Friday Roundup- Quotes From The Last Couple Weeks

In their book, How not to Write a novel, Newman and Mittelmark say that there are lots of books on how to write a novel, but none on how not to write a novel. With their blessed sarcasm, they say “…if reading Stephen King on writing really did the trick, we would all by now be writing engrossing vernacular novels that got on the bestseller lists.” Which isn’t the case, so Newman and Mittelmark decided to provide the service of offering observations on how not to write a novel.

It’s the same with photography. There are loads of books on how to photograph. They will tell you how to use long exposures, how to be creative using fancy things like multiple exposures (double the exposure and double the meaning), how large format will really bring out the detail, and so on and so on. In other words, the simple functional How to… books of photography pretty much cover the heady world of art photography from top to bottomus.

It’s simple stuff, but simple is good, especially in photography, which is basically a monkey art.

[from a new series on Colin’s blog called How Not To Photograph, each post is great]

via Colin Pantall’s blog.

————–

“If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.

via Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky.

————–

the most a portrait photographer can hope for is to make a portrait that reflects where the sitter is with the photographer.

Steve Pyke on Conscientious

————–

one of the goals behind developing Google’s Chrome browser is to “make the web as fast as turning the page in a magazine.” That is still one advantage paper has over the Web: zero load times.

Marissa Mayer is the vice president of search products and user experience at Google

Marissa Mayer: …you’ll be able to say give Google an image and say find other images like this or find me images of a monkey, those types of things.

Charlie Rose: When will it happen?

Marissa Mayer: … I think the vision will probably happen in more than a 10-year timeframe, maybe 15. Those are of course guesses just off the top of my head…

via TechCrunch.

————–

Once the economy revives, however, a panel of Wall Streeters predicted it will be up, up and away for M&A. [Media and Advertising]

“All companies are tightening their belts … they are sitting on a lot of cash. So at one point M&A will come back,” said Jonathan Miller, co-founder of investment fund Velocity Interactive Group and a former chairman of AOL.

via Media biz in coin catch – Entertainment News, Business News, Media – Variety.

Annie Joins Orchard/Getty For Limited Deal

It appears Annie is getting her money situation under control and has inked a very limited deal (here) to partner with Getty for what I can only assume are extremely lucrative assignments (is there any other reason to partner with Getty?). I have it on good authority that her representation and relationships at Art + Commerce and Contact Press Images remain unchanged. Thirty two years at Contact and over twenty five at A+C is not something you just sweep under the rug people.

The Magazine Isn’t Dying

It’s not that magazines are dying; it’s that magazines that were created solely for advertising or market-share purposes are. New magazine titles often fail from a combination of bad timing, bad thinking, and a bad choice of brands to extend. Put simply, there are too many mediocre magazines (as anyone who gazes at the newsstand at Barnes and Nobles would conclude).

via  The Big Money.

Omnicom Group’s Bad Terms For Photographers And Producers

So, it appears that Omnicom Group doesn’t want to be responsible for paying vendors if the client hasn’t paid them. It certainly seems to be the trend these days where citizens are held responsible for corporations that can’t pay their bills but an advertising agency eliminating their traditional role as financier for advertising campaigns maybe signals an impending overhaul of the way business is conducted. It seems like some kind of insurance may be required to pull off a big budget shoot in the future.

Here’s the media alert ASMP sent out:

Omnicom Passes the Buck

It has been brought to the attention of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) that the Omnicom Group, the world’s largest advertising agency holding company, has changed its terms and conditions in an effort to limit their agency liability and in so doing transfer that liability to independent photographers and producers. Basically, by disclosing their agency status and for whom they are acting, the advertising agency is only liable to the extent that their client has specifically paid them for any amounts payable to you. Additionally, ASMP has been informed that reps are being told that there will no longer be any advances on assignments.

