Review Santa Fe: Photographers Listing

Hot on the heels of Jonathan’s post yesterday about the Fotofest portfolio review I discovered that Review Santa Fe has their listing of Photographers whose portfolios made the cut up on their website. I’m pointing it out, because it’s a great resource for anyone who hires photographers for a living. When that was my job I would take time out each week to troll the internet for new talent and running across anyone’s curated list was a great find and could easily suck up an hour of your workday, but would result in a couple new bookmarks.

Any of you who made the list, congratulations and good luck next week. I’ll be around (not reviewing) so come say hi. The website is quite easy to navigate, because you can quickly click to the next photographer (bottom left) and each one is only represented by a couple images. Plus, it lists where they live which is incredibly helpful.

http://www.visitcenter.org/reviews/photographers_listing/review_santa_fe_2012

I must assume, that I failed miserably

I blew it. I was lost. I don’t know anymore today what the right answer is. In retrospect the problems are the same today as they were then and I am not sure I have learned anything. The light I use is revealing and penetrating. It may be, but it also may not be flattering. My instinct is to get close, when maybe it would be best to stay far away. I am not thinking of pleasing the subject, I am thinking of finding a way into the person I am photographing.

via The End Starts Here — Rodney Smith.

Impressions from FotoFest

by Jonathan Blaustein

My feature articles run long. Have you noticed? If it’s not a book review, you can count on me to get verbose and intricate. Conversely, I also love to rebel. So let this be the first brief feature piece, a quick recap of my time at FotoFest (Session 3) this past March.

I suppose I could start with my objectives: to meet with and show work to international curators, and also to get to know some of the curators and collectors in the Houston scene. Unlike my previous visits to Review Santa Fe, this time I was not out to make friends. Just to take care of business. (And I assumed I’d get to hang out with a few interesting photographers as well.)

The trip was a breeze, less than 2 hours on a plane from ABQ direct to Houston Hobby, the Southwest Airlines hub. It’s far closer to downtown than George Bush/IAH, and very efficient, so I’d recommend you use it if you can. It’s an easy-but-not-cheap cab trip to the Downtown Doubletree, where the FotoFest is held. I was told by some colleagues that it’s best to stay there, if possible, and I’d concur.

Upon arrival, I spotted Kurt Tong and Dana Popa in the lobby, both in from London, departing from Session 2. After a quick hello to them, I looked down, and my suitcase…was…gone. Rather than freaking out, like I might have in the past, I sprinted outside and rummaged through the back of the first cab I saw. There is was. So let that be a FotoFest lesson for you: keep your eyes on your business.

How can I condense four solid days of 24 meetings, both official and otherwise? It was exactly what I was hoping for, and perfectly run. Efficient, friendly people in charge, with co-chairs Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss offering warm greetings at the first evening’s cocktail party. These people have it down. Clocks are set to FotoFest time, so you always know when your next review will run. Extra reviews are called out, and despite the first-come-first serve notion, I never saw it be anything but smooth.

The reviewers hailed from all over the world, and so did the photographers. (As an example, I met with reviewers from England, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Korea & Argentina.) I was impressed to walk by tables of people and not hear English. FotoFest is also not juried, so the quality of the work ranged pretty heavily. I saw some things that were amateur, to be blunt, but so what? Those people were there for their own reasons, and seemed to be having fun.

Houston is a cool place, too. That’s one thing that caught me off guard. Here in New Mexico, we often have a bad opinion of Texans, though we tend to see more folks from around the Dallas area anyway. But Houston people were down-to-Earth, and the place had a distinctly Southern Vibe. Not a lot of TX accents either, which seemed strange.

Downtown, where FotoFest is located, is a big, wealthy grid. Buildings are like mini-cities, with built-in food courts, malls, and air conditioned skyways between them. I totally want to go back and see how many city-blocks I could cover by abusing those things. (Sorry, off-topic.)

I said I’d be brief, right? I was able to meet some wonderful people from the Houston museum, non-profit gallery, and collector scene. Kind, interesting professionals who work with one another to keep their community lively. Judging from the water features running along the gleaming Light rail tracks, and the ridiculous number of super-extra-double-shiny-skyscrapers, it’s not hard to figure out that there’s a lot of “funding” in this town.

