Author: Suzanne Sease

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Dan Goldberg

When someone works well with others, it’s a plus. Fueled by collaboration, Dan Goldberg takes it up a notch, gaining steam by working with talented artists to share ideas, pushing each other forward. Inspired by food stylist María del Mar, this project is a lesson in slowing down and telling a simple story. Together they worked with prop stylist Andrea Kuhn to create an image series of deconstructed salads from the seventies. It was a trip down memory lane for everyone on the team. This trio found such success in the process that it lit the fire of ideas for future projects. Please gather around and take in all that is Seventies Salad. 

Capturing food brings back emotions and memories. It’s something I always knew but was more profound on this shoot. We shot these salads, with everybody putting in their two cents about which salad had the most memories from childhood. This project reminded me of cooking with my grandma in her kitchen. For this reason, I put the cigarette and the lemon squeezer in one shot. While each of these triggered childhood memories on set, everyone responded with their own once we posted them.

To see more of this project, click here

Instagram 

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Tom Hussey

COWBOYS

“If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya.”  Cattle have grazed land along the Texas coastline since 1749 when 3,000 settlers drove the first herd across the Rio Bravo. Fence lines divide the acres of open land, but time disappears watching the wranglers at work. Being one with your horse, tending the cattle, the dogs and the land is a hard way of life but satisfying. Texas cowboys are the ultimate in classic Western heroes.  Cell phones may have replaced Colt 45’s, but the traditions and stories of the rugged range are still timeless.

To see more of this project, click here

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  John Dyer

My love for photography comes from seeing what something looks like when it’s photographed.  The camera sees differently than the human eye.  Different lenses see differently from each other.  Shooting color (at least for me) is not the same as shooting black & white.  Placing the frame of a camera and freezing a bit of time and space creates something new, something different from what was photographed. That something has its own rules and esthetic: a transformation that I find intoxicating.  A photograph has no narrative ability so it cannot tell you what was happening at the time the shutter was released.  The photograph must exist on its own, justifying itself by the intrinsic elements that it is composed of.  Whenever all those elements are in complete balance, a photograph becomes something more, something mysterious, something fascinating.  The best photograph is an enigma that asks more questions than it answers.  Whatever that dynamic is, I can’t get enough of it.

Acting on a Whim

Bob Dylan has a song called, “Love Minus Zero”. He says he thought of the title before he wrote the lyrics. I did something similar. I thought of the title, “Edge of Texas”, before I tookthe photographs. I’m not the most analytical of photographers. What good ideas I have mostly tiptoe in unannounced and tap me on the shoulder. In the fall of 2018, it occurred tome that it might be interesting to see how people live at the very edges of our state. Culture, geography, accents, demographics…all differ a great deal from East Texas to West Texas. From the Rio Grande to the Oklahoma border. So, in February of 2019, I set out to drive theperimeter of this huge state. To find things to photograph. I’ve been a commercialphotographer for many years. My clients would give me parameters for what they wanted photographed. For “Edge of Texas” I would be my own client. I’d try to satisfy myself. No one else. I would follow my nose and take photos of what drew my interest. This would not be adocumentary where I felt obligated to take photos in every small town. If I saw something interesting, I’d shoot. I realized early on that this endeavor couldn’t be done all in one long trip. I divided my touring into what I call legs. I started south on Interstate 35 to Laredo on my first leg. I had no idea what I would shoot or if I’d find anything to shoot at all. I walkedaround downtown Laredo for most of a day, limbering up my photographic muscles,shooting what caught my eye. Then I headed west along the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, to Big Bend, along what must surely be one of the most beautiful drives in America, FM- 170, the Texas River Road. Finally, to El Paso. From there I drove back to San Antonio to take a look at what I’d shot. For me, getting the photos on a big monitor is where I find out if I’ve beenwasting my time or not. The second leg was to Laredo again, then along HWY 281 to LosEbanos, where the state operates the last hand-pulled ferry across the Rio Grande. Down to Brownsville and Boca Chica, where the Rio Grande flows into the Gulf of Mexico. North to Kingsville and back to San Antonio. The third and fourth legs were much the same. Corpus to Newton, Jasper to Selfs, Powderly to Pecos. Young people with guns on the banks of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, Big Tex Muffler Man in Conlen, an interesting ranchgate near Ft. Stockton. When I finished my trip, I did a rough edit of the 3,000 or sophotographs I’d taken. I put the best 200 shots together to see how everything held up. I’m happy with the result.

To see more of this project, click here

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Andy Goodwin

I love working on personal projects, especially when they’re part of a series that I can fully explore. It just gives me so much freedom and a chance to play around with unusual ideas and techniques without having a concern for what the commercial value might be. Oftentimes a series like this one starts off with an idea that I’ll daydream about for a week or so until I’m ready to talk a friend or family member into helping me out. I have a group of muses that I tap into for favors like this and the crazier the idea is the better they like it.

What makes this series somewhat different is that I’ve kept coming back to it over the past 8 years with new ideas and lighting approaches. I don’t want to give away too much in terms of technique (the idea has already been knocked off by others), but I will say that it’s a pretty elaborate set. One thing I’ll share is that since my “models” are under water it’s not always easy to communicate with them on what I’d like them to try, so sometimes after a little coaching I’ll give them the cable release and let them shoot the portraits when they feel they are at their photogenic best!

To see more of this project, click here

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  David Black

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”
—Bret Easton Ellis

Los Angeles could be described as Surrealism in full sunlight.

The physical debris of Los Angeles—sooty palm fronds littered along crooked sidewalks, a maze of intertwined freeways, electric LED sunsets—is reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s “city of the future.”

As a follow up to Cerro Gordo, David Black’s debut monograph from 2017, The Days Change at Night explores the paranormality of everyday life in Los Angeles. Part two of an LA trilogy, Days Change picks up where Cerro Gordo left off, evoking the early 1980s punk aesthetic projected in Alex Cox’s Repo Man—a city on edge of an existential threat.

The images present a cyclical, day-to-night narrative, using the city’s landscape as a depository of our collected dreams. These visual glitches suggest the point of view of a passenger in a fast-moving car, racing past on LA’s expansive freeway system, capturing the stark polarity of the city’s opposing forces: light and dark, commercial and artistic, micro and macro—and they fuse together to pose questions about illusion, mortality, and truth.

As Raymond Chandler famously wrote, “A city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.”

To see more of this project, click here.

Purchase here

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:   Angelica Edwards

This mother wanted her son to have photos to understand her breast cancer journey

Photographer Angelica Edwards met Keyla “Nunny” Reece when she took an assignment to cover a story about hospital parking fees for her student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2015, Reece, of Hope Mills, N.C., felt a lump in her breast, got it checked out and was told it was a benign cyst. Two years later, she felt an additional lump, this time under her armpit, while simultaneously experiencing skin blotches and extreme back pain.

In June 2017, doctors diagnosed Reece with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. It had spread to her ribs, lungs, spine and pelvis.

After the initial photo assignment, Edwards contacted Reece to see if she would allow her to document her journey.

Reece was excited to share her story. She said she wanted her son, Ryan, who was 10 years old at the time, to be able to look back and understand what his mother went through as he got older, and she was no longer here.

Originally this NPR story ran in October for Breast Cancer Awareness month and takes an intimate look at Reece’s breast cancer journey through pictures.

To see more of this project, click here.

Angelica Edwards is a photographer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Follow her on Instagram @angelica_edwards2

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:   Sandro

DEATH IN THE DESERT

In February 2020, the world as we once knew it, ended.   We began to interact with family, friends and loved ones differently because of COVID-19.  First emerging from the city markets in conurbation Wuhan, China, the imposing new city of nearly eight million people, the COVID-19 virus, a highly contagious new strain from the microbial family coronavirus, wreaked havoc with the human body. Coronaviruses range from the common cold to more exotic diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). COVID-19, discovered and identified in 2019 (hence its number), targets the cells of the major organs, brain—heart—liver—kidneys and, most particularly, the lungs.  The lung is immunologically defenseless against the destructive strength of the virus and the lungs are quickly destroyed.  By the end of December 2020, Covid-19 is estimated to claim between 2 to 2.5 million victims worldwide.

From the beginning of time, millions of lives have been mortally affected by this-flu-strain or that-virus-strain.  Recent pandemics that have included the Hong Kong Flu, the Spanish Flu, the Asian Flu, Swine Flu, the Black Death Flu as well as infections linked to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Covid-19 is our generation’s life changing war against microbes.  The contemporary world is suffering the mental, emotional, physical and financial scares and losses of Covid-19.  As scientists, leaders and intellectuals continued scrambling for answers, the death projections will expand deep into the millions.  Fear outlined the mindset of most sensible human beings.  In 2020, all children, all adults, everyone from every country speaking every language, learned to spell QUARANTINE.

To see more of this project, click here

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Art Streiber

Late at night, if you look at the houses, streetlights and silhouetted palm trees on our block in Los Angeles, you could get the impression that it’s 1947 – that our street is a film noir landscape.

The houses in our neighborhood were originally built in the 1930’s and 40’s and many of them have retained their original facades: The Spanish bungalow with the red tile roof, the stucco box with aluminum awnings and the traditional California cottage with oversized plantation shutters.  The streetlights are from the 1920’s…single, upright electrolier with fluted shafts and acorn-shaped globes.