These new policies are most probably the result of the market and governmental pressures experienced by major corporate clients such as GM who in their effort to avoid bankruptcy are now prioritizing their financial obligations and will make payment according to those priorities. In other words, some suppliers will be waiting significantly longer to be paid depending upon the client’s priorities. That being the case, agencies do not want to be left on the hook for reimbursement of monies expended on behalf of their clients, especially where the fear of bankruptcy exists.

These terms and conditions are simply not in the best interests of photographers, producers or clients. This action, clearly taken in anticipation of increasingly difficult financial conditions is a unilateral effort to shift the burden onto those who are least prepared to bear it. Should an independent photographer of moderate means be the banker for a Fortune 100 company? By eliminating their customary role as intermediate financier, agencies are removing value from the value-added chain, and that will ultimately lead to an overall dampening effect on commerce.

Meanwhile, there is no incentive for the agencies to make photographer friendly changes to their terms and conditions as long as photographers are willing to accept the current terms. Notice of these changes should be included in your blogs and discussed on related lists and social networking sites. The issue needs to become viral and requires significant support from key photographers in order to gain traction and effect change. If it is business as usual for the agencies, then nothing will be accomplished.

ASMP would recommend that photographers include in their paperwork a statement making it clear that there will be no grant of copyright license until all related assignment invoices are paid in full. Images should be registered with the Copyright Office immediately upon completion of the shoot and prior to first publication and/or possible infringement so that in the event that legal action – a last resort – is needed, recovery of statutory damages and court costs will be possible.

In addition, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) recommends the following:

“If an agency’s internal policy insists upon these payment terms (sequential liability), the production company should:

a) Make sure the advertiser (“client”) also signs this agreement. If it is a rider, the terms of payment and the full contract price should be added to the rider.

b) Be provided with the advertiser billing and contact information.

c) Copy the advertiser on all invoices.

d) Notify the advertiser of payment due as soon as terms of the contract (payment dates) are not met by the agency.”

As a possible course of action, since the agencies are shifting liability to their corporate clients, perhaps photographers should consider approaching the clients directly for advances and or other payments prior to the beginning of the assignment.

Ultimately, this is a case of the supplier beware!

Eugene Mopsik

Executive Director, ASMP

mopsik@asmp.org

Where It All Went Wrong At Arena

…holding on to sales in a crammed market was hard work – hence the easy answer. The nipples. Just a few at first, in interviews with compliant celebrities, then an avalanche of areolae: lingerie shopping features, dirty calenders, free pornographic playing cards, illustrated erotic fiction collections.

It wasn’t just sexist, it was stupid – joining the younger lads’ titles in a suicide charge into grubby oblivion, to be munched up by the new weekly grot-mags Nuts and Zoo – and, of course, by the simple fact that exposed breasts are quite easy to find for free on the internet.

via  Media | guardian.co.uk.

arena-magazine-lily-colepreview

National Magazine Awards- Photography Nominees

The nominees for the National Magazine Awards were just announced (here). There are 3 categories for photography and never any surprises (National Geographic has won the most for photography – 7 times).

PHOTOGRAPHY: This category recognizes excellence in magazine photography. The award honors the effectiveness of photography, photojournalism and photo illustration in enhancing a magazines unique mission and personality.

Bon Appétit; GQ; National Geographic; T, The New York Times Style Magazine; W

PHOTOJOURNALISM: This category recognizes the informative photographic documentation of an event or subject in real-time.

Harper’s Magazine; National Geographic; The New York Times Magazine (2 nominations); Time

PHOTO PORTFOLIO: This category honors creative photography and photo illustration (including portraiture or specially produced layouts on fashion, food, decorating, travel, design, the arts, etc.).

Bon Appétit; GQ; Gourmet; The New Yorker; W

Utah Sticks It To All Their Photographers

As if the 3.2 beer isn’t enough of a deterrent to photographers living and working in Utah now the state is trying to collect from photographers, who they feel don’t do a very good job following their tax law. The timing of this is unbelievably absurd.

Here’s a couple of nuggets from the FAQ’s of the state of Utah’s self audit of the business of photography (here):

Q: Isn’t photography a service? Why should sales tax be collected on a service?

A: The object of photography is to provide a customer with a photographic image, the sale of which is taxable whether delivered as tangible personal property or as a digital image.

Q: I sell licenses or rights to my photographic images, not the images themselves. If there’s no print, isn’t it nontaxable?

A: No. The sale of “stock photography,” the licensing for either permanent or limited use of a photographic image, is subject to sales tax, even if electronically transferred as a digital image

More pain after the jump.

Continue reading

Spineless Rodale Pulls The Plug On Best Life

Honestly Rodale it’s not like you fought the good fight or anything. You saw some trouble on the horizon and quickly pulled out a gun and shot yourself in the head.

From the media kit: “Best Life teaches successful men the art of balance. Luxurious yet packed with service, Best Life guides its reader through the many demands of his life—teaching him to manage his finances, nurture his family, care for his health, protect his environment, and still find time to pursue his passions.”

More like: “We created this magazine for advertisers. We don’t give a crap about the staff, contributors or readers. We put all that stuff between the covers to keep the ads from touching each other.”

Look, I get it. These are corporations. The bottom line is the bottom line. It’s just that some of these magazines are starting to look like wall street ponzi schemes.

bestlife

Mert & Marcus Shoot

This semi-entertaining little video should elicit plenty of groans as Ashton Kutcher (Nikon spokesperson photographers love to hate) shoots the “behind the scenes” sausage making at a fragrance shoot with his wife Demi and photo duo Mert & Marcus (here).

mertormarkus

The Three Song Rule

I found this explanation of the three song rule for live music photographers interesting and if you read the rest of the interview you’ll see how he’s recently got out of it. Photo editor Nicole Radja interviews Chicago music photographer Paul Natkin on her blog called“In Studio On Location.”

Nicole: Another story I wanted to get out of you, was about our favorite three song rule. (Photographers are only allowed to photograph bands for the first three songs of a live show.) I know you don’t subscribe to that. I know you have a story of where this thing came from.

Paul: It started in the ’80’s with bands in New York, especially Springsteen. When a band played in New York, especially places like the Garden, they gave out tons of photo passes. At least half to paparazzi guys. Those people don’t know how to photograph, their only option is to put a flash on a camera. A lot of people didn’t even know how to change film, they knew they only had 36 shots. They were just doing it for the excitement of doing it.

Bruce would go up on stage, and there would be 50 photographers, all shooting flashes in his face. I don’t blame him, he walked off stage one night and said, we have to do something about this. Somebody said, why not just let them shoot the first fifteen minutes? Somebody figured out at a normal rock show, a song is about five minutes. Somebody said, let’s just let them shoot the first three songs. So it started with him and people in that era. It was also that MTV started around that time, and everybody wanted to look perfect, the way they looked in their videos.

The Challenges In Photography

People make way too much out of the digital versus film. The challenges in photography—focus, crop, shutter, aperture, and of course the biggest ones of all, the ones that really matter: what you actually point the camera at, and with what intelligence you use it… are all still there, completely unchanged.

Q&A with Paul Graham, PDN.

paulgraham

Milton Glaser- Art is work

What you see very frequently in peoples professional lives and perhaps in their emotional life as well is they lose interest in the 3rd act, you sort of get tired, and indifferent and sometimes defensive and you kind of lose your capacity for astonishment and that’s a great loss because the world is a very astonishing place.

— Milton Glaser

Gallery Will Exhibit Your Work If You Pay Them

Received an interesting email from a photographer (pasted it below for you to see) where a gallery in Montreal will exhibit your work if you pay them a fee: $2500 for a solo show and $150 per image for a group show. It looks like they just send out this email with all the details clearly explained hoping to snare a couple photographers. They also include all their bank transfer information so you can wire them the money.

I decided to ask a photographer I know who exhibits 4-5 times a year and has a solo show every other year how the whole gallery opening and exhibiting works.

How often do you get an email solicitation to exhibit your work?

I would guess I receive about 3 -5 email invitations a week to various and sundry art-related things and only about 5 over the course of my life have led to anything worth while. It’s always something enticing and they always find me on the internet and it’s almost always bogus. The thing to do is to assume that it’s spam, then research it without downloading or clicking on anything in the email. But if a gallery is really interested in your work, they will call you, on the phone, or send you an email that states specifically what they saw, where and why they like it.

How does it usually work?

The gallery industry in the U.S. and Europe (to the extent of my experience there allows me to state such a thing) has very similar standards, not unlike the magazine world: they vary from place to place, and you get more or less depending on who you are, but there’s a bar that’s pretty even. For gallery show practice it is this: the artist makes and frames (or doesn’t frame) the work, documents and provides documentation to the gallery for promotional purposes, and then the gallery sells the art, and the sales are a split commission 50/50. There should also be a contract signed at the beginning of any relationship.

In all the shows I’ve had, most of the costs that I’ve been asked to share with galleries involve advertising. It’s not uncommon to split the cost of printing the show card, or for buying space in magazines like Artforum, Art News, etc… or to buy an ad in a magazine that targets painting if you’re a painter, or sculpture, etc.. But it’s always split. The artist is never responsible for the entire cost unless he/she chooses to do so, and then the gallery should be concerned that the page is designed correctly.

Some galleries make you split the commission of the frame cost, even if you’ve paid for them in full. Personally, I don’t go for that. It’s my opinion that framing is a raw cost and the work can be sold unframed for the normal commission split. So there are minor ways that galleries work out the money problems of having shows.

Galleries are simply stores. They sell art as opposed to groceries, so it just feels like a bigger deal than it is. You love your dealer like you love the produce guy who knows you like avocados and calls you or sets aside the best ones for when you come in. Maybe that’s not the best analogy but one’s relationship with one’s gallerist should be happy and uncomplicated.

Email from the gallery after the jump.

Continue reading

JPG Magazine Profit And Loss

If you’ve never seen an income statement for a magazine it’s a very educational document to check out. It just so happens that JPG Magazine’s P&L was published recently over on Gawker/Valleywag (here) and I have it embedded here for you to see.  They are claiming that in part, the demise of the magazine was contributed to by CEO Mitch Fox and his $500,000 a year salary, the expensive salespeople he hired, launching a travel title called everywhere and preparing a fashion magazine. If that’s true, it’s simply run of the mill magazine making hubris where people assume something that works at one level can be scaled to the next. Maybe this is also the end of an era where a powerful sales staff with serious marketing dollars can bring in more advertising than great content and loyal readers on its own.

Back to the income statement. In May 08 here are the numbers:

The income:
$40,000 in advertising with online and print being nearly equal.
$19,000 in subscriptions
$50,000 in newsstand sales

The Expenses:
$23,000 paid in contributor fees ($100 a photo for the photographers)

$104,000 for paper and printing
$23,000 for subscription postage and newsstand shipping

$5,000 for website hosting

$10,000 in salaries for the circulation staff
$55,000 in salaries for the sales staff
$47,000 for the website staff
$58,000 for the magazine editorial staff
$18,000 for the marketing staff
$12,000 for marketing expense
$78,000 for executive salaries
$32,000 in general operating expenses
$17,000 for rent

For a grand total of -$375,000 in net income. Giant sucking hole.

You can obviously see why magazine making is a rich person’s game because $125,000 just to print and deliver the thing is a serious bill to pay every month.

Media Post is reporting that the magazine has been bought (here). I wonder if they can find any fat to trim. Apparently Mitch Fox is stepping down.


jpgmagnetincome – Get more Business Documents
Thanks, Joerg.

David Burnett- Smoke At The End Of The Road

In the summer of 1972 I was still living in Vietnam. I was freelancing in what might have been referred to as the good ole days. Many magazines, not so many photographers, and if you found an editor who liked you, there were lots of possibilities for work.

I will never forget the moment when Nick [Ut] came out of the darkroom, holding that picture for the first time, a wet 5×7 print, in his hands. Ours were the first eyes to see it.

via We’re Just Sayin: Closing the Circle.

Christopher Griffith Interview

“I regularly spend more time looking at something than I do shooting or lighting it.”

cg-portrat2I greatly admire the work of Christopher Griffith, but I never had the opportunity to work with him when I was photo editing. Each time I tried he was booked solid. He shoots a large variety of subjects yet they all seem to come from the same place. His intense graphical imagery is an Art Directors wet dream. Recently he has launched a new imprint of fine art photography books called Auditorium Editions where he published Blown, an intense graphical study of roadside blown-out tire detritus.

APE: Tell me about your background as a scientist and how it effects the way you work as a photographer?

I was a research biochemist in a previous life. I was in a postgrad program in London when I fell into photography. I had this split life of studying for my degree during the day and doing photography at night and on weekends. I think aspects of my process remain which are very scientifically based in that I really like to explore a variety of things in photography. It is why my career is slightly schizophrenic. I seem to get equal opportunity to shoot still life, architecture, portraits with the odd fashion shoot thrown in for old times sake. It can be really exhausting as I feel I never spend enough time on any single vocation because I am rarely doing the same thing twice. The upside is that we have traveled the world, have gone to some crazy locations and have a real cross section of clients who come to us for a real variety of projects. I guess that is the payoff in not getting pigeonholed into any singular aspect of photography.

APE: You assisted a tiny bit. Tell me how that worked out for you?

I actually never really properly assisted. I started in London in the early 90’s where I was doing a post grad degree and had friends
who were actively assisting old school ad guys. I would occasionally get the opportunity to tag along and get on set and basically just watch what was going on. I did attempt properly assisting for Julie Fisher in London, I think officially for 11 days. She fired me. Apparently I had the air of not wanting to hang around for very long. I never assisted again.

APE: You haven’t always been a still life photographer so why did you make a decision to pursue it and become known as on of the best?

cg-3bI am flattered that you might think I’m one of the best, but I think that is really a stretch. Still life is an odd one as I only began tinkering with it about 7 years ago and it was done as a way to keep me busy. After my book States was published, my career changed overnight from shooting fashion constantly to shooting a few big ad campaigns a year and there was a lot of time in between. So my agent and I thought it would be a good idea to see if I could treat small objects the same way as I had treated American landscapes in the book. It has gradually increased over time to become about half of the work that my studio takes on.

Years ago when I was shooting the ETRO campaign in the mid 90’s, the creative director Felice Perrini would always go on that I was really in essence a still life photographer. It annoyed me to no end, as we were shooting a fashion campaign at the time. But he was really right. I treat everything as though it were a still life. People, places and things. They are all objects.

APE: Your lighting and of course your backdrops seem incredibly minimalist and that leaves you with almost no room to work. What’s the secret to pulling this off?

I don’t see it as being limiting at all. It is exactly where I like to be. Stripped down and sort of naked. Sounds perverse. But I like to make things look big, bold and sort of heroic. I find it much easier to do this when they are stripped of context because I only have to concentrate on one thing. Truth is I regularly spend more time looking at something than I do shooting or lighting it.

Still life can quickly fall into pack shot photography if you are not careful. You have got to find a way to make it come alive and that comes from taking a really hard look at what is in front of me.

Way back when I was living in Paris, Jenny Capitan had hired me at paris Vogue. I was explaining that if they would just give me better clothes I could do great shoots. She replied, “this is Paris Vogue, everybody gets awful clothes and you are here to make them look amazing.” I have never forgotten this. It is sort of applicable to everything.

cg-11

APE: It seems like most of the top still life photographers have projects where they explore themes and lighting styles, how important is this?