From what I saw, Houston supports the arts, and the arts are happy in Houston. I was able to visit the Menil collection, which is free, and brilliant, but not the MFAH or the Houston Center for Photography. Both are thriving institutions, and it seems like there’s a long list of other museums in town too. (According to the plaque in the airport, at least.) I went on a brief gallery bus-tour via FotoFest, but didn’t see enough to get a sense that the galleries are equally hopping.

I’m not going to name drop my reviewers this time, but I will say that the people I met were professional, smart, honest and curious. (No attitude.) Very few of them had seen the portfolio I had with me, despite the fact that it has been around for a few years. My new work, debuting this week, wasn’t quite ready, so I didn’t bring it. I purposely wiped it off the Ipad, so I wouldn’t cave to pressure and show un-finished work. Plus, the impending project seemed to offer me a great reason/chance to follow up.

I think I got a lot of value out of the FotoFest experience, even though it does cost a fair amount. Lots and lots of conversations with people from other places. New connections, new opportunities, and untaxed beer. Highlights included an evening stroll through the streets with a few friends, and mugs of cold cheap Modelo Especial at an outdoor restaurant on a balmy night. And, of course, the Monday evening party, hosted by HCP at Cadillac Bar, a Texas Honkey-tonk, replete with a dancing Mexican Elvis not-quite-impersonator-house band.

Who do I think would benefit from going to the biennial event? To start, anyone who can afford it as a cost-of-doing-business. I don’t mean to harp on the expense, but we do have a broad audience here at APE. I don’t think FotoFest is realistic for most student photographers.

Beyond that, photographers who have a solid project and want to get it front of a bevy of global decision-makers, all in a brief period of time. Or perhaps others who don’t have a strong community, and want to get insightful feedback on some less- developed-work. I wouldn’t do that myself, I don’t think, but could see that being worthwhile for some. Given the well-oiled grind of a four-day-event, I’d definitely suggest that people be on top of their game

South x Southeast : a new magazine

everyone said print was dead and I would have to publish online. I don’t think print is dead at all, but it never hurts to listen. So, we decided to publish monthly online first, for economics as well as discovery. The print edition was still on the drawing board as to frequency, content, etc. After the first issue my blatantly honest focus group all said, “This is gorgeous, but when’s the print edition coming out?” So, in December, we began producing print, a composite of images from our first quarter. Our print editions are currently produced on demand by HP MagCloud.

Read more on: La Lettre de la Photographie.

The Daily Edit – Tuesday
5.22.12

(click images to make bigger)

Elle

Creative Director: Joe Zee
Design Director, ELLE Group: Paul Ritter
Associate Art Directors: Daniel Fisher, Elvis Cruz, Jill Serra
Photo Director: Pippa Lord
Photo Producer: Julie Hammond

Photographer: Olivier Zahm

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

This Week In Photography Books – Bernhard Fuchs

by Jonathan Blaustein

Waiting for the sunshine.
Waiting for the sunshine.
Tired of the gray days.
Tired of the gray days.
Oh, but it ain’t comin’,
it ain’t comin’, Soon.
No, it ain’t comin’,
it ain’t comin’, Soon.

The above text is not actually an old blues song. I swear. It’s an ironic little ditty my wife and I invented while living in Brooklyn. The winters wore me down in an onslaught of gray. Yes, I was Vitamin D deprived, so eventually, we moved.

Here in Northern New Mexico, we get something like 330 days of sunshine a year. No lie. And the depth of our blue skies gives a primal satisfaction to humans and animals alike. (Well, I’m guessing about the animals. I can’t actually speak to them, despite rumors to the contrary.)

The thing about all that sunshine: it’s addictive. Like photography itself, which derives from light, the volume and quality of light become an addiction. (Try saying that five times fast.) I don’t know how people live without it in Portland, as even a few days of gray will start to get me down. Like now.

It felt like Summer in April this year, (Big Ups to Climate Change) but the last four days here have been cold and wet and gray. Bone-cold. Bleak. Monotonous. So I’m feeling depressed. Forgive me.

Given that I can’t do anything to make the sun burst through the clouds, I thought I might as well sink into the moment. Revel in despair. Oh, the misery.

