I’ve always loved “East of Eden.” Such a brilliant book. My brother and I didn’t get along well, for years, so the novel just made sense to me. I’d never before read anything that resonated on the personal, intellectual and spiritual level. That Steinbeck, man. What a genius.
It’s not the opus most people think of, though, when the great man’s name comes up. Like Walker Evans and the Great Depression, when most hear Steinbeck, they go right to “The Grapes of Wrath.” Dust covers everything. People roam and wander. Desperation wafts thickly. “Okie” is an epithet. And Tom Joad is a character that sticks.
Hell, even Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen mined his well-worn talent, (perhaps for the last time,) when he wrote “The Ghost of Tom Joad” back in ’95. If ever there were a story that sells in America, it’s the wandering vagrant, riding the rails. (Hey Acorn, you got any spare strips a duct tape? Got me ‘nother hole in mah overalls. Landed funny comin’ off that goddamn train.)
Much as I love to tie these reviews back to my own life, today, I’ve got nothing. Sure, I’ve been around, but always from the comfort of a car, bus, plane, or passenger train. I’m just an average, everyday civilian.
As opposed to Mike Brodie, whose project “A Period of Juvenile Prosperity,” recently exhibited at Yossi Milo in New York, and was released earlier this year as a beautifully produced book, by Twin Palms. No, this dude has seen his fair share of disemboweled varmints, festering sores, and never-washed hair. And he seems to be spry, if the pictures are to be believed. (Fence jumping in the opening picture? Great way to kick off the narrative.)
Mr. Brodie spent a few years hopping freight trains, and hanging out with the kind of kids who would emerge from a test-tube birth, if the parents were Ryan McGinley, Nan Goldin, and the aforementioned Californian, John Steinbeck. (What? You can’t have three parents? Says who?) They’d be glamorous, if they weren’t so dirty. They’d be normal, if they weren’t so misunderstood. They’d be happy, if they weren’t so damaged.
These photographs have gone everywhere, (as have the protagonists,) and it’s not hard to understand why. Looking at this book gives you a window into an unseemly world that you wouldn’t otherwise get to see. (Though the Sean Penn film from a few years back with the *Spoiler Alert* super-sad ending did a fair job, I suppose.) It’s the equivalent of US Weekly for the intelligentsia: see how the other half lives; we dare you to put it down.
I love to be surprised, but I don’t know if that happened here. It felt more voyeuristic than truly insightful; more entertaining than informative. But looking at the situation facing members of the artist’s generation, (he’s 27,) maybe this is just the most perfect set of “peoplesymbols” anyone’s come out with yet? It’s a bit cynical, but keeps it real at the same time. Sounds pretty GenY to me.
There are lots of photos looking down, which works very well, and the overall color palette is gorgeous: muted when need be, ugly when appropriate, and glowing at just the right moments. At a time when everyone is talking about Punk, because of the Met’s Fashion exhibition, this book gives us a sense of what the movement’s descendants might look like in 2013.
Basically, this is the ultimate project for now. It’s guaranteed to get people’s attention, well-crafted enough to hold it, yet not brilliant enough to force people to think too hard. It’s easy to tell yourself: boy, I’m glad I didn’t end up like that. But then you think, if I had, I’d be the one sitting on the gold mine photo project.
Is it worth it if you have to poop on toilets hooked up to vacuum cleaners, and change the dressing on your best bud Tray’s ass wound? I don’t know. But it’s too late for you anyway. This merry band of misfit roaming rebels has been photographed already. Find your own subculture.