It’s not really. I don’t come from a still life background, nor a photographic one for that matter. So I have never really seen it done properly. I am always making it up cause I do not really know the rules. So it probably takes me twice as long to get there. I am not that interested in crazy complicated lighting, gizmos etc. I am more about really finding a new way to look at something, or finding new meaning out of things which would otherwise go unnoticed. This has sort of been a theme of all 3 of my books. Forgotten America, the fallen leaf and blown out roadside detritus.

In all honesty, I stick to one front light whenever it is possible. I just find that too many lights end up diffusing out the texture and volume of an object. One light, with grid head and lots of hand-held bounce back reflector cards. It’s not rocket science.

APE: I read about your preference for working with film and honestly I think anyone who grew up with film will always prefer it, but do you think digital will completely replace film at any point?

cg-41No, but it is inevitable that film will become an ever shrinking niche market, but hopefully a niche retained for professional still life photographers. There are simply things that digital does not do as well or easily as a plate camera. I am sure many will want to step in and argue here, but the fact is that if you have built your aesthetic on film, getting it right on digital kind of sucks. Yes, it is fast, and it is amazing how much time is saved not waiting for polaroids to cook, but there is so much that needs to be done in post to make it look right. It is amazing how much time is spent on digital files making them look like film. Just get it right on film. Done. With the added benefit that if your hard drives all someday decide to pack up in an electromagnetic storm brought on by the apparently imminent global shift in magnetic polarity… actually having a hard copy would be quite a good thing.

APE: Do your clients still let you shoot film?

Actually, recently clients have been requesting film as I think in this economy they have gotten savvy to the potentially higher costs of shooting digital. Again, I am sure I will ensue a riot with the digital converts here, but if you are shooting still life, digital capture is rarely the cheaper option.

APE: I know you were working on this Blown book project for many years and something disturbing happened, that I can imagine happens to photographers once in a while. You discovered that Horacio Salinas was exhibiting the exact same work at the NY Photo Festival last spring. Were you crushed or angry when you saw it?

blown_68It is pretty disturbing when you spend 6 years on something and literally as it is being sent to press as a book, an identical series of images gets exhibited in your backyard. You initially feel completely robbed. It could be sheer coincidence. I really do not know. Ideas are cheap. I am sure I am not the only person to have the idea to explore tires. But this project has been on my site for several years and the images at NYPF were conceptually and executionally identical. He is a really talented photographer, but this is really quite unlike his style. People will come to their own conclusions about the authenticity for both these series.

Blown is now being distributed international, so the only real downside is that the claim to authorship has been diluted here in NYC but, this stuff happens. It is not the end of the world. I am actually more disappointed with those running the festival, as they all knew about the conflict well before the show opened and simply chose to ignore it.

APE: Have you spoken with Mr. Salinas or the person who made the assignment about the pictures?

blown_8No. My biggest regret in this is that I did not immediately contact his studio when I heard he was shooting the same thing last February and lay down the book in front of him. I am not sure it would have served any purpose, but at least I would have looked him straight in the eyes and ask him what he if he thought it was such a good idea to continue. I did get to speak with the curator who commissioned the work who admitted to knowing about the conflict from my website, but had standing loyalties to Salinas. Fair enough, but it seemed to be an odd decision when curating an exhibit which claimed to be promoting new ideas in photography.

APE: Got anything cool you’re working on that you can share with us so we can knock it off?

Actually, Blown was the first in an ongoing series of books loosely based on the idea of organizing chaos. Each book from the series will be exactly the same oversized format and design. The idea was to have a generic undesigned look, which is repeated for each title in the series where the images are the driving force behind the book design. The second in the series will be Power Tokyo. It is a series on the insanity of the municipal power lines of Tokyo which I have shot over the past 3 years. It will be released by Auditorium Editions this September. It has partially been on line for some time, so I guess I run the risk again of prying eyes, but I somehow do not see lightning striking twice. I am also working on a show for this September in NYC which will be a more juxtaposed collection of the graphic industrial side of what has become a large bulk of my personal work and then there is a much bigger book project on NYC which I hope to have fully shot by the end of 2010.

tokyo_power144