As I sifted through my book pile, though, I came across “Farms,” by Bernhard Fuchs, recently published by Koenig Books in London. What’s that, you say? A book about farms? What’s so depressing about that?

Well, these farms were photographed in the sad, desaturated light of Fuchs’ adopted home of Germany. Not a drop of real color to be found in this one. (Well, beyond a touch of green grass, that is.) We see barns, of course, and hay piles, leafless trees, and a pitchfork that has seen better days.

The book is the metaphorical equivalent of rubber-necking at a car crash. Nasty, on the surface, but impossible to look away. I don’t know why people take pleasure in the anti-aesthetic, (myself included,) but they most surely do.

The photographs are well-made, as is the book itself. It’s wrapped in substantial-feeling canvas, which matches the palate of the images within. So much melancholy. So much ennui. Yet strangely beautiful. Quiet. Lonely. Dignified.

I see images like this here on the farm all the time. (In real life.) But I don’t point my camera at them. I’m too busy waiting for the good weather to come back. So let’s consider this the book review where I bitched and moaned a bit, and gave you the opportunity to say, “Hey, Blaustein, get over yourself. Summer will be here soon. I promise.”

As to the book, which ought to be more of a focus of my musings, it’s really good. I recommend it. But only if you have the mental fortitude to pick it up, revel in its sad light, and then put it back on the shelf. Better to go outside and take a walk after all.

Bottom Line: Beautiful and bleak

To purchase “Farms,” visit Photo-Eye

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.

Still images in great advertising- Heath Patterson

Still Images In Great Advertising, is a column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.

I came across the work of Heath Patterson on Ads of the World and as you can see I like two things, humor and causes, and this campaign for The Boy Scouts of America covers both.  The campaign for Ogilivy Atlanta is the product of the team work of Heath Patterson (photographer) and Chris Bodie (retoucher).  I reached out to them to ask about this campaign and others.

 

Suzanne:  I see on your website you show a lot of personal work but get hired for very creative advertising.  How did you get in front of these people to take a chance on you?

Heath: I think that’s just something that has evolved over the past few years. When I first set out on my own, I opened a studio along with another digital artist. We had already been working together for several years at other advertising production houses, but were really hungry to establish our own identities away from those shops.  In the beginning, I really tried to shy away from showing personal work in my portfolio, thinking that value only came from commissioned advertising work. As time went on,  I noticed that my body of work was becoming more and more eclectic, and the gap between the commissioned work and some of my personal work was narrowing. The personal work was something I had always done to explore and stay fresh, but I began seeing it as another way to communicate to agency creatives that I am a visual thinker and problem solver with a broader range than they may have anticipated. I don’t know how much it has influenced the projects that I get awarded (or not) but I feel it’s a better approach for me and an honest representation of what i’m about. I’ve been pretty passive in my advertising and self promotion – I’ve just sort of tried to build on a handful of existing work relationships and do great work in hopes of going viral within those agencies. My initial clients were ones that I had worked with at previous jobs, so they already knew what I was about and I think they were excited about me going out on my own as well.

Suzanne:  On your website you shoot for a lot of great causes like Tobacco Free Florida, The Library of Congress, Obesity, the new child abuse and Boy Scouts and then some great campaign for AFLAC,  Pepcid and Icehouse.  Have the pro-bono campaigns helped you secure higher paying creative work?

Heath: I don’t know about higher paying, but definitely more work in general. Some of the projects you mentioned were actually paying jobs and some were pro-bono. Myself and the 4 digital artists at the studio, have always tried to do some select pro-bono. A lot of these images and campaigns we felt had a great shot of getting into the photo/advertising annuals which are some of the best advertising opportunities out there to get work in front of great creatives. I think the AD’s like the fact that when we take a pro-bono, we treat it like a paying job and really work to knock it out of the park. They also have a tendency to allow for a little more unbridled creativity, which is always fun, and it’s a great opportunity to build or reinforce relationships.

Suzanne:  You have quite a collaboration with your retoucher, Chris Bodie.  Do you all collaborate when a concept comes in or how to execute it with all the elements to create a single image?

Heath: Chris Bodie and I have worked together for so long that the collaboration process is very natural and seamless. Sometimes the call to bid comes to me and sometimes to him. That’s not to say that either of us is the perfect fit every time – we both work with other artists as well, but when we do work together, the collaboration process begins as early as the bid so that we can plan the best strategy to create the final image. There is no ego in the process, we simply work together for a collective ownership of the finished image(s). It’s a different way of working and thinking, but ultimately it gives us much greater control and allows us to plan for potential changes in direction down the road.

Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.

Heath Patterson is an advertising photographer with over 15 years professional experience. He has extensive experience collaborating with retouchers, illustrators, and digital artists.

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 founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies.

 

Too much photography

Now it is almost impossible for me to shoot a photo where someone is NOT taking a picture or posing for one. So I am under the impression that no-one is really paying attention to the splendours and beauties of the site, as the urge to photograph is so overwhelming. The photographic record of the visit has almost destroyed the very notion of actually looking.

Martin Parr.

The Daily Edit – Thursday
4.17.12

(click images to make bigger)

Spin

Design Director: Ian Robinson
Photography/Art Director: Michelle Egiziano
Deputy Photo Editor: Jennifer Edmondson

Photographer: Jason Nocito

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

Shutterstock’s IPO Plans

Techcrunch reported on Monday that Shutterstock filed its plans for an IPO on the NYSE from which it hopes to raise $115 million (story here). IPO’s are interesting because you get to look at the financials of a privately held company that thinks it’s the next big thing. From the story:

According to its S-1 filing, Shutterstock currently offers one of the largest content libraries in the commercial digital imagery industry with over 19 million photographs and illustrations and about 500,000 videos from more than 35,000 contributors. In 2011, the company delivered more than 58 million paid downloads. The average cost per image on the site in 2011 was around $3. Shutterstock says that it had more than 550,000 paying customers in 2011.

Shutterstock is the infamous long tail in action, generating $3 here and there for its 35,000 contributors and according to the S-1 filing (read it here), reaping $120 million in revenue for the company in 2011.

Perhaps there’s a hedging strategy for photographers who see a continued decline in their own stock sales and a continued rise in micro stock?

In a report published in October 2008, BCC Research estimated that the market for pre-shot commercial imagery was $2.7 billion in 2008 and was projected to grow to $5.1 billion by 2013. Within this market, BCC Research defines two segments: the “traditional stock photography” segment and the online marketplace segment. The traditional segment is characterized by higher-touch customer relationships, negotiated image prices, and stables of professional photographers who shoot content exclusively for one agency, some on a salaried basis. The online marketplace segment, in which Shutterstock has historically participated, is characterized by self-serve ecommerce with simple, inexpensive licensing options and a large number of contributors from around the world. BCC Research estimated that the online marketplace segment would grow 51% annually between 2008 and 2013 to a total of $2.0 billion in 2013. In the same time period, the traditional pre-shot image market was estimated to grow 5% annually to a total of $3.1 billion in 2013. As the quality, quantity and awareness of pre-shot image licensing options continue to increase over time, we believe that pre-shot images will satisfy an increasing portion of the demand for commissioned photography, which BCC Research estimates to be a $12 billion market in 2013.

Since imagery is often a component of an advertising campaign or media production, the demand for commercial digital imagery is largely driven by the global marketing and publishing industries. In 2011, more than $466 billion was spent in the global advertising industry and $379 billion in the global publishing industry (including books, newspapers and magazines), according to Zenith Optimedia and IBISWorld, respectively. We believe that disruptive technological trends are expanding the role of commercial digital imagery within these industries and driving growth in the demand and supply of images.

Art That Sucks At Marketing Itself

I’m a fan, personally, of art that sucks at marketing itself, that doesn’t have a cute backstory or a built-in ‘platform,’ that is not cuddly or ‘adorkable’ and doesn’t immediately lend itself to a hierarchy of ‘rewards’ for ‘backers,’ that is antisocial and prickly and deeply strange.

via photographsonthebrain.com.

The Daily Edit – Wednesday
4.16.12

(click images to make bigger)

Wired

Creative Director: Brandon Kavulla
Design Director: Leo Jung
Director of Photography: Zana Woods
Deputy Photo Editor: Sarah Filippi
Art Directors: Alice Cho, Bradley R. Hughes, Tim Leong
Senior Photo Editor: Carrie Levy

Photographer: Bryce Duffy

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted