A Photo Editor

Real Secrets Behind Building A Strong And Successful Portfolio

Over on Monaco Reps new Look Here blog there’s an interview with Claudia Monaco on the real secrets behind strong portfolios. I’ve pulled my favorite bits to whet your appetite, but you’ve got to read the whole thing (here).

I prefer to have at least 200 images to work with when I’m putting together a portfolio.
when a client takes a look at it, from page one to whatever, it is clearly one vision, one eye, one style, one artist. In order for many artists to get there, they need to experiment a bit by doing many things before they wind up with a cohesive vision. Here at this agency, I don’t consider repping someone unless they are already at a certain point of that arc of development.
a portfolio – which I would like to say right now is NOT a coffee table book, it is not a personal expression. It is a tool for getting assignments. Period.
The reason it’s a really strong portfolio is because its foundation is stories.
The layout of the portfolio takes much longer than the edit of the images. Depending on the photographer it can take weeks.
The use of white in a portfolio should be consciously made, and done sparingly.
There has been a shift over the years towards concentrated portfolios; twenty years ago, that was not necessarily the case. Things have become more and more limited in terms of what people want to see in a portfolio.
As impressive as technology is, nothing beats the tactile quality of a portfolio, the turning of the pages and the paper, is often a wonderful experience, like opening an envelope with expectations.
You have to be able to do things as quickly as possible. So we reintroduced acetate pages back into our portfolios. I have to say I feel much better about our books now. The turn around time for new work can be one day.
Our Video in Print pages are actual pages with a video screen embedded into the page:

I assume that every photographer scrapes a living at best

There is a huge amount of smoke and mirrors in photography, and how much people earn and the relationship between earnings and success, and the necessity to be perceived as successful and the image of financial security as an element of self-marketing are all central to very many photographers’ lives.

via Colin Pantall’s blog.

David Griffin Joins Washington Post As Visuals Editor

National Geographic executive editor of e-Publishing David Griffin will be joining the staff of The Washington Post to fill the newly-created position of Visuals Editor

via NPPA.

How do you avoid making a cliché?

Avoiding clichés requires one of two things: An original approach or an unexplored subject matter and ideally, both. In other words, figuring out a new way to make pictures of a tried and true subject is one way. This usually means telling a specific, dynamic story. The other is to discover or conceive of a subject that hasn’t been trampled to stereotype. Do both and you’re a genius.

via Mike Davis.

Huffington’s Plunder

The sale of The Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million is a sad milestone for media in the internet age. TruthDig columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges grinds down to the point that makes this so painful for journalists.

Any business owner who uses largely unpaid labor, with a handful of underpaid, nonunion employees, to build a company that is sold for a few hundred million dollars, no matter how he or she is introduced to you on the television screen, is not a liberal or a progressive. Those who take advantage of workers, whatever their outward ideological veneer, to make profits of that magnitude are charter members of the exploitative class. Dust off your Karl Marx. They are the enemies of working men and women. And they are also, in this case, sucking the lifeblood out of a trade I care deeply about. It was bad enough that Huffington used her site for flagrant self-promotion, although the cult of the self has reached such dizzying proportions in American society that such behavior is almost expected. But there is an even sadder irony that this was carried out in the name of journalism.

[…] The argument made to defend this exploitation is that the writers had a choice. It is an argument I also heard made by the managers of sweatshops in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, the coal companies in West Virginia or Kentucky and huge poultry farms in Maine. It is the argument made by the comfortable, by those who do not know what it is to be hard up, desperate or driven by a passion to express one’s self and the world through journalism or art. It is the argument the wealthy elite, who have cemented in place an oligarchic system under which there are no real choices, use to justify their oppression.

Read the whole story on Truthdig.

There Has Never Been A Better Time To Be An Artist

…because everyone’s a photographer now. Those two seemingly contradictory statements are the subject of the soon to be released film, “Press Pause Play” which will premiere at the SXSW festival in Austin, March 11. The trailers have been floating around for awhile now and whenever I watch them I can’t help but hear my bullshit alarm screaming in the back of my head, because they’ve interviewed a bunch of people who plan to make millions off all the wannabee artists that are now suddenly empowered by the internet. I would argue that while it’s gotten easier for people to create things and absurdly easy to distribute them, creating something interesting and engaging has remained as difficult as ever.

Yes, supporting and curating that consumer driven content is a new income stream for many people, but what’s routinely touted as revolutionary is simply a byproduct of a recession. Hiring creative problem solvers who can rise above the fray will always win in the end.

via Wonderful Machine Cog

Why We Love Bad Photography

Expanding on a story in Salon entitled “Why We Love Bad Writing,” by Laura Miller, the blog 1/125 applies the same logic to photography and asks why people prefer Chase Jarvis over Alec Soth. For literature it comes down to this nugget written by C.S. Lewis in “An Experiment in Criticism”:

a reader, who is interested solely in the consumption of plot, favors the hackneyed phrase over the original… because it is immediately recognizable. ‘My blood ran cold’ is a hieroglyph of fear. Any attempt, such as a great writer might make, to render this fear concrete in its full particularity, is doubly a chokepear to the unliterary reader. For it offers him what he doesn’t want, and offers it only on the condition of his giving to the words a kind and degree of attention which he does not intend to give. It is like trying to sell him something he has no use for at a price he does not wish to pay.

If it requires more effort to consume, many will not bother with it. Think about a story crammed with words you don’t recognize. Taking the time to look those words up in a dictionary adds considerable effort. And, if you consider spending your free time developing your taste for finely crafted prose, you really need to be committed on another level to make that kind of investment. The same applies to photography. Developing your taste is no different than appreciating great literature, food or wine. You need to experience and study it to gain understanding.

What troubles Nick Shere of the 1/125 blog is that with “photography, the situation is somewhat more dire, because it is much, much harder for viewers to move freely between the “unliterary” photographic realm and the “literary” photographic realm. There is hardly any middle ground between them, the way there is with books. Instead of a middle ground, there is a chasm with hardly any bridges across it.”

It’s a great thought because there’s a lot that can be done to create bridges across the chasm and I wanted to point this out to photo editors, because I’ve been in those arguments about photography with editors where factual trumps sophisticated, but I’ve never thought to turn it on them with a literary example. The two articles I’ve linked provide plenty of ammo to do that. I’ve always believed the only way to engage readers is to challenge them. High dollar advertising will always prefer engaged readers over hits. Nick goes on to say:

To provide opportunities for everyday people to expand and improve their photographic tastes without making them feel like they are being sold something they have no use for at a price they do not wish to pay is one of the more important frontiers in photography at the moment, and one which few people are homesteading.

There’s plenty online dedicated to clichés, hopefully more people seize the opportunity to make more bridges.

Thx Santosh for the tip.

PS- My favorite sites for expanding my knowledge: Conscientious, BAG, B, AD Coleman, David Campbell, Notes on Politics, theory & Photography, DLK Collection, and the many photographers who occasionally write about their work.

The most important element in this whole equation? Taking yourself seriously.

Too often I hear from freelancers who creep and crawl and act meek as though I would be doing them some sort of favor by hiring them. Gotta tell ya, it doesn’t smack of “I can do the job” and instead makes me question their abilities. Is this joker some sort of amateur? Why are they acting like a fresh grad with no portfolio?

via CLREPS – blog.

30 lbs of promos

Fashion photographs made by Philip-Lorca diCorcia over the past decade for W magazine

I assumed they would be the normal kind of sell-out we often see, where commerce trumps art and the results are less than inspiring. In a photographic year that has so far been generally unremarkable, I am happy to report that these pictures entirely undermined my expectations. I think this is the first photography show of the year that is truly worth a special trip to see, if only because it so consistently defies the standard fashion photography framework.

via DLK COLLECTION

Photography Is Still In Its Infancy And Some Doors Still Need Kicking In

Matt Henry, a UK based photographer wrote today’s post.

There’s an interesting précis here of photographer Paul Graham’s lecture at the first MoMA Photography Forum which took place this week. I’m gonna précis a précis here by saying that he was claiming that the art world doesn’t take photography that isn’t somehow representing art in the traditional sense at all seriously. So unless you make sets out of paper and photograph them, like Thomas Demand, dress yourself up in all sorts of elaborate costumes and take self-portraits, like Cindy Sherman, or recreate scenes that you’ve spotted out and about a la Jeff Wall, you ain’t getting written about in any high brow art journals, or splashed about the right gallery walls.

His argument was that the process of snapping ones surroundings in an instinctive fashion like William Eggleston, Gary Winogrand, Walker Evans, or Stephen Shore isn’t understood by an art world obsessed with due thought and process; unless you’ve been slumped in a chair thinking about it for at least five minutes, it somehow doesn’t count. But then he goes on to say that the ‘straight’ photography of these old guys is finally getting its recognition, and it’s more the modern straight photographers that aren’t getting their credit. Perhaps he has a few friends then frustrated that their own recognition doesn’t rival his.

But ‘straight’ photography gets more than its fair share of due; Alec Soth is the rising star of the moment after all, and there are countless others like him. Thanks to the brilliance of Eggleston and pals, most of the language of photography is couched largely in these ‘straight’ terms; if it’s not found, and it’s not real, it’s not worthy of gallery walls (unless of course it’s more recorded sculpture, in the Demand or the Sherman sense). And this is why every other photograph seems to be of an empty car park, a left-over meal in a diner, a suburban home, or an aerial shot of beach goers. Even Jeff Wall’s narratives are often recreations of real events, which is probably what made them palatable to the art world in the first instance.

Which makes me think photography as a medium is still in its infancy and some rotten doors need kicking in. Sure the documentary is a big part of cinema, but most people choose narrative fiction as means of communicating those same themes that artists touch upon; themes that we all need to explore as human beings: life, love, loss, purpose, faith, hope, friendship, ambition, desire, duty…. Yet few have used this medium in any meaningful sense in photography, mostly because those that do are allied to the commercial sector, which in many (though not all) cases is liable to dilute self-expression. Fashion photography is the one genre that openly embraces narrative, yet it’s reliance on great looking people in great looking clothes kind of guarantees a general vacuity. Aside from Crewdson, who doesn’t personally appeal, all my coffee table books are dedicated to ‘straight’ photography. I would very much like a few that explored the world through fiction.

