Category: Blog News

I love Instagram. It’s my go to app when I need to kill some time and want to see what’s happening in the world beyond my sad windowless office.

One of my favorite things to do it creep on photographers.

You probably think I’m pretty weird now, but I really do love to see what inspires some of my favorite photographers on a regular basis.

For me, its just another way to see what they’re up to and what they’re shooting.  I can’t always keep up with all the promos, but I always make time for Insta Creepin’.

— another fantastic Art Producer

via art buyers are people too.

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.

“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.

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

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.

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.

via Keeping Up with SEO – or Not at Strictly Business.

I feel that most acutely when I write. Some days, I hate every single syllable I type. I took a few writing courses in college. The extraordinary poet Marie Ponsot would talk about the crow sitting on your shoulder saying things like: “That sucks,”  ”How could you write that?” and “Are you kidding me?”

Diminutive, chain-smoking Marie would jut her tobacco-stained finger into the air, punctuating every word: Shoot. The. Fucking. Crow.

I suspect the particularly exquisite pain of hating your own creation may be yet another manifestation of investing too much of your own sense of being into the company, the product, the service. When we hang our sense of self on the whisper of an idea, what else are we to feel but pain?

via Jerry+_.

Our Constitution currently states that to be a General Member (GM) one must be, amongst other things, a “photographer(s) for whom the majority of their earned income comes from publication of their images.”  Some of our GM’s currently make less than 51% of their income in this way and would not qualify to become a GM today.  For those who did qualify and find themselves adjusting their careers in such a way that they no longer meet this requirement, what should they do? Well there is no system in place that forces them to re-apply for General Membership at any time.  Once a GM, always a GM.   So seriously, what should they do?

via ASMP.

Getty is allowing CafePress to choose from their thousands of Royalty-Free* images and authorizing them to sell those photographs on mouse-pads, coffee mugs, and other products all around the world, free of commitment. CafePress only owes Getty money on every individual item sold, essentially putting these photographs on consignment, thus allowing CafePress to increase their “inventory” of products, with our beautiful images, without spending anything out-of-pocket.

More: NEWS – Remi Thornton Photography.

Gimmick Photography is a term I frequently use when discussing photographic concepts and styles with photographers and students I work with. I use it when describing how and why some photographers get known and remembered faster than others. It’s when an artist shoots, rinses and repeats over and over again, sometimes for many years, giving their audience a repetition of subjets that makes a connection and recalls earlier efforts. Like playing that same 45RPM single over and over and over… the song frequently becomes a hit!

via Gimmick Photography: A Primer – Manhattman.

Photographers across the country can breathe a sigh of relief. The U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York dismissed collector Jonathan Sobel’s lawsuit against photographer William Eggleston. The case, art law experts say, has broader implications for all artists who incorporate old photographic negatives into new work — and the collectors who support them.

Filed last April, the complaint alleged that Eggleston diluted the value of Sobel’s collection by printing larger, digital versions of some of his best-known works and then selling them for record prices at Christie’s.

via Artinfo.

Nearly 18 months after VII Photo closed down its Network of associate members, integrating most of them within its main structure, the agency is now calling for portfolio submission from potential new members.

“Membership will be offered only to photographers working with the highest standards of journalistic and documentary integrity, who will extend the breadth of work we currently produce and who we believe we can work within the management structure of VII,” says the agency.

via British Journal of Photography.

I was photographing, giving my opinion, and I wanted you to know that I was giving my opinion.The term “photojournalist” tends to be loaded with meaning: specifically that one reports the news. I don’t see that as my function. Even when I was photographing things that were news topics, like conflicts, my function was not that of a news reporter, my function was to comment on what I saw happen that day and to offer a subjective point of view. In my role I was commenting on what was happening, but also trying to communicate what it felt like to be there when it was happening.

via Christopher Anderson Interview – VICE.COM.

We’re frequently sent pairs (or trios) of similar-looking photo projects by outraged readers who think they’re clear-cut examples of copyright infringement.

Inventing new photographic material whole cloth, without reference or regard to the models of the past – from Rembrandt to the latest photography show – is nearly impossible in photography, and it would produce aridly self-referential work. The creativity of photographers who “build freely” on models from the past helps their work stand out, and push the medium forward.

via PDN Pulse.

Wednesday, March 27 at 1pm EST Michael Bilbrey from Leo Burnett will talk about photographers’ self-promotion and how you can effectively communicate your vision, showcase your professionalism and address all those intangibles that go into the hiring decision. Live webinar registration (here).