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 Aaron Richter. “I was recently introduced to his work and I really dig it”
I photographed Patrick Wimberly and Caroline Polachek of the Brooklyn band Chairlift for Spin at a house they were renting in Austin, Texas, during SXSW 2012.This is Florence Welch, of Florence + the Machine, who I photographed backstage at Bonnaroo in 2011 for Spin. You can’t tell in this image, but I pulled Florence, who was teetering about on super-tall platforms, over to a fairly dirty marsh-like area of the backstage to get away from the crowds, which all worked out pretty great for this image.I shot the actress and Burberry model Gabriella Wilde at my apartment for Nylon. Her legs are real long.This is another image shot for Nylon—actress Alexia Fast. This is my bed; it’s super comfortable.I went suit shopping at Manhattan’s SuitSupply with Detroit rapper Danny Brown for a Spin feature in the magazine’s final issue. This was Danny’s first suit ever.I photographed British singer Emeli Sandé for Nylon. She had some fun soaking me in Windex.This is actor Domhnall Gleeson, son of actor Brendan Gleeson. We shot at Acme, a prop-filled studio in Brooklyn and one of my favorite places to work.I took this photo of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (aka Game of Thrones badass Jaime Lannister) just a couple hours after the previous image of Domhnall Gleeson at the same studio, and of course, because Acme is stuffed with props, there was a motorcycle just sitting at the edge of our cyc. We thought it a waste not to jump on for a few shots.I photographed rapper Action Bronson for the cover of Australia’s Acclaim magazine. He got super stoned, and we went to hang out at the shop where a couple of his BMWs were being worked on.I shot designer Zac Posen with model Betina Holte for Glamour. The camera loves Zac, and he unashamedly poses more than any model I’ve ever worked with.
How many years have you been in business?
I’ve been taking pictures since February 2009, and by industry standards, I’ve probably been considered a “professional” for the past two years.
Are you self-taught or photography school taught?
I’m self-taught. When I first moved to New York in 2006, I worked as the copy chief for an urban-entertainment magazine called GIANT. When the magazine, which doesn’t exist anymore, started shedding staffers, I was laid off and—inspired by the magazine’s stellar art department of former creatives from The Face, DV, Trace and America—spent my severance on a camera and taught myself how to take pictures. At the time, I was also working (and still work) as the art director for a digital music magazine I helped launch with friends called self-titled (www.self-titledmag.com), and since part of my job involves commissioning all photography in the magazine, I found myself shooting bands and musicians quite a bit. This led to art directors and photo editors noticing my work, and assignments started coming my way.
Who was your greatest influence that inspired you to get into this business?
Absolutely my buddy Ruvan (www.ruvan.com), who takes the most amazing photos. Ruvan was the photographer on the first story that I ever wrote for GIANT (an “In the Studio” piece with the Bravery). Shooting primarily on film, Ruvan takes beautiful photos with such ease and little fuss; watching him work and learn and develop his skills helped me realize that changing my career path was a realistic goal and not just a longshot empty dream—in other words, his development showed me that photography was something I could learn and teach myself with the right motivation and critical eye. Ruvan also frequently throws gallery shows with his work, in which he encourages attendees to take home images that he’s arranged on the walls. His shows always have such a great vibe—a fantastic meeting of friends. For me, photography is a social experience—whereas writing always felt incredibly solitary—and Ruvan’s events always showed me how important the people around us are to truly enjoying what we do.
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?
I moved to New York to be a writer and an editor at magazines. And I did that for three years, and it was not fun for me. I really disliked doing the work at a time when magazine content was shifting more toward blog posts and quantity over quality. Photography gave me the opportunity to create projects for myself, and everything I shot was fun, because I was learning, and getting better and better with every shoot and every time I pushed myself to try something new. As I’ve started working more and shooting projects for myself less, I still look to maintain that sense of fun—in other words, work never really feels like work when I’m taking photos—and I always hold that as the best inspiration.
Do you find that some creatives love your work but the client holds you back?
I’ve never really had a situation like this. Each assignment or job that I get, I always consider it a collaboration between myself and the entire team—rather than specifically my photos. For example, I love smiling, both smiling myself and making my subjects smile. Love it, love it, love it. I love my photos infinitely more where I’ve been able to connect with my subjects in a manner where they have a genuine smile on their faces in the images. But obviously, not every job is going to call for the subjects to be smiling—particularly shooting fashion and moody musicians. Avoiding smiles on a job where the client wants a more serious tone isn’t holding back my vision for the work I want to produce; it’s just a necessary element of collaboration.
What are you doing to get your vision out to the buying audience?
The only thing I know to do is just shoot as much as possible. When paying work dies down for a week or two, as it always will in the freelance life, I fill those days as much as possible with days shooting for myself, whether it’s spending a day with a new model shooting some fashion or catching up with a band that’s in town and taking pictures for my music magazine, self-titled. I also produce an online fashion magazine called Joey (www.joeyzine.com), which I shoot for a bit and commission lots of my photographer friends for. I’ve done five issues over the past two years, but as I’ve gotten busier, it’s become difficult to put out issues on a regular basis. But Joey is great exposure, both for myself and for my contributors. Joey gives me better excuses to shoot whatever I want and present it in a way that’s easily digestible and engaging for anyone online. I, along with pretty much every working photographer that I know, also keep a readily updated Tumblr (aaronrichter.tumblr.com) of new work, whenever it’s published, which seems to have become just as essential as maintaining a portfolio site.
What is your advice for those who are showing what they think the buyers want to see?
If they enjoy shooting the work, then awesome. To me, that’s really all that’s important. If they’re shooting something they don’t enjoy because they want to book a campaign and make money, then that’s kind of a total bummer. But there’s obviously a middle ground here—shooting what you think buyers want to see but doing it in a way that’s enriching for you. Like, I know a lot of photographers that might think “lifestyle” photography can be kinda corny but are able to approach it, because they know they need more of it in their book, in a commercially valid way that isn’t just BBQs and riding bikes. Ultimately, shoot what you like shooting. If you’re good and share your work, someone will see it and dig it.
Are you shooting for yourself and creating new work to keep your artistic talent true to you?
As much as I can, yeah. But really, as I’ve sort of already said, I’m just happy whenever I’m taking pictures, no matter if it’s something more in line with what I personally want to produce or collaborating on a job for a client. I like to think: Would I rather be transcribing interview tapes? Would I rather be blogging about YouTube videos? Would I rather be struggling to figure out how to write a profile of some upcoming singer in 100 words? Would I rather be fretting about commas and verb tense? No way—not for me. Every day I’m taking photos, I’m happy to have a relief from what I used to do for a living.
How often are you shooting new work?
Every week. I love it. Aaron Richter grew up in the Midwest but now calls Brooklyn home. A displaced writer and magazine editor, he has seen his photos appear in the pages of such titles as GQ, Men’s Health, Spin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Glamour and Nylon. He’s also produced images for brands including Urban Outfitters, Doo.Ri, Puma, Copperwheat, Casio, Clarks and bebe, and exhibited his backstage portraits from Bonnaroo 2011 at the W Hotel in Times Square. In his spare time, Aaron steers the art direction for self-titled, an iPad- and Web-based publication he helped launch in 2008, and served previously as the editor of MusicMusicMusic, a short-lived magazine that tanked a ton of money but made a few hip people very happy. Aaron enjoys reading Norman Mailer, rewatching the movie DiG!, and metally deliberating about which is the best of the generally bad Rolling Stones albums.
You can contact me directly for anything at studio@aaronrichter.com.
I’m also represented in the US by the awesome JP at Fresh Artist Management (jp@freshartistmgmt.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.
citing his “fierce commitment to photojournalism and endless drive to tell a story.” Munita’s portfolio of work, shot in a wide variety of settings and locales, reflects a strong and nuanced grasp of the human condition. His photographs of refugees in Afghanistan, prisoners in El Salvador and daily life in Cuba all demonstrate just how in touch Munita is with the currents (and undercurrents) of life.
I sat in the back row for orientation, flanked by two friends. The large conference room at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism was buzzing. To my left sat David Emitt Adams, an Arizona photographer who prints on oil drum lids. To my right was Jaime Permuth, a Guatemalan based in New York, who photographs in Queens. We were excited, and probably a little nervous, to take part in the first ever New York Portfolio Review, sponsored by the NY Times Lens Blog.
I was listening to the tail end of Michelle McNally’s introductory speech, when David’s elbow gently poked my rib cage. He pointed across the room, and whispered in my ear, “Get a load of that guy.”
I looked up, and noticed that one of our fellow photographers was wearing a Mexican-style lucha libre wrestling mask. Awesome, but maybe a little inappropriate. Like everyone, I was curious as to the identity of our masked man.
There were over a hundred photographers in the room, many of whom had flown in from around the planet. The Times was hosting its first portfolio review, which was announced on the Lens Blog this past winter. Those sitting there, patiently waiting to have their work reviewed by some of the biggest names in the industry, had been chosen from among the several thousand applicants who submitted work. The event