HuffPo Profits Off Free Content

Arianna Huffington invested $2 million in her Huffington Post. Now, with the site sold to AOL, she’s collecting somewhere between $40 million and $50 million… all based on the work that thousands of bloggers have contributed entirely for free to the site.

via MaryAnn Johanson’s FlickFilosopher.com.

Copywriters Have Never Heard Of Copyright… Ironically

Webcopyplus a Vancouver based website copywriting firm recently discovered that, yes, “works no longer need a copyright notice to have copyright protection.” The Canadian outfit specializes in writing website copy that will score high on organic search results. Apparently they also use the internet as a stock resource to drop generic images onto their customers sites, since you know, photographs are merely decoration to their faustian search term acrobatics.

Anyway, a vigilant photographer caught them using one of his images and had his lawyer send a Cease and desist to their client. The letter demanded that they:

1. Immediately cease and desist all unlicensed uses of the image, and delete all copies from computers and digital storage devices.
2. Remit almost $4,000 to his trust account.

I’ll let you read the entire story (here) but the kicker on the whole thing is that the photographer had registered the image with the U.S. Copyright Office and the copywriters were “able to confirm the image was copyright registered and the lawyer’s client was the rightful owner.” So they “opted to settle for $4,000.”

Smart.

Rihanna Sued By David LaChapelle Over ‘S&M’ Music Video

“This is not personal, strictly business. Musicians commonly pay to sample music or use someone’s beats and there should be no difference when ‘sampling’ artist’s visuals.”

via Radar Online.

The judges reflect on the World’s Best-Designed Newspaper Entries

Amid all our positive observations, we became concerned about the state of photojournalism in the pages we saw. We missed emotional photographs. Glossy magazines and newsprint pages with vast, luxurious expanses of space were largely devoid of powerful photojournalism.

The lack of strong, documentary images puzzled us. We wondered if this has something to do with reduced investment. The industry has lost so many positions for picture editors and others, and yet great photographs can’t be made without time, care and commitment. Perhaps in places where the work is being done, print space to showcase it is no longer available.

Having had the luxury of seeing hundreds of papers in the last few days, we’d like to raise a red flag on this issue. It’s one of print’s great powers to enable users to savor moments captured in the best photos. How can we recapture and deliver this value to readers?

via The Society for News Design thx Ryan.

Photojournalists Push Boundaries With Apps And Computers

Fantastic debate going on in the world of photojournalism right now as two of the top contests have awarded images that stretch the definition of photojournalism. Wait, there’s a definition of photojournalism!? No, and that’s the reason for the debate. If contest organizers, newspapers and magazines would simply define what’s acceptable and what’s not, there would be no debate. It’s pointless for an all encompassing definition to exist because purists want facsimile’s and populists want aesthetics. What’s important is that contests and publications communicate to their followers the rules they’ve laid out and the purpose for them. If factual information is imperative to your mission then you must fact-check your photography (magazines) or hire photographers who follow your carefully defined rules (newspapers) just like you do with your writing. Asking photographers to police themselves is silly and lame.

The first debate erupted when Damon Winter was awarded 3rd place at POYi for a series of images taken for the NY Times with his iphone and processed in the phone with the Hipstamatic app. The very vague rules for POYi and the NY Times are as follows:

Assistant Managing Editor for Photography Michele McNally (here):

We do allow basic contrast/tonal adjustments as well as some sharpening and noise reduction.

POYi Rules (here):

No masks, borders, backgrounds or other artistic effects are allowed.

WOW. You people are really laying it out for everyone. Good job. Now that cameras are basically mini computers you sound like you’re stuck in 1984.

The second debate bubbled up when Michael Wolf was awarded honorable mention in the Contemporary Issues category at the World Press Photo contest (here) for a series of images taken of his computer screen while looking at google street view. In this case there seems to be not much debate about rules but rather a collective huh from photographers wondering if this really qualifies as picture taking.

FYI these are the equally lame World Press Rules (here):

11. The content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed. The jury is the ultimate arbiter of these standards and may at its discretion request the original, unretouched file as recorded by the camera or an untoned scan of the negative or slide.

12. Only single-frame images will be accepted. Composite and multiple exposure images will not be accepted. Images with added borders, backgrounds or other effects will not be accepted. Images must not show the name of a photographer, agency, or publication.

So, while the debate about it is great for photography, personally I have no problem with the tools photojournalists choose to tell their story. I do have a problem with contests and publications that claim to uphold the ideals of photojournalism but leave photographers flapping in the wind when it comes to defining what that means.

I highly recommend reading though the different threads on the debate.

Eight trends for journalism in 2011

I feel better about the state of journalism now than I have in quite some time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that newspapers are suddenly going to begin hundreds of reporters back. That’s probably not going to happen. It doesn’t mean that the old system of scarcity is going to return, because it’s not. But you do have traditional news organizations placing bigger bets on online, trying to create revenue models that can work.

via Nieman Journalism Lab