choice in what to shoot with; which in his mind equals less exciting pictures. No unguarded moments or glimpses into their real lives. So, he decided to do something about it and created his own vehicle for “more” called offCamera.

Sam cracked open his formidable rolodex and started calling in favors to have actors, musicians, athletes and artists come into his studio for a simple daylight portrait shoot and one on one video interview with five unmanned cameras rolling. He then turns that into a magazine, a website, a video interview, and even a podcast. His theory, that there are others like him who want to experience long form stories and documentaries, who want simple portraits, who want the photographer, director and writer to be in control again.

I believe this is one more in a trend I see where people decide it’s time to take the power back and do what they want. If the audience and client come with you great, if not you still got to make something your way again. I am actually quite confident, based on evidence of other photographers creating their own publication, that Sam will find his audience and clients who agree with him on this. They will phone up and say “can you do that offCamera thing for us”? As I mentioned to Sam when he first told me about this project, your own publication if anything is an excellent excuse to call someone up and interview them. Inevitably that leads somewhere, either through the connection you just made or the people who are watching what you are doing.

From the editor letter in the first issue:

I started Off Camera to have my own magazine, my own radio station, and my own television studio. I wanted the opportunity to have a non-agenda conversation with anyone that captivated me. I wanted the chance to photograph anyone that peaked my interest, without having an art director or a publicist looking over my shoulder.

I have a strong reaction to over-produced, over-hyped, over-stimulating pieces of short content that leave me feeling like I am learning nothing. It has taken me a lifetime to develop my attention span, and I want to use it. I like a long book. I like a long documentary. I like a 15000 word magazine profile. I created Off Camera for those of us that salivate at the prospect of a good book, a stiff drink, and an afternoon with no plans.

Does Adobe’s Sudden Shift To Subscription Only, Unnecessarily Screw Photographers

Last week Adobe announced a sudden shift to subscription only on future releases of Photoshop. This seems inevitable as the whole software industry has moved away from major releases in favor of incremental improvements. An article in Mashable has Adobe explaining the reasoning behind the move from perpetual licensing to subscription:

With the traditional perpetual model, product updates had to happen on a certain cycle. If the Photoshop team wanted to push out a new feature or update, it had to stay on the same cadence as the updates for other apps in the suite. The product life cycle was roughly 18 months, which meant that it would take at least that long for new features to make their way to the final product.

That’s fine for some applications but it meant that Adobe couldn’t be on the cutting-edge with its support for the latest web standards and technologies. To fill in the gaps, Adobe introduced its Edge tools and services as as a way of giving users access to tools developed on a more agile basis.

What Adobe found with its Edge apps was that customers really liked getting new features in their apps more quickly. Adobe could roll out the updates to users automatically and add support for new standards and features outside of the confines of a standard product cycle.

With Adobe CS6, the company started a dual-track for its development, focusing on a core set of features at launch for the product and then adding subscriber-only features for Creative Cloud members. Some of those features — including support for high-resolution displays such as the MacBook Pro with Retina — were rolled out to all users, but the team was basically on a dual-path.

That’s not sustainable and so, moving forward, Adobe CC products will continue to see enhancements and updates throughout the year. Major releases will likely still have some general cadence but the product teams will no longer need to wait to release new features for an app.

The issue for photographers as explained in this photographyreview.com article and comments is the $20 a month you must pay to access your photoshop files. If you don’t pay, your files are “digital trash.”

Reporter Beats Out Lumberjack For Worst Job Of 2013

CareerCast.com has an annual ranking of 200 best and worst jobs for 2013 (here) and Reporter takes the bottom spot over last years Lumberjack. Ouch. Maybe we will see Discovery and History channels making a new reality series around reporter like the other worst job staples of Lumberjack, Commercial Fisherman and Mining. Of course rounding out the bottom 20 below Dishwasher but above Corrections Officer is Photojournalist at number 188, so I guess photographers are the best in the newsroom. In the catch-all category of Photographer, which usually includes heavy weighting on positions like cruise ship and theme park photographer, the ranking is 172 just below construction worker but with a positive job growth outlook. Strangely, their description of photographer reads: “Uses shutter-operated cameras and photographic emulsions to visually portray a variety of subjects.”

The Daily Edit
New York Times Magazine: Levon Biss

Tuesday: 4.16.13

Design Director: Arem Duplessis
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Art Director: Gail Bichler
Deputy Art Director: Caleb Bennett
Deputy Photo Editor: Joanna Milter
Photo Editors: Stacey Baker, Clinton Cargill, Amy Kellner
Designers: Sara Cwynar, Raul Aquila, Drea Zlanabitni

Photographer: Levon Biss

The Daily Edit
GQ : Phil Toledano

Monday:  4.8.13

Design Director: Fred Woodward
Creative Director: Jim Moore
Director of Photography: Dora Somosi
Senior Photo Editor: Krista Prestek
Photo Editor: Justin O’Neil
Art Director: Chelsea Cardinal
Photographer: Phil Toledano

Getty Announces 5 Decimal Point Payouts!

You heard it right, not five figure, five decimal points. Getty recently announced a rounding error on contributor statements where photographers who should have gotten a fraction of a penny in royalties got zero instead. So, to solve this problem going forward all the payouts will include tenths, hundredths and thousandths of a cent. Here’s the email you may have received:

$0 transactions on your January 2013 Connect statement

Many of you noticed $0 royalty transactions on your first Connect statement (January 2013) where we should have shown the micro-royalties (fractions of a cent).  This was a processing error where some royalties earned under $0.00500 which were inadvertently rounded to $0.  Going forward you can expect to see the royalty amount (out to five decimal points) for each image earned, even if it is under one penny.  All fractional-cent royalties are then summed on the statement and rounded up or down to the nearest cent for payment.

We have calculated any additional micro-royalties due to you for those zero transactions (which were fractions of a cent).  If you are due an adjustment, we will add this adjustment amount to your payment on April 25th, however no royalty statement for this adjustment will be available.  If applicable, you may see a description for that additional amount in your payment remittance advice as “Jan2013 Connect zero adj”.

NOTE: Sorry, this is not an April Fools joke, but it reads like one so you may be fooled.

Who Pays Photographers

In response to the tumblr “Who Pays Writers” someone created an anonymous version for photographers: Who Pays Photographers?

You can anonymously submit (here) what you were paid to shoot for a magazine along with some of the terms and conditions. There’s a spreadsheet of all the results on the blog and (here). If you’ve been in this business for awhile it’s mostly what you already knew or thought someone paid. If you’re new to photography you might be a bit shocked.

The #1 Rated Super Bowl Commercial Shot By 10 Photographers

Photographers Andy AndersonWilliam AllardJim ArndtDaniel BeltraMark GoochAndy MahrKurt MarkusDavid SpielmanMatt Turley and Olaf Veltman got the call of a lifetime when veteran adman Jimmy Bonner of The Richard’s Group phoned with simple instructions and a mantra from Paul Harvey. He asked them to go spend time with farmers and ranchers and take pictures to be shown in a 2 minute spot for Ram during the Super Bowl. No AD’s or clients or craft service; just photographers and their subjects.

AdWeek is calling it the #1 spot from the Super Bowl and love or hate the sentimental message you’ve got see this as a clear referendum on the power of photography. At nearly $3,800,000 per 30 seconds of air time, Ram and The Richards Group made a huge bet and came up aces. According to Andy Anderson and his blog Rob Baker, and Deb Grisham we’re also involved in the production.

Getting Us Closer To The Truth In Photography

Harry Fisch organizes Travel Photography trips with Nomad Photo Expeditions and recently won the places category in the 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest. 72 hours later he had lost it. The winning image was disqualified because he had removed a plastic bag in post. A blog post about what happened (read it here) has an email from the editor telling him that cropping the bag out or simply leaving it in would have had no impact, but digitally removing it violates the rules. Ouch. Harry is a good sport about it and concludes that had he been on the jury, he would have done the same saying, “rules are rules.”

Many people will argue that photography can never tell the truth. That the lens, image processing, where you stand, and what you chose to include in an image all alter the facts. This misses the point entirely. The point of truth telling in photography is for the photographer to make an image that gets us as close to the truth as they can. That is the goal. Now that the mechanical limitations of photography (film and printing) are gone we are less reliant on the camera to tell the truth, so that obligation falls on the photographer. You must build trust with your viewers and editors so they believe what you are saying.

This is an unusual position to be in, because photographers often relied on the camera and film to do this. Inherent imitations of the medium prevented them from doing too much to alter what happened (although many pushed it as far as it would go). Limitations may be returning to cameras. A new software development by the the human rights organization Witness aims to make it easiter to verify the authenticity of video, photos, or audio created and shared from mobile devices (story on Nieman Journalism Lab). “The app collects metadata that it will bundle and encrypt with your photo or video — including generating an encryption key based on the camera’s pattern of sensor noise, which is unique to each camera.”

The current practice of submitting RAW files for verification (to magazines and contests) may soon be assumed by software that does the verification for us. I expect this will be taken to the next logical step and any work that’s done in post will be recorded and encrypted by the software as well. Eventually news organizations and contests could set a “score” that’s some percentage of allowed manipulation to the pixels of an image that they consider ok. Maybe the software will disable certain tools used in post processing (this is Hal, I’ve disabled the clone tool). Regardless, the goal will be the same. Getting us closer to the truth. And the burden will return to the limitations of the software and not the photographer. That will be a good thing.

Update: the contest was incorrect [corrected], it was not Traveler’s but National Geographic magazine’s, which is officially called the National Geographic Photo Contest. And Harry Fisch was the Places Category Winner not the Grand Prize Winner of the overall contest [corrected].

National Geographic Photo Seminar 2013

I attended National Geographic’s annual Photo Seminar last week. What started in 1967 as a way for photographers to informally gather and talk about their work (one attendee described it as an after the holidays palate cleanser), has become an annual rite for the exclusive group of photographers in the “Nat Geo” club and various hangers-on. From what I could gather the more recent seminars have taken the shape of canonizing the old guard, highlighting young new talent and pushing the boundaries of what might be acceptable for photography among the members and staff. A perfect mix in my opinion.

For me it was an awesome treat to watch photographers talk about their work. I look at work on my computer, in books and magazines and even sometimes on the wall, but it’s rare that I get to hear a photographer talking about their work. And wow, what a difference that makes. I need to do it more often as it renewed my spirit for the craft.

If there’s one word that describes what I witnessed at the event it would be emotion. From photographers who want to change the world, to those whose deep emotions manifest in the work to a deep love of subject, my nerves were raw after each speaker finished their outpouring of emotion. As I watched I discovered an excellent way to keep notes was to simply tweet out the great quotes I heard. Now, going back and remembering it all here are my highlights.

Master of ceremonies Vincent J. Musi in response to the unprecedented flood of photographers and imagery we’re experiencing quipped in his opening remarks “Have photographers become the endangered species?”. The answer came minutes later as he introduced street artist JR to the group. I say that because I believe what has changed is simply the definition of “professional photographer.” Go see JR’s Ted Prize talk from 2011 to understand what a special person he is. The mind bending part of his work is when he crowd sources and does not directly participate in the creation of  it. This is an important concept for photographers who don’t want to become endangered to consider.

The next photographer continued that thought as Michael Ravine who works with NASA and others discussed putting cameras on space ships and sending them to orbit the moon and rove around mars taking pictures. Many of us have fallen in love with the photography NASA and JPL are doing today, but nothing raises the hackles on traditional photographers like not standing in the field with your camera to make the picture. But, making pictures remotely is another concept that needs to be explored further.

Other highlights for me were an on stage interview of David Alan Harvey by Vincent that had so many memorable moments including David’s first rejection letter from National Geographic where he was told “You are young and strong and this is good because what I’m about to tell you will make you old and sick.” His own emotional journey into each subject he covers: “When I read about method action, I do the same thing with my photography” and “I go native every time. There’s a little piece of me in every assignment.” Then Aaron Huey gave a showstopper with his Pine Ridge Reservation talk that I’ve highlighted here before (Ted version) where he said, “Pine Ridge broke something inside me, but also opened something in my heart.”

Finally, Sebastião Salgado whose passion and devotion to photography and planet surely cannot be matched delivered the perfect summation of what I just witnessed: “Photography is the most powerful language ever created in the modern world”

I believe and have preached this thought over and over throughout my career. Photography is still powerful, but photographers must evolve and incorporate new ways to make and deliver the emotional impact available to them.

The New York Times Magazine: Photographs edited by Kathy Ryan

It’s just past the time of the year when everyone has posted their favorite photography books from 2012 and I thought I’d get in on the action, but because I’m very edgy I’m picking a book from 2011. Ok, actually I bought it last year intending to write about it, but my motivation left me somewhere along the way (almost didn’t do it again). My pick for for a timeless book everyone should own is The New York Times Magazine: Photographs edited by Kathy Ryan.

If you’re a fan of editorial photography, you know that The New York Times Magazine is the gold standard. This is not because they have their pick of photographers or because they publish weekly and have lots of assignments to hand out or because they’re not sold on newsstands so they don’t have to do many of the stupid things other magazines do to hit promised circulation numbers. All good reasons but no that’s not it. It’s because Kathy and crew swing for the fences with their pairings. They pair ambitious projects with ambitious photographers. They pair subject with a photographers particular experience and interest. Like a sommelier in the editorial department, they know it’s the chemistry between subject and photographer that makes incredible, memorable, home run photography.

This would be a great book if they simply picked the best photography from the last 33 years of the magazine and shipped it off to the printer. What makes it incredible and a valuable resource for anyone in the photography business is the commentary that accompanies nearly every image. The photographer, the subject, or one of the photo editors gives anecdotes about the subject, the shoot and even the circumstances surrounding the assignment. For me, it was like being in the photo department at The New York Times Magazine. An incredible treat for someone who loves magazine photography. If you’ve spent your career looking at photography like this, you will pick up the subtle difference when a great pairing is made.

Here’s a sample:

RICHARD BURBRIDGE
Author Tom Wolfe. Frome “Wolfe’s World,” published October 31, 2004.

For me, Tom Wolfe’s eccentricity is wonderfully expressed in this picture, by that crazy smile. He was charming. I thing that, above else, Tom Wolfe wis absolutely charming. And when I was equally charming, he was more charming. I like a portrait session to last ten minutes. When it goes past ten minutes, I’m in trouble, of something strange is happening. Because my photo-shoots are uncomfortable for most people. — RICARD BURBRIDGE

DAN WINTERS
Filmmaker Spike Jonze. From “Spike Jonze’s Wild Ride,” published September 2, 2009 (cover image)
I have to say, Dan was pretty patient with my back-seat driving. I definitely had opinions on what the photos should be. I think he has an ego as a photographer, in that he wants to make something he is connected to, but not so much so that he doesn’t also want the photo to represent the person. —SPIKE JONZE

NAN GOLDIN
Artist Kiki Smith. From t”The intuitionist,” published November 5, 2006.

Sometimes the slightly out-of-focus image is the one to go with. To me, this image is absolutely alive. It just breathes. And that celestial blue light brings to mind the hues and spirituality of Giotto. Goldin is a defining photographer of our time, who skips back a couple of centuries for her inspiration. — K.R.

GUEORGUI PINKHASSOV
Petlyura’s artists’s squat in Moscow. From “Young Russia’s Defiant Decadence,” published July 18, 1993

Gueorgui Pinkhassov says that he doesn’t have a particular intention when he is photographing; he is interested in something he doesn’t know. When he is shooting, he ignores the action and concentrates on the movement and intersection of purely visual elements–line, form, light. “Don’t be afraid to take bad pictures,” he says, “because good pictures are the mistakes of the bad pictures.” In this photograph, there are four separate actions that all weave together: one person lifts a cigarette, one tosses a ball, the dog looks on, and the Lenin-like figure drops the flag to the ground. For Pinkhassov, life is really like a tapestry—he’s never shooting just one thing, there are often several things happening simultaneously. –K.R.

A Short Lesson in Perspective

1. The creative industry operates largely by holding ‘creative’ people ransom to their own self-image, precarious sense of self-worth, and fragile – if occasionally out of control ego. We tend to set ourselves impossibly high standards, and are invariably our own toughest critics. Satisfying our own lofty demands is usually a lot harder than appeasing any client, who in my experience tend to have disappointingly low expectations. Most artists and designers I know would rather work all night than turn in a sub-standard job. It is a universal truth that all artists think they a frauds and charlatans, and live in constant fear of being exposed. We believe by working harder than anyone else we can evaded detection. The bean-counters rumbled this centuries ago and have been profitably exploiting this weakness ever since. You don’t have to drive creative folk like most workers. They drive themselves. Just wind ‘em up and let ‘em go.

2. Truly creative people tend not to be motivated by money. That’s why so few of us have any. The riches we crave are acknowledgment and appreciation of the ideas that we have and the things that we make. A simple but sincere “That’s quite good.” from someone who’s opinion we respect (usually a fellow artisan) is worth infinitely more than any pay-rise or bonus. Again, our industry masters cleverly exploit this insecurity and vanity by offering glamorous but worthless trinkets and elaborately staged award schemes to keep the artists focused and motivated. Like so many demented magpies we flock around the shiny things and would peck each others eyes out to have more than anyone else. Handing out the odd gold statuette is a whole lot cheaper than dishing out stock certificates or board seats.

3. The compulsion to create is unstoppable. It’s a need that has to be filled. I’ve barely ‘worked’ in any meaningful way for half a year, but every day I find myself driven to ‘make’ something. Take photographs. Draw. Write. Make bad music. It’s just an itch than needs to be scratched. Apart from the occasional severed ear or descent into fecal-eating dementia the creative impulse is mostly little more than a quaint eccentricity. But introduce this mostly benign neurosis into a commercial context.. well that way, my friends lies misery and madness.

This hybridisation of the arts and business is nothing new of course – it’s been going on for centuries – but they have always been uncomfortable bed-fellows. But even artists have to eat, and the fuel of commerce and industry is innovation and novelty. Hey! Let’s trade. “Will work for food!” as the street-beggars sign says.

This Faustian pact has been the undoing of many great artists, many more journeymen and more than a few of my good friends. Add to this volatile mixture the powerful accelerant of emerging digital technology and all hell breaks loose. What I have witnessed happening in the last twenty years is the aesthetic equivalent of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The wholesale industrialization and mechanistation of the creative process. Our ad agencies, design groups, film and music studios have gone from being cottage industries and guilds of craftsmen and women, essentially unchanged from the middle-ages, to dark sattanic mills of mass production. Ideas themselves have become just another disposable commodity to be supplied to order by the lowest bidder. As soon as they figure out a way of outsourcing thinking to China they won’t think twice. Believe me.

So where does that leave the artists and artisans? Well, up a watercolour of shit creek without a painbrush. That one thing that we prize and value above all else – the idea –  turns out to be just another plastic gizmo or widget to be touted and traded. And to add insult to injury we now have to create them not in our own tine, but according to the quota and the production schedule. “We need six concepts to show the client first thing in the morning, he’s going on holiday. Don’t waste too much time on them though, it’s only meeting-fodder. He’s only paying for one so they don’t all have to be good, just knock something up. You know the drill. Oh, and one more thing. His favourite color is green. Rightho! See you in the morning then… I’m off to the Groucho Club.”

–Linds Redding, a former Saatchi and BBDO art director, died of Cancer in October age 52.

“Power down. Lock up and go home and kiss your wife and kids.”

Read more of: “A Short Lesson in Perspective”.