And when the fog rolls in, as it does on occasion, the eeriness is magnified.  The shadows are deeper, the moon is brighter and the palm trees are even more ominous.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram 

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Kendrick Brinson of Brinson+Banks

NOTE:  This is on-going personal project I have featured before as it is so wonderful to see the project continue to grow with this extraordinary group of retirees.

I have been returning to take photos of the residents of Sun City, Arizona, an age-restricted community of 40,000 retirees, since December 2009 now. When Sun City first opened in 1960, it was the first place of its kind–a place for people who had spent their lives working and raising children to move to with the intention of playing and learning and socializing. It offered a new way to grow old. I love this idea of being more intentional with our time, exploring what makes us feel good, and looking forward to life in our later years.

Until last month, my last trip to Sun City was for National Geographic as I photographed and interviewed residents during COVID lockdown in the late summer of 2020. In December of 2021, I decided it was time for me to go back again to see how life had picked back up once residents were vaccinated and the more than 100 clubs had opened back up. This trip, I focused the majority of my time documenting the Sun City Poms—a granny cheerleading squad whose ages range from 59 to 89. I followed the women through a parade rehearsal, their annual holiday luncheon and party, and then as Mary, who is 80 and the current longest member of the Poms at 21 years, got dressed in her sequined uniform, then to a holiday parade, and a performance for a 100 year old’s birthday at a VFW.

While I am always grateful and excited to be taking photos for my editorial and advertising clients, so much of the past two years has been fraught–COVID testing, masking, prioritizing photography outdoors when possible–this has indeed offered beautiful glimpses into life right now, but it has felt more distanced than I’d like. I’ve felt more disconnected from the people I get to photograph and this trip back to Sun City reminded me so much of why I love what I do–I love listening to and connecting and creating with people. Essentially, I sent myself back to Sun City in December to capture joy and community and I found it there while photographing these amazing women. It felt healing in a way.

I hope to make my ongoing personal project on retirement in Sun City into a book in the future.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram 

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:   Aldo Chacon

THE PROJECT

Nike’s World is a personal project inspired by different periods of time in our history, technological advancements, global warming and nature related subjects as well as social and political issues and of course sports.

The idea for the project was to tell stories through materials and objects. The reasoning for using Nike shoes as the main “subject” for the photo series was to include a sense of iconography and pop culture to draw people’s attention to specific ideas and have that as a hook for exploration. I wanted to use sneakers as my main subject as a way to tell a story and transport the viewer to a world without the prejudgment of having a person as the main subject and just let their imaginations decide who’s the owner of that shoe.

Nike also was a big inspiration because they have such a wide range of sneakers and shoes that every shoe made me think of a time period, an idea, or a material that I wanted to experiment with. 

Each material and color palette has a direct relationship to an idea and a time period. This series is deeply inspired by a sense of eclecticism and the goal to create images that feel global.   

BACKSTORY

This project came about in a very unusual way. I mostly shoot sports, portraits and fashion and I had been wanting to make some “funky” sets for a personal portrait project, but I found it hard to make it happen because of resources, delayed materials and also Covid, so I thought about how could I still shoot something without getting the least amount of people involved. I’ve always been a big Nike fan because of the graphic aspect of their clothes and the way they mix fashion, streetwear, and sports. I had an original idea of showcasing different moments in history through sneakers, like the Moon landing or the fall of the Berlin Wall, so I went back to that idea and mixed it with the “funky” sets vision I had. I started researching the Nike website for different sneakers and every shoe spoke to me in different ways. I started imagining those moments in history and sort of thinking what sneakers would people involved in those events wear. Some styles seemed more retro, some more modern, or futuristic, some spoke to me more in a material or texture way, some in color palette and some more on an ideology. It was hard to choose because there are hundreds of styles, I could have made 100 more sets!  I decided to go with Nike shoes because of iconography, I wanted to use an icon that everyone knows and that has been used in pop culture to bring attention to the different subjects and make it more of an homage to the swoosh. I really love how the swoosh looks in different types of shoes and how there are many different styles and colors, but they are all united by that simple icon.

The set design was one of the most important things of the project since it was going to be what told the story around the shoe. I worked with my creative partner Sal on this. I had the original vision and the materials I wanted to use for each set, I wanted to use a lot of found objects or things that could be found in our daily lives for each set, and I also wanted to have each set with a color palette that was unique to each shoe. We ended up renting some props from prop shops in LA and sourcing materials from Home Depot, toy stores and some junkyards. We built, styled and decorated the sets between the two of us in my backyard. The project was funded by Wild Goats Creative. 

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Brad Torchia

This is a recent collection of photographs and collages, from a few days of traveling on Maui.  Whether I’m on the road or home in LA, I’m after it constantly.  The color, the light, the evidence. How much of the experience can I let in? Circling in my head lately: staying open, staying loose. The possibilities seem endless.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Beth Galton

The Series of Textures was inspired by Robert Rymans series of white paintings which hang at Dia Beacon. Food stylist Charlotte Omnès and I had recently seen them and began discussing how we might interpret these paintings using food as the medium rather than paint. We drew further inspiration from Mondrian, Franz Klein, Rothko and Matisse – and set about creating this ongoing personal series.

Rather than purposefully arranging the food to appear appetizing as the primary visual goal, we focused on the textures, shapes and forms that the food was able to represent with some manipulation. We worked with a variety of surfaces as our canvass. I chose to light the series with a hard light bringing out the texture of the application of the food as well as the depth of the ingredients such as the jam and the catsup.  By using this lighting technique, I hoped to further distance the food from its appetite appeal and allows the viewer to experience the piece for its form, color, and texture. The final images are graphic compositions that are both whimsical and structural.

As a food photographer, I instinctively set out to present food in all its yummy glory. I typically want viewers to see my food images and feel their stomachs growl or mouths fill with water. Taking on this project has allowed me to break with those constraints and play with my food. These images are abstract – but they make me hungry! Inspiration is everywhere.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

Beth has recently signed with Candace Gelman & Associates 

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Todd Cole

“This project is an exploration into the effects of migrant workers from South America upon the rural, agrarian communities in the Texas panhandle.  Immigrants have helped to transform the once declining Texas towns of Dalhart, Sunday, and Dumas, into thriving agricultural boomtowns.  The laborers work on cattle ranches and dairy farms, as well as own and operate small businesses, such as restaurants, bakeries, and clothing stores in these communities.  These towns have become dependent on this immigrant labor, and as a result the community are now embracing their new neighbors, leading to an open mindedness and integration of shared values.  This project was done in partnership with the Texas Observer and The Emerson Collective.”

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram 

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Jessica Antola

Buying flowers at the bodega is one of New York City’s unsung small luxuries, and it had even more significance during the Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown when we were all so focused on making sure we had basic necessiDes. With this ongoing series of cheap bodega-bought flowers that I styled with plasDc bags, I wanted to create something beyond the bouquets’ literal circumstances. I think of them as a humble symbol of hope.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Grace Chon

PANDEMIC FOOD

I planted it, watered it, harvested it, cooked it, styled it, photographed it, and ate it.

I started gardening in 2009 not too long after I started my photography business because I was stressed out and needed a hobby.

Over the years as my career got busier and busier, I found myself harvesting tons of beautiful produce but lacking the time to cook and eat everything.

In 2020 when the world came to a screeching halt and I became an unemployed photographer and full time Zoom school teacher to my son, I finally found some time to cook all the beautiful food I grew in my garden. What I thought was a pause on my photography career turned out to be a time of creating something deeply fulfilling while being slow and intentional. These are some of the things I grew and created during my 2 years of lockdown and unemployment, all shot with an iPhone.

To see more of this project, click here.

Instagram

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Christaan Felber

It’s been eighteen months since the global pandemic was first announced. It was a rare time where the machine of society, usually loud and seemingly unstoppable, came to a grinding halt and the resulting moment of silence remained etched in the memory of humanity for a lifetime. The sense of paranoia was dense, like a fog that had wrapped itself around the world. We were all facing an invisible enemy that had the ability to take the shape of anyone: our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones. The crisis also introduced us to a slew of new laws and rules. The most popular being the enforcement of always maintaining a minimum distance of six feet apart from everyone. We were constantly being reminded of this seemingly arbitrary distance just about everywhere. It was written on the floors of grocery stores and announced in the news, on the radio and over PA systems. Unfortunately, it also served to push the symbolic wedge even further between us.

As a human, it was scary and heartbreaking. As a professional portrait photographer, it was devastating. It had seemed we’d completely lost our ability to empathize. We were collectively in fight-or-flight mode and the thought of even approaching a stranger felt impossible and maybe even dangerous. My ability to connect with people and take their portrait, a skill I had constantly been working on and strengthening, had already begun to atrophy. I felt like an Olympic runner who had been damned to a potential eternity in bed. So, I decided to do something.

I wanted to use these circumstances as a challenge to connect with strangers and, by using an outstretched tape measure set at exactly six feet, include a visual representation of the physical and emotional distance that had been set between us. I approached people everywhere I went customers and check-out clerks in department stores, people I’d see walking through town, strangers in parking lots, and UPS workers delivering packages. At first, I was nervous; I didn’t know what to expect, but after some time began feeling more comfortable establishing rapport with people. It almost felt normal. I then realized that by using the very thing that had gotten me into photography to begin with – that of utilizing a camera to connect with people – had allowed me to reestablish trust again and, for a brief moment, for the fog of fear and paranoia to gently part.

To see more of this project, click here.

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 establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.  Instagram

Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it.  And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.