I will be one of many people you don’t even know exist who works in the news industry tasked with combing through every single photo taken in Boston so that we can tell the story with images.
While the public gawks in disbelief at the hastily chosen images of destruction, the vast majority of the photos taken in Boston will go unseen because some are far too mundane or repetitive (do you need to see the back of an EMT’s head?) while other are far too graphic.
via xoJane.
by Paul Stanek, Wonderful Machine
Some of you may recall Sean’s Oscar-worthy performance in a stop motion piece we did together: The Portfolio Edit: Sean Stone Style. Well, I’ve been working with a modification of Sean’s photo editing process utilizing a new online platform, currently in beta form, called MoodShare.
MoodShare was not developed with photo editing specifically in mind. In fact, their team was quite pleasantly surprised and intrigued when I first reached out to them about my success using their site in my photo consulting. Regardless, if the shoe fits….
You may be familiar with the term “mood board.” From Wikipedia:
A mood board is a type of collage that may consist of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board creator. Designers and others use mood boards to develop their design concepts and to communicate to other members of the design team.
MoodShare set out to create an online, interactive space where anyone given access to the same “digital mood board” could log on (all at once if desired) and easily toss in whatever images, videos, text, etc., that they felt was useful to a project. Multiple boards can be created for the same project, which is a helpful bonus in many ways. The live element—where you can literally see an image moving or a word forming—is really where MoodShare is making the most out of some of the ever-evolving technological capabilities available to us. It’s a natural augmentation to brainstorming conference calls of creatives scattered across cities, or even countries.
Where does photo editing come into the picture? First, I have to give props to Austin-based WM photographer King Lawrence for emailing me my first invite to a MoodShare board when we were working on his photographic identity. I found myself in a moveable and scalable grid with several of King’s images grouped together, with notes added. Along the left and top were navigation and tools, and along the bottom was an augmentable pool of resources he’d uploaded. I immediately knew I’d found the perfect digital complement to Sean’s table of “tiiiiiny prints.” After some tests, I decided to try it out on my next editing project, Mark Weinberg‘s print portfolio.
As usual, I used Adobe Bridge to perform the initial trimming down from several hundred images to a smaller group of selects. At that point, instead of printing these selects, I started a MoodShare project and uploaded them to a fresh board. I could drag my uploads from a library along the bottom into the manipulatable grid space, and once they were there, I could easily size and arrange them however I pleased. I found the broad range of the space’s scalability to be a real plus: I could get up close & personal with a couple of images to see if they were the perfect pair, or zoom way out on a large body of imagery to get the big picture. I began experimenting with pairings and sequences, and eventually had laid out a clean presentation of an edit draft that I was ready to share with Mark. I had the choices of exporting the board as a PDF, sharing it as an un-editable link, or give him full access to the guts of the board. I went with option C, wanting to give the real-time interaction a whirl. He accepted the invitation, reviewed my work, and added a couple images and notes for consideration. What would follow was one of the most fruitful series of phone conversations I’d ever had, as we’d both logged into the board and navigated/manipulated it simultaneously while talking. Here’s a snippet of the final result:
And here’s a video of the finished portfolio:
I also used MoodShare while working on a print sequence for for Matthew Rakola. Here’s a brief time-lapse of the process:
As I’ve mentioned, MoodShare is currently in beta, and will be free as long as it remains so. So grab up an account and start checking it out while it’s on the house! Let me know if you have any questions regarding this process, or if you’re interested in working with myself or one of our other photo editors on a consulting project through a platform like this. I’m in continued talks with MoodShare about potential tweaks with editing in mind, and about a possible discount for Wonderful Machine members, so stay tuned!
“What’s driving the art market globally is that certain people have a lot of liquidity and are looking for places to put it,” said Suzanne Gyorgy, head of Citi Art Advisory, a service of Citigroup’s private bank. “For many people art is an interesting alternative investment. It’s seen as a hedge against inflation and a safe haven in the high end of the market.”
via As Money Props Up Art World, Prospects Are Mixed – NYTimes.com.
A closely watched copyright case involving photographer Patrick Cariou and appropriation artist Richard Prince has taken an unexpected turn in favor of Prince on appeals. To recap: In December of 2008 photographer Patrick Cariou filed suit against Ricard Prince, Gagosian Gallery, Lawrence Gagosian and Rizzoli International Publications in federal district court (here). The suit came about after Prince appropriated 28 images from Patrick’s Yes Rasta book for his Canal Zone exhibit at the Gagosian gallery. In March of 2011 US District Judge Deborah A. Batts ruled on the cross-motions for summary judgment and found that the use by Prince was not Fair Use and Patrick’s issue of liability for copyright infringement was granted in its entirety. In other words, Patrick won.
According to many of the sites covering the case this caused quite a stir in the art world, because of the way the judge interpreted fair use. I liked the interpretation, because it offered guidance to artists wishing to appropriate work and claim fair use for transforming it. Essentially you had to comment on the original work to qualify. Simply using it as source material, as Prince admitted to doing, does not transform the work. Or as the judge put it at the time: “If an infringement of copyrightable expression could be justified as fair use solely on the basis of the infringer’s claim to a higher or different artistic use . . . there would be no practicable boundary to the fair use defense.”
The appeals court heard the case last May and wrote that a majority of Mr. Prince’s work manifested “an entirely different aesthetic” from Mr. Cariou’s pictures. “Where Cariou’s serene and deliberately composed portraits and landscape photographs depict the natural beauty of the Rastafarians and their surrounding environs,” the decision stated, “Prince’s crude and jarring works, on the other hand, are hectic and provocative.” The court found that most of the works by Mr. Prince under consideration were permissible under fair use because they “have a different character” from Mr. Cariou’s work, give it a “new expression” and employ “new aesthetics with creative and communicative results distinct” from the work that Mr. Prince borrowed. (source NYTimes.com)
The court is essentially saying that someone must look at the new work and determine that it has a different character than the original to know if the work is transformed by the artist. And, if that weren’t bad enough they sent 5 of the works back to the lower court (one can be seen below) because they were so minimally altered they may not be considered fair use by a reasonable observer. Using the new appeals court standard the lower court will determine if they are in fact a “new expression”. What a mess.
(You can download the decision here)
Not sure what options Patrick has left but it seems that the courts have no interest in clarifying fair use so that people can make reasonable decisions without resorting to lawsuits to sort it all out. Given the variety of opinions on what constitutes art, relying on reasonable observers to determine if alterations to copyrighted photography constitute a “new expression” with “distinct creative and communicative results” seems absurd.
A friend of mine ran the Boston Marathon last week. I only found out yesterday. She was six blocks from the finish line when the bombs exploded. Her daughter and parents were just a block from the carnage. What is that? A hundred yards from the jaws of Fate?
She told me almost as an afterthought, as we sat, chatting, on a blue velvet couch in Santa Fe. She lacked clear marks of psychological trauma, which was disconcerting. Is it possible to live through something like that and emerge healthy? I don’t know.
But the odd thing was it didn’t take long for us to both express our secret shame at feeling sympathy for 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev. We each admitted we’d thought how lonely and horrible he must have felt, alone, bleeding from the neck, waiting to die in someone else’s pleasure boat. Are we crazy?
My friend, a mother, suggested that as parents, we’re hardwired to feel for the trauma of someone’s suffering child. Perhaps that’s true. (My intestines ache just thinking about the murdered and maimed last week, especially the kids.) But I feel like it might also mark a different phase in America’s development, young as we are as a nation. I doubt there was a soul in this country who wouldn’t have pissed on the ashes of Mohammed Atta’s incinerated corpse, if given the chance. (What an -sshole that guy was.) But, twelve years later, perhaps we’re weary of the black and white politics of the War on Terror?
This would probably be a good moment to say that, like everyone, I deplore the actions of the terrorist brothers. What a pointless sh-tstorm they created. But, unlike 9/11, this event seemed slapdash; not entirely thought through. (Here, I have to link to the brilliant Onion piece that riffs on that phenomenon.)
The whole thing just felt more American; more of its time. One brother wanted to be an Olympic boxer, failed, and then seethed under the chronic underemployment that has befallen his generation. (And I can’t imagine it was easy to be a Muslim immigrant in famously-white Boston, either.)
The other: younger, more impressionable, was a well-liked wrestler, and was meant to be more assimilated. But his older brother, whom he must have idolized, led him down a hateful and horribly-destructive path. Then, in what might have been the ultimate act of last-minute revenge, or a conscious attempt to save him from police clutches, Dzhokar ran his brother over with a stolen German SUV. (Cain and Abel much?)
Where is this all headed? These guys are a figment of our collective consciousness. Car chases and shootouts with the police straight out of a Bruce Willis movie? Surfing the Internet, in spare hours, geeking out on arcane information? Bullshitting with a neighbor about religion at the local pizza joint? Lashing out at “America” for no real reason at all, just to let loose accumulated rage?
This is a country founded upon violence. Our radical DNA surfaces from time to time, and our addiction to firearms will unlikely abate. Ever. Aren’t we all wondering where these guys got their guns, and if even a terrorist attack will slow down the NRA anti-background-check juggernaut?
What else emerged from the gore last week? Strength of community and spirit. Resilience. Generosity. Determination. And a city that was shut down tight just to catch the bad guys. (Like it or not, we’re a nation of, and by Hollywood.)
It’s a huge country, America, and our cities, towns and rural outposts are so far-flung that we’ve had only myth and common language to keep the experiment together. Personally, I love the place. It’s hard to put into words, but photographs often do justice to this disparate reality.
Photographs, like the ones I saw in “America 101,” a monograph by the aptly named Arthur Grace, published late last year by Fall Line Press. The photographer has been a long-time photo-journalist, working for the biggest media outlets, but I’d not heard of him before. (Honestly, these are some of my favorite types of book-experiences: when I get to discover someone that has been out there making great work all along.)
The collection of images is entirely black and white, and spans the better part of four decades. It opens, pre-essay, with a photograph of police securing a school bus route in 1976, in…you guessed it…Boston, MA. There were many places in the US that reacted poorly to enforced integration, but this book, coincidentally, focuses on the scene in Boston, back in the day.
The narrative is non-linear, the pathos balanced with humor, and the range of people and cultural experiences is as vast as the Great Plains in Winter. The use of repeating symbols is a highlight, in particular the depiction of guns, and references to violence.
The real magic here comes in runs. The book develops momentum, like a good football game, and then inevitably loses steam, only to come back strong again. The first group that caught my attention is as follows: a diptych of Vermont hunters from 1976, followed by another diptych of violent protests in South Boston in 1974, a scene of carnival goers shooting fake guns at water balloons, a man pointing a rifle at a live raccoon at his feet, a couple of Hispanic taxidermists holding a stuffed cougar head in Albuquerque, circa 1986, John Wayne riding with soldiers in a tank in Cambridge, MA in 1974, and, finally, a group of pretend dead historical soldiers, lying in a field for a Revolutionary War re-enactment in Charlestown, MA, 1975. (Got that? If not, just read it again. Brilliant sequencing.)
There are several odes to Boston’s racial strife in the 70’s, but the book is not exclusively glum or intense, by any means. There are farmers and beauty queens, Evil Kenevil jumping vans on a high school football field, Al Gore looking like a robot in 1988, Jimmy Carter splayed out on an car roof in Ohio like a buxom model in Low Rider Magazine, and a young boxer, looking pensive, in Oahu, 1983. (I wonder if his dreams were ever fulfilled?)
The second suite of pictures that I can’t not share is sports related, that other American and Bostonian obsession. It starts with the Westminster Dog show in 1991, moves to what may be the best sports photo I’ve ever seen, in which a Cincinnati Reds outfielder is frozen in a mid-air catch, looking more than a little like a Black Jesus, followed by a no-neck, tatted-out arm wrestler in Kansas, circa 2004, and then a monstrous Texan corn-dog-eating contestant stuffing his face in Dallas, 2003. (Ah, the Bush years. So much less complicated. The government was totally incompetent, and the terrorists were perfectly unsympathetic.)
I could describe more of the photos here, many more, but then you’d stop reading. Most people would rather look at a picture than read a description of it. (Understandable.) So I’d recommend you consider buying this book, if you’d like to be reminded of the wonder and complex magnificence of the American experiment. Mr. Grace has done a terrific job, and I commend him.
Lastly, I’d like to end by stating the obvious. I have no ambivalence as to the evil of what the Tsarnaev brothers did last week. I have hugged my children more tightly since I returned from NYC the day of the bombing, and recommend you do the same. Cliché or not, we never know what awaits when we step out the front door each day. My thoughts and prayers go out to the innocent victims, their families, and all the citizens of Boston.
Bottom Line: Powerful views of America, over time
To Purchase America 101 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.
We emailed Art Buyers and Art Producers around the world asking them to submit names of established photographers who were keeping it fresh and up-and-comers who they are keeping their eye on. If you are an Art Buyer/Producer or an Art Director at an agency and want to submit a photographer anonymously for this column email: Suzanne.sease@verizon.net
Anonymous Art Producer: I nominate Holly Andres
How many years have you been in business?
While I have only been shooting commercially for a few years, I have a strong foundation in the fine art photography realm with representation from prominent galleries in NYC, Atlanta, San Francisco and Portland Oregon where I live and work. I’ve also taught photography at the college level for several years.
Are you self-taught or photography school taught?
My educational background is in painting and drawing, and it wasn’t until after graduate school when I was studying cinema and I became curious about the potential of freezing a narrative as a single frame, that I discovered how photography could best aestheticize my concepts. While I primarily consider myself a photographer, my foundation in painting and cinema continues to inform my photographic practice and aesthetic.
Who was your greatest influence that inspired you to get into this business?
I decided to get into the business, after frequently being told that my fine art photography may have commercial application. The realm of constructed narrative photography has greatly influenced me, where artists such as Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson and Cindy Sherman are the pioneers. I also feel a strong connection to Edward Hoppers paintings and the work of many mid-century female surrealists, such as Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Maya Deren, particularly because of their interests in psychoanalysis and their metaphoric depictions of fears, desires and impulses.
How do you find your inspiration to be so fresh, push the envelope, stay true to yourself so that creative folks are noticing you and hiring you?
Being a photographer has transformed the way that I experience life. When I’m in a prolific period of shooting and am feeling exceptionally perceptive, I tend to see the world with more wonder, beauty and appreciation. This resulting impact, in and of itself, is actually the most fulfilling and powerful aspect of photography for me. When I made the transition into the commercial sphere, I decided that I had to find a way to make it as fulfilling and meaningful as making art. I entered the commercial world with a relatively strong and varied portfolio of personal work, work that was not made under the influence of commercial application, and this is the work that has garnered the most attention of photo editors, art directors and art buyers.
Do you find that some creatives love your work but the client holds you back?
Fortunately I haven’t come up against this much. I think because my work is so specific in its aesthetic, commercial clients know early in the process if I am an appropriate for their brand.
What are you doing to get your vision out to the buying audience?
I’m repped by the photo agency Hello Artists, and in the company of a roster of great talent, my work is constantly being exposed to potential commercial collaborators. I also continue to invest in my own fine art endeavors. For example, I will be having a mid-career retrospective at the Hallie Ford Museum in Salem Oregon this summer, followed by the premiere of a new body of photographic work at my Portland-based gallery, Hartman Fine Art, in the fall. I find that when these arenas intercept it results in the most exciting commercial opportunities. Additionally, I accept many speaking invitations and try to have an active and current online presence, by maintaining my website, blog and other social media threads.
What is your advice for those who are showing what they think the buyers want to see?
Andy Warhol famously said, “ Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” It seems artist’s creativity is often stunted by an internal voice that tries to predict what the external world wants to see. If you can engage in the joy and practice of consistently making art, inevitably you will develop an individual voice, a unique way of seeing – both in content and style. I think that this is what art buyers are most interested in.
Are you shooting for yourself and creating new work to keep your artistic talent true to you?
Yes. As I mentioned earlier, I am consistently developing new work and fortunately through the representation of my galleries am always preparing work for future exhibitions. I find that there is a strong symbiotic relationship, one that is constantly evolving, between my commercial and personal work.
How often are you shooting new work?
All the time.
Holly Andres is a fine art and commercial photographer. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Istanbul, Turkey and Portland Oregon where she lives and works. Her work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Time, Runner’s World, W, Art in America, Artforum, Exit Magazine, Art News, Modern Painters, Oprah Magazine, Elle Magazine, The LA Times, Glamour, Blink and Art Ltd. – which profiled her as one of 15 emerging West Coast artists under the age of 35.
Andres’s work was also selected for Go West! Cutting-Edge Creatives in the United States, a book surveying the best creative minds in architecture, design, art, fashion, photography and advertising – published by German-based, DAAB Books, 2011.
She has commercial representation through Hello Artists, and gallery representation through Robert Mann Gallery (New York City), Charles A. Hartman Fine Art (Portland), Jackson Fine Art (Atlanta), Robert Koch Gallery (San Francisco).
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. She has a new Twitter fed with helpful marketing information. Follow her@SuzanneSease.
That’s what would hurt me now if I still wanted to do this work. Today the young art directors want to have the control – they don’t want a photographer who has a relationship with the talent. That’s the last thing they want. For me, the relationships with the talent that I developed were far more important than the relationships with the clients because clients come and go – but the talent are going to be around for a while.
I realized that I was bidding jobs that I wasn’t getting, and I said to myself – this is getting old! I really didn’t enjoy it anymore and there’s people out there that are a lot hungrier than I was by that time.
via A rambling conversation with Greg Gorman | Le Journal de la Photographie.
The Robert Capa Gold Medal is awarded to a photographer producing “photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise.” This year, Italian photojournalist Fabio Bucciarelli was recognized for Battle to Death, his project recording the harrowing battles in Aleppo in late 2012. “The battle for the conquest of Aleppo is a real massacre,” he told TIME.
Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/04/24/2013-overseas-press-club-winners-announced
CareerCast.com has an annual ranking of 200 best and worst jobs for 2013 (here) and Reporter takes the bottom spot over last years Lumberjack. Ouch. Maybe we will see Discovery and History channels making a new reality series around reporter like the other worst job staples of Lumberjack, Commercial Fisherman and Mining. Of course rounding out the bottom 20 below Dishwasher but above Corrections Officer is Photojournalist at number 188, so I guess photographers are the best in the newsroom. In the catch-all category of Photographer, which usually includes heavy weighting on positions like cruise ship and theme park photographer, the ranking is 172 just below construction worker but with a positive job growth outlook. Strangely, their description of photographer reads: “Uses shutter-operated cameras and photographic emulsions to visually portray a variety of subjects.”
I’ve had a love interest in wine since the early seventies. It’s actually a great story and few people know it. It dates back to photography, obviously. In the early days, studios had a lot of money and working on all those assignments and movies, we got paid a reasonable fee in the day for what we were doing – but we also had really amazingly open, no-questions-asked-expense-accounts. This included everything being first class; the airfares, the hotels and… of course, most importantly, the dining!
via A rambling conversation with Greg Gorman | Le Journal de la Photographie.
I’m always on the lookout for photographers who use social media to build an audience and then leverage that audience to success by selling them something or attracting commercial and editorial clients who are interested in the audience. There are lots of examples where photographers attract other photographers by talking about the business or their process for making pictures, but the real potential lies in attracting consumers outside this industry.
I’ve been lecturing about social media marketing for artists for several years and my go to examples of this are: The Sartorialist, The Cobra Snake and The Selby, all three of whom built their careers (in varying degrees) using social media. A few years back I was happy to add to this list an established photographer (Michael Edwards) who took a tried and true formula (nearly naked wormen plus tumblr), but added in his skills as a pro picture maker, and watched the whole thing go viral: http://meinmyplace.com. But, the success in the whole endeavor lies not in his ability to attract hundreds of thousands or horny college kids to his site, but to leverage the whole thing into a monthly column at Esquire, which he did for a year and a half and has since moved it to Playboy.
PDN has an interview with Michael (here) where you can get the full story.
If you want to study success in social media with photography these 4 are excellent case studies and pioneers in the industry.
the producers here are very open to using new talent. I can honestly say that, because every day, I’m approached with the question “Who would you recommend because we don’t want to use the same person.” I think it’s important to present many creative options to get those firewalls torn down, or the work becomes predictable and stagnant, and makes for an unhappy Client.
— Michael Bilbrey, senior production consultant at Leo Burnett USA
via ASMP: American Society of Media Photographers – National Page.
Think about this for a moment. At the finish line, there must have been hundreds of cameras. You would think everyone was taking pictures and recording videos. Twitter as a publishing platform is primed and ready for stills and video. It’s a world where everyone has a camera. But I saw very few images from the general public.
Why is that? As you look through the photo galleries and videos, you can reach your own conclusions. But as I watched the behavior of photojournalists, it confirmed for me the need for professionals in this age of de-professionalization of the news industry.
via Tragedy and the Role of Professional Photojournalists – Assignment Chicago.
I had decided that I needed to get back to the essence of what I wanted my website to do for my business and that was to generate quality work or sales. I began focusing on those goals, instead of the sole goal of coming up number one in a Google search for New Jersey photographers. While coming up number one in a Google search for NJ photographers’ was attainable by following the tips of the SEO gurus, it wasn’t how I wanted to be found. I didn’t want to be the “local” photographer because that meant I would probably be competing with other local shooters on price and that’s a quick way to the poor house.
We emailed Art Buyers and Art Producers around the world asking them to submit names of established photographers who were keeping it fresh and up-and-comers who they are keeping their eye on. If you are an Art Buyer/Producer or an Art Director at an agency and want to submit a photographer anonymously for this column email: Suzanne.sease@verizon.net
Anonymous Art Producer: I nominate Adam Amengual
How many years have you been in business?
I started assisting in late 2003, so between assisting and shooting, almost 10 years.
Are you self-taught or photography school taught?
I started off taking basic black and white classes in high school then later I received my BFA from The Massachusetts College of Art in 2003. Mass Art was a very fine art based program, which gave me a love for fine art and documentary photography. I also studied at Parson for the second semester of my junior year where amongst other classes I was taught basic lighting techniques.
Who was your greatest influence that inspired you to get into this business?
If I could attribute garnering my interest in commercial photography to one person it had to be Neil Selkirk who taught my lighting class while I was at Parsons. Neil was a professor but also a commercial photographer. Although Neil has had many gallery shows and books published he also shot advertising and editorial work. All my professors previously were solely fine art photographers. Through Neil I learned about shooting assignments, assisting and later I assisted him as well. Of course I knew that commercial photography existed before studying at Parsons but I had not given it any thought in terms of my own path before that time.
How do you find your inspiration to be so fresh, push the envelope, stay true to yourself so that creative folks are noticing you and hiring you?
My favorite photographers are those who have straddled both fine art and commercial photography such as Larry Sultan, Stefan Ruiz, Paul Murphy and Richard Avedon. I also find myself always going back to look at the work of Joel Sternfeld, Rineke Dijkstra, Taryn Simon and Mitch Epstein. All documentary photographers on some level. Like these photographers I strive to make images that are timeless, and that people will want to look at 50 years from now. Images that will be seen in some sort of cultural and social context. Working mostly in a documentary portrait manner allows me to fulfill both of my own curiosities in the world, which is to reach out to people and explore. I think the late Tim Hetherington said it best, “I want to reach people. Can’t it come out of a place of personal curiosity? A desire to locate myself in the world and also have some utility?”
Do you find that some creatives love your work but the client holds you back?
I assume I would get more work if I had more smiles in my pictures or if they were a bit more lit and “illustrated” or lifestyle based. I feel most clients want to have a creative look to their campaign that is on par with the current trends in advertising photography. So to be honest in some upcoming projects I will be trying to find a place where what I do more closely meets those client needs. It will be my aesthetic and subject matter with a small twist.
What are you doing to get your vision out to the buying audience?
I do a lot of cold emailing and then, face to face meetings as they come up. I have also built relationships with some art buyers and art directors through my time assisting. I try to have some sort of new project to show every six months. In this way, I always have something to show to keep my work fresh in their mind.
What is your advice for those who are showing what they think the buyers want to see?
I really believe that you need to stay as true as possible to making work that you love creating. If you love shooting kids or puppies or whatever, then you should be building a book of those kinds of images. But, there always needs to be a thoughtful aesthetic to it.
Are you shooting for yourself and creating new work to keep your artistic talent true to you?
Shooting personal projects keeps me happy and motivated. I get the opportunity to try shooting with a slightly different aesthetic or new subject matter without having to answer to anyone but myself. I am never trying to waste my own time or money, so I do have some sort of vision for how each new project fits into my larger body of work, but at the very least it’s fun to play.
How often are you shooting new work?
Constantly. I am currently working on several projects that are in different phases. I have one project that I am shooting, but haven’t shown…two are in the research phase. I consider the I Survived Skatopia to still be in the “shooting phase” as it’s an on-going project, images from my first trip are on my site now but I plan on making a second trip to Ohio this summer.
I always have some sort of camera with me, either my Canon 5D, Hasselblad, or my 4×5. I recently added a point and shoot camera to my collection to use as a sketchbook. Neil Selkirk told me once that as a photographer you should be making pictures everyday. He didn’t mean you that needed to make images that require a huge production. Every time you compose a picture, even on your iPhone, you are honing your craft.
Adam Amengual was born in Queens, NY and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts. His father Angelo gave him his first camera at 12 and he started documenting his friends and his surroundings. After studying the basics of photography in high school he continued his photographic education at both Massachusetts College of Art and Parsons School of Design. After art school Adam moved to Brooklyn, NY and began assisting photographers in advertising, fashion, celebrity, and music such as Danielle Levitt, Art Streiber, and Ben Watts, just to name a few.
Adam is currently living in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Kate and dog Shug. His clients include The U.S. State Department via Lipman Hearne, Inc. Magazine, Time Out New York, Men’s Health, New York Magazine, Juxtapoz Magazine, Sony BMG, NDLON, Nobu and Wieden+Kennedy NYC. His work has been shown in galleries at THIS Los Angeles and the University of Massachusetts Boston. His recently completed project entitle Homies has been featured in Exit Magazine and blogs such as Time’s Lightbox, Prison Photography, This Is the What, and Conscientious. His portrait of Adrien Caceres from Homies in the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Adam has recently received several awards for his work:
-The Sony Emerging Photographer Award 2012
-Honorable mention in En Foco’s New Works Photography Awards #15 Fellowship, 2011-12.
-Homies was featured in the PDN Photo annual 2012 and the American Photography 28
-Selected as one of Digital Photo Pro Magazine’s 2012 “Emerging Pro”
Website: www.adamamengual.com
Blog: www.adamamengual.tumblr.com and www.wandering-wayfarer.com
Twitter: @aamengual
Email: info@adamamengual.com
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. She has a new Twitter fed with helpful marketing information. Follow her@SuzanneSease.
General Excellence, Print
News, Sports and Entertainment Magazines
Honors large-circulation weeklies, biweeklies and monthlies
Esquire; Fortune; National Geographic; New York; Wired
Service and Fashion Magazines
Honors women’s magazines, including health, fitness and family-centric publications
Harper’s Bazaar; O, The Oprah Magazine; Real Simple; Vogue; Women’s Health
Lifestyle Magazines
Honors food, travel and shelter magazines as well as city and regional publications
Bon Appétit; House Beautiful; Martha Stewart Living; Saveur; Texas Monthly
Special-Interest Magazines
Honors magazines serving targeted audiences, including enthusiast and hobbyist titles
The Fader; mental_floss; MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History; Outside; Scientific American
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One of the most common conversations we have with photographers (apart from the iPad vs. print portfolio debate) is about finding and working with reps. Many photographers dream of a day when they can just be responsible for making pictures and have someone else find them assignments. But what’s it really like to have a rep and how close does that dream match up with reality? Mark Winer from The Gren Group and former rep Melissa Hennessy were kind enough to help me separate fact from fiction.
What does a rep do?
A rep (or photographer’s representative or photographer’s agent) is someone who serves as a liaison between photographers and clients. In simple terms, they help their photographers get assignments. But a great rep will have a deep understanding of the business opportunities out there, they’ll be able to exploit connections you might not have, they’ll be savvy about negotiating assignment fees and they’ll be able to give you perspective and guidance to propel your career.
Some reps lean more towards branding and marketing and farm out the production. Others lean more towards production and expect their photographers to take the lead on promotion. Nearly all reps handle cost estimates for their photographers. Some reps specialize in a particular genre of photography (especially fashion, reportage and architecture). Some focus on a particular type of client (advertising, corporate, editorial). Some reps only work with photographers in a particular geographic area. All reps build a roster of complementary photographers to cover the needs of whatever clients they’re going after.
What they don’t do is manage your entire business. You (or your studio manager) are still going to have to handle bookkeeping, insurance, payroll. And chances are, you’ll have to maintain all of your marketing materials (like a website, blog, print portfolio, print mailers, emailers, stationery) and execute your portion of an overall marketing plan.
Are you a good candidate for a rep? (Do you need them and do they need you?)
Many of our photographers have great relationships with their reps and their careers have flourished as a result. But as with any partnership, it’s better to be alone than wish you were. Finding the right match, where your interests, goals and expectations align, is crucial to a successful relationship. If you enjoy and are good at marketing, estimating and production, then a rep might just amount to one more cook in the kitchen. But if you think you could be more effective creatively by having a partner to handle some of those business details, then an agent might be an appropriate solution for you.
Even if you’re ready for a rep, you’ll need to realistically assess whether you’re an attractive candidate for them. If you’re not ready, you could waste a lot of time chasing reps when you could be chasing clients instead. The more established a rep is, the more demanding they will be of you. A successful rep will expect that you’re generating significant revenue already and that they’ll be able to share in that revenue right away. They’ll want to see that you can bring skills or other attributes to their group that they might be missing. They’ll want to see that you already have solid marketing materials. And it won’t hurt if they like you on a personal level too.
Understand that any rep who takes you on is going to have to spend significant time, energy and money getting to know your interests and skills, incorporating you into their business and introducing you to their clients. That represents a lot of risk for them. So they tend to not jump into relationships as quickly as a photographer might. I asked Melissa and Mark:What should photographers be looking for in a relationship with a rep?
Melissa: “An industry partner who will help them define their branding, marketing, and growth potential, as well as someone who can help them edit their work, inspire, and motivate them to keep making great pictures. Photographers are able to create so much more when they don’t have to carry the weight of other aspects of the business on their shoulders”
Mark: “Well, I hope they are not looking for the holy grail. I sometimes think that photographers believe finding a rep is the key to their success, which it is not. That is when the real hard work starts.”
How do you find a rep?
Once you understand what you’re looking for in a rep, you’ll need to contact appropriate reps just as you would reach out to potential clients. There are plenty of ways to find lists of reps. We have an extensive list of them on our Resources page. Rob Haggart of APhotoEditor has a great list, and you can find reps by looking through source books like at-edge.
Some rep’s websites don’t say exactly what aspects of your business they will offer support for, so you’ll need to contact appropriate reps directly to start the conversation. Narrow down your search by finding reps who work with photographers of your caliber, genre and geographic area. Send a thoughtful email to the person who handles photographer inquiries explaining a little bit about yourself and your business and what you like about them. Then follow up with a phone call. Don’t be discouraged if every rep isn’t clamoring to sign you right away. Even conversations that end in a “no” will help inform your search so you can get closer to a “yes” the next time.
How should a photographer approach you, and how do you decide if a photographer is right for you?
Melissa: “They should review the agent’s roster on his/her site and be able to answer the question of why they’d be a good fit for the group. Personal phone calls and individual emails are best, along with a PDF of 5-10 images. I look at the work first. It has to be consistent, have a definitive point of view, and be commercially applicable. After the work, I look at the photographer’s personality. I like to work with people who are driven and always looking forward.”
Mark: “If you’re just beginning your career, for example, you may be better off focusing on a smaller or mid-sized agency. And if your focus is on fashion and beauty, you should pursue an agent who shares that vision. Also, be patient and do research – take your time to find the right agent. You are much better off searching when you have some momentum on your side – a good rep will probably want you to bring some clients to the partnership. Most importantly, the work needs to fit within our niche, which is location, lifestyle and portrait work. And we also ask that the photographer have a good track record of producing national advertising campaigns. Most of our photographers had already had success on their own before joining The Gren Group.”
What about commissions and contracts?
Each rep will have their own approach to their photographer agreements, but here are a few major elements of a rep agreement that you should look for and understand:
1. Commissions:
Perhaps the most important element of a rep agreement is the commission that your rep will take on a project. Your contract should clearly specify what percentage the rep gets and what percentage the photographer gets. It also has to specify what items are subject to that commission. Will your rep get a percentage of just your creative/licensing fees or will they collect a percentage of some of your expense items too? We find that reps typically get between 20% and 30% of the fees they negotiate for their photographers. For Paula, that means on anything that is not reimbursed by the client as an expense. Mark says their commission (25%) is taken from “creative, usage, travel, prep, and tech scout fees.”
2. House Accounts and Exclusivity:
House accounts are clients that you currently work for (or have worked for) prior to entering into an agreement with a rep. Each rep will handle these differently. Some reps will take less than their regular commission on your house accounts, while others may not take any commission at all. Sometimes, reps might take less than their regular commission for the first year of your contract on house accounts, then take full commission after that year (or given time period) has ended. I’ve found that for the most part, reps will want to have an exclusive agreement where they take a commission on any project that you work on, regardless of your previous history with a client or whether they get you the job or not. Melissa describes her philosophy on exclusivity:
“I’ve been fortunate that every photographer I have worked with truly understands the value of the partnership and brings any project to my attention that he/she was contacted directly for. With social media and both photographer and agent consistently promoting the work in a variety of platforms, it’s rare that an artist brings in a project solely on his/her own, unless it truly was a new connection or referral. Most of my artists’ projects were larger productions, far greater than what any one person could have handled, so every project was a team effort, regardless of where it originated. That may sound odd to a photographer, but if you know your agent is out there working for you every day with your best interest at heart, you’ll have no issue with paying commissions.”
3. Responsibilities:
It’s important to be clear about what you can expect from your rep, and what they will expect from you. What promotions are you responsible for paying for/doing, and what do you expect your photographers to do/pay for? Also, what is your level of involvement in estimating and/or production?
Mark: “Our philosophy is to Keep It Simple! We pay for all our own travel, website updates, portfolio shipping, trade shows, database subscriptions and email campaigns. The photographer pays for their own trade advertising, promotional trips and direct mail pieces – we offer to cover the mailing costs if they wish. We also do several large ‘group’ direct mail booklets each year, of which we do ask photographers to share some of the expense. We are involved in all the estimating and negotiating, and oversee most of the production. Since we specialize in location and travel work, there is usually a lot of production involved and we almost always hire a producer.”
Melissa: “My initial involvement begins with deciding on what goes in the book/portfolio, and who we will target or want to work with. From there we’ll decide on the marketing approach. When we’re asked to bid a project, I prepare the estimates working closely with a producer (if budget allows) and review it with the artist before submitting to the client. I will also place crews on hold if the artist is on a job or out of the office. Once the job is awarded, I handle the advances, purchase orders, and other necessary paperwork, and the production aspects are handed over to the producer or photographer. I still oversee the process as the liaison between the client and our team.”
For both Mark and Paula, the clients pay the photographers directly and then the photographers then pay the rep their share (and send along copies of receipts of all the expenses). Our experience is that it’s more typical that an agent will bill the client and then pay the photographer when they get paid.
4. Termination
Sometimes a relationship doesn’t work out for a variety of reasons, and it’s important to know upfront what happens if you decide to part ways. Who keeps the clients? Do you need to pay your rep if you work for clients they got for you after you’ve parted ways?
Melissa: “Most agents have a severance clause that stipulates that the photographer continues to pay a “severance fee” for six months plus one month for every year they are under contract. So if they’ve worked together for 5 years, the severance would be 11 months. Assuming the relationship has been in effect for at least a year, the severance is calculated by adding the total commissions paid in the prior year, divided by 12. That amount is then considered the monthly “severance” payable to the agent every 30 days until the severance period expires.”
Mark: “We really have no specific rules on who owns the client relationship after the partnership. In general, I would say that it’s driven by the client. If the photographer has the better relationship with the creative director, then he or she can certainly take that client. If the agent and the art buyer have a great bond, then the rep can continue cultivating that relationship. I would say our contract is more of a good faith agreement. It is meant to lay the foundation for what is expected on both sides, with room for negotiation. Although there are spaces for signatures, we do not require them to be signed. Our photographers are free to leave whenever they like, with no penalty or grace period for commissions. We do not expect future commissions from clients we may have helped them obtain, just as we would not pay them a fee for a client they may have helped us obtain. In general, we believe that a strong rep/photographer partnership is based on trust, communication and shared ideals and no amount of paperwork or legal mumbo jumbo can replace that.”
All of the above elements are typically detailed in a contract. Many contracts are very detailed, long, and full of legal terms. However, to my surprise, Mark said his contract is more of a “handshake on paper” and is a simple document that outlines their general agreement. Mark was kind enough to supply a copy to me:
click to enlarge This one-page contract is pretty straightforward and easy to digest. But it may be the exception to the rule. Recently one of our photographers shared a contract for a different rep that as you’ll see, is quite different:
click to enlarge This 9-page document covers everything from their commission percentage to payment terms if a photographer dies. As you see, it’s quite elaborate and specific.
No matter what your agreement looks like, it’s important that you understand the relationship you’re entering into. Also, I recommend that you ultimately have your attorney review your agreement prior to signing it.
[Footnote: There used to be an organization called the Society Of Photographers And Artists Representatives. But their website spar.org seems to be disabled. Anyone know if they’re still around?]
This post was created by the fine folks at Wonderful Machine.