“Personal work is really, really important… because we want to see how the photographer sees”
Kat Dalager, Head of Print Production, Campbell Mithun.
Found it on, Humble Monkey Productions.
“Personal work is really, really important… because we want to see how the photographer sees”
Kat Dalager, Head of Print Production, Campbell Mithun.
Found it on, Humble Monkey Productions.
39 Comments
Thanks for sharing this video with your readers. I will pass it along!
I had a gallery once tell me to do commercial work to see how well I listen.
:P
note: the answer was “not well”
Your info are always very helpful. Thanks
Great stuff. I’ll be forwarding this as well. Thanks!
Thanks!
[…] leave a comment » The Value of Personal Work […]
We at British Journal of Photography are currently looking for stories from photographers on how their personal work led directly to assignment work.
Any ideas you want to share, email me at bjp.editor@bjphoto.co.uk.
Kat sez:
“…we wanna see how the photographer sees….”
and…
“…the acknowledgment of the photographer as an artist and that ‘higher-level’ skill which is, as an artist, is also very desirable…”
Huh?!! If I wanna see how a photographer ‘sees’, I think looking at his commercial book will give you a pretty good idea. Everybody knows that shooting ads requires a tremendous amount of interpretive skill and that what makes a commercial photographer worth his weight in gold.
Oh sure…I get what she’s saying, but I often fail to see how elevating commercial photographers to ‘Artist’ standing simply because he or she shows a ‘personal side’ has any validity if you’re looking for them to shoot commercial assignments. There are carloads of commercial (advertising and editorial) photographers whose work I admire where I have not seen their personal work, but it wouldn’t change my opinion about them as photographers or make me think they we any better of worse if they don’t push their personal projects. Alternatively, I see lotsa very good commercial photographers who trot out some pretty lame ‘ART’ that falls under their personal work category because they feel they have to in order to appear….artistic!
@Brad Trent,
“I see lotsa very good commercial photographers who trot out some pretty lame ‘ART’ that falls under their personal work category because they feel they have to in order to appear….artistic!”
Check the shortlisted pictures from this year’s AOP Awards (primarily UK-based ad and editorial shooters). Always a mixed bag, but this year I feel like I could be looking at the final year show for a bunch of German photography students…
http://www.the-awards.com/2009_Images
@Simon, I saw a “fine art” project by a guy who shoots fashion and beauty. It was possibly the lamest thing I’ve seen since the last SVA MFA show. Super clean, overlit, retouched, medium format digital, fashion-ey rip off Crewdson, whose work I abhore.
@Brad Trent, my commercial book is overflowing with overlit lifestyle shoots for telecoms companies. This book doesn’t get me any work. My editorial and personal book(s) of street and dirty fashion get me work, shooting overlit lifestyle ads for telecoms.
@Brad Trent,
You obviously have never tried to sell a photographer to an Art Director.
@Brad Trent, @Simon,
Exactly. About time somebody told it how it is. There’s a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors guff that these consultants get off on. You want to see how I see? Then you want to strap me to some lame ass AD who has zero understanding of photography but “knows art when he sees it” and who attempts to make me shoot the same overlit hackneyed crap that Donnar Party references. Where’s the personal vision in that.
Put Crewdson, Hido and their ilk in a competition with some 6th form art school students and you’d not tell them apart. Smoke and mirrors. Emperor’s new clothes.
There’s a whole little disgusting world of “art photography” that’s grown up supported by these rip-off ‘competitions’ and perpetuated by people who want to hire us for our ‘inner vision’ and perpetuate the myth that personal work isn’t just something you do when nobody’s hiring you to shoot for money!
You hire me because I can shoot stuff that sells your product. Lets not forget the 75% of my “look” which I don’t do (that’s farmed out to retouchers of course).
@Arty Farty,
I don’t see what the big deal is. They want to hire people who’s work they feel strongly about and who they think would be enjoyable to work with but after that it’s just a job and sometimes an extremely unglamorous one at that.
Why would you deny someone the joy of finding great photographers to work with even if the end product doesn’t require any of those skills?
@Arty Farty, come on man I like Hido! Crewdson is a fraud, much like his literary counterpart, Rick Moody. Awful.
To claify my above statement, and what APE is (I believe) saying in his reply, clients know that your commercial work is someone elses comp. If they like your personal work there is likely a similar taste in common, which leads to drinks and happy feelings before, during, and after the overlit smiling cell phone family shot that pays for Packer.
I think your take on the fine art market is pretty right on. Now that all those Lehman brokers (and their analogues) are broke the demand for shitty art photography might calm down and starve this symbiotic fine arts racket of its lifes blood: money.
the real story here is how bad her shirt is! good lord. she should talk to a stylist on set.
@bb,
Don’t be such an a-hole.
@A Photo Editor,
was an attempt at humor. the damn shirt looks like it went thru a shredder during fall in new england. her insight however is excellent.
@bb,
ok then. i hate putting people through the shredder over here unwittingly when I re-post so I guess I was being too sensitive.
@bb, an unnecessary remark. I’m more interested in what she says than how she’s dressed.
@john mcd., never under estimate the power of good wardrobe in a shot!
those people who wish to continue working in this business can only hope everyone else follows kat’s advice.
@PL, Take this commment, reverse it, and then it would be right.
@Erica Chadwick, not sure I get it. If everyone follows Kat’s advice they will continue working in this business? If everyone else advised Kat that hope in business is to be continued? That was not what I meant at all.
I look at personal work like having your friends over to try a new recipe . ‘Cause you know they can handle it. You take risks and jack up the seasoning and the delivery, because you want to kick their asses, with flavor and care you have reserved, Just for them. The special, select few who will appreciate your extra effort . Off the menu as it were…..
I met with Kat about 10 days ago. She looked at my book, said she liked the work, then asked me to take send her shots of mainstream people in set up situations.
You know, shooting red shoes does not prove that you can shoot green shoes.
The keyword in all of this is ‘personal.’ Some guys are more business oriented, some are more art oriented.
What if a photographer doesn’t have time or just doesn’t want to shoot personal work? Or what if they can’t afford to do personal projects because their commercial work is costing so much it becomes personal? Uh huh, exactly.
Seems that a lot of big advertising photographers get most of their work based on what they do with their spare time and cash, whether it’s for a book, a gallery, or a magazine that doesn’t pay. I can think of a few prominent examples.
@Chris Schultz, Example please…. I am just curious.
@Tom McKenzie, first five examples I thought of:
JILL GREENBERG
Her meddling monkeys and crying babies directly landed her many big jobs, such as Gwen Stefani’s album packaging, the Burger King crying adults, numerous magazine covers, etc. Check out her site and you’ll see how many jobs were shot for advertisements using that same exact lighting. I have personal insight into just how much work she got because I was her digital tech for two years. Brilliant business woman, no matter what personal opinion anyone has of her.
EWRIN OLAF
Same thing as with the personal work. Check out his site and you can quickly make the connection. BEAUTIFUL photography.
MICHAEL GRECO
He’s a big promoter and marketing guru. His seminars, articles and books definitely land him commercial work.
DAVID LACHAPELLE
No explanation necessary.
Chris, or was it Andrew, Eccles? Tim maybe?
Whatever his name, this guy has created a few published personal books, one of them was of animals. He’s recently done another one too in a similar style. Just saw it at Barnes and Noble two weeks ago. Studio guy, can’t remember his name. Not my style of photos so I can’t recall his name too easily.
@Chris Schultz, Thanks. I see what you are saying, if they didn’t do some sort of personal work and developed a distinctive style they may have never landed their big commercial jobs.
I was just asking that myself. My work differs so much in every project, that I do understand that I confuse people, but that’s me. I dedicate a year in landscape photography, then portraits, then photojournalism,…
I love it!
I was wondering should I separate personal projects from professional or not and I guess yes is the answer.
thx,
Borut
Oh, and here I was just putting my personal in here and there cause I thought it was fun. Gotta drill that down a little tighter, then again, maybe not. I dunno.
Love this acknowledgment that personal work of “commercial” photographers is as important as the work they do for assignments. And that is can influence awarding the assignment. We started Viewville because we think personal work is important and worthy of a wider audience. Great comments, Kat.
MMc
Holy crap. I just read through almost all the comments. Boy, there are a lot of bitter biscuits out there. It’s competitive out there -any yutz with a camera is looking for assignments — and you should be grateful for art producers/buyers like Kat who can influence the baby art directors {who can’t find their ass with both hands} into making a smart decision about who to award a job to. There are so many decision makers — the client wants to get out of Dodge for a day and go to {insert city name here}, the art director just wants to win an award and maybe go somewhere fun to shoot. The account guy/gal wants to get it for nothing. Legal’s got issues. Oh, and let’s not leave out the good-old-boy-girl-network. It’s a wonder anything great gets done sometimes.
Personal work, professional portfolio. I don’t care what Kat’s wearing at least she’s interested in what you’re shooting when you’re not shooting cars, beer bottles or hamburgers.
Personal work could be dangerous. You have to pay attention and to think about your clients / market and the message behind your personla work. In some situation they could collide.
I cannot remember a single time we booked a job based on previous campaigns we did. But I can remember tens of jobs we booked based on personal work.
Some of you are getting the words “fine art” and “personal work” mixed up.
For example- I represent Thomas Chadwick, and he shoots personal work all the time. And it pays off for him in a huge way. But he would never call his personal work fine art. His personal work has an artistic way about it- clearly. But he knows he is not a fine artist.
He’d probably say his personal work is his work, and his commercial work are his assignments.
Wow, such vitriol.
I had the pleasure of spending time with Kat recently when we brought her to Boston for a creative panel for ASMP New England.
In my opinion she is one of the most forthright, honest and genuine persons I have met in over twenty years in the business.
Yes, she talked about my personal work, she’s interested in how we “see” when there aren’t gaggles of people influencing what we do. If you guys think that having Art Directors, Creative Directors, account people and clients hovering over you in shoots doesn’t influence your work then your kidding your selves or have much stronger ego’s than I.
I feel sorry for those photographers who are so entrenched into their commercial specialty that they can’t expand their vision into alternative avenues. After all, isn’t a photographer’s personal work simply what he or she is looking to doing next? I’ve been shooting national campaigns for over twenty five years and have changed my specialty five times during that period. Each time I make a change it happens by showing my “personal work” along with my established portfolio. Some of you sound a bit burned out. Maybe it’s time to move into a new, more challenging area of expertise……time to shoot a few images that gets your blood flowing, not just your bank account.
I’ve worked with Kat on several occasions over the past two decades and she’s one of the brightest and most tuned in art buyers in the industry. I was never called by her for a job that wasn’t a perfect fit for my style and vision. I certainly can’t say that about 90% of the art buyers in our industry.
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