I wanted to take a moment before we get to cranking out blog posts in 2012 to recognize all the awesome contributors here at APE.
The Daily Edit, is a column I think will someday outgrow APhotoEditor. The idea was sparked by conversations with advertising art directors who told me they love editorial photography and my own need to get back to what I loved about photo editing. Looking at lots of pictures. I never gave a second thought to how they were made or what the steps were in the hiring process or what was it exactly it was about the photographer that caught my attention. I just looked at pictures and hired people who made ones I liked. So, I hired Heidi Volpe to go to newsstands and browse the magazines. Whatever she found interesting (a magazine you didn’t expect to have good photography, a new take on an old subject, a photographer she’d been following getting hired by a magazine she respected, pictures that rock), she bought and took a picture of the layout for me to publish. The best part is, I never know what it will be until I look first thing each day. Heidi has great taste and her reaction to images is based on years of experience working at magazines as a creative director, plus she loves editorial photography like I do. I hear from photo editors all the time how much they love it, so I know we’re on the right track.
Jonathan Blaustein started writing for me over a year and a half ago. Originally, he was visiting some photography events and interviewing people working on the fine art side of things. Recently though, he hit his stride with writing that is highly entertaining and self aware. I really love going inside his head as he visits art exhibits and pages through photography books. I’ve spent plenty of time looking at pictures, exhibits and books thinking, WTF, people like this. Jonathan has been expanding my mind and helped me see the underpinnings of this crazy genre. An unexpected bonus has been the recognition his own work is receiving, giving us and inside (the head) look at a career on the move.
Amanda Sosa Stone and Suzanne Sease were plucky enough to realize I had a bunch of photographers hungry for information about advertising and if they helped me find answers the goodwill would pay dividends. What started as a column called “ask anything” where questions and answers were exchanged anonymously and honestly has evolved into Suzanne Sease with a series of “state of the industry” posts and a new column looking at great advertising images. What I absolutely love about this series is how connected she is. She gets people at the top of the food chain to answer questions! I’ve also gained an appreciation for the difficulties facing advertising photography, but Suzanne handles it with such aplomb and a no BS attitude to boot.
Several years ago I asked a photographer I was talking with to send me the estimate for the job they’d just won. I said I was going to black out the identifying information and post it up on my blog to see what people thought. Well, I can only remember a couple other posts that set off a firestorm of comments like that one. I tried to get my hands on more estimates without much luck until the people at Wonderful Machine contacted me and said they be happy to provide them as a monthly column. It was a perfect match because I needed more estimates and they provided an estimating service to photographers. What I truly love about this column is how gutsy it is. Very few people could withstand the scrutiny of thousands of photographers looking at and downloading their latest estimate. Special thanks to Jess Dudley for keeping it alive.
So, here’s to the contributors, all your postings are honest, heartfelt and gutsy. My original mission, to talk about photography from inside the industry is alive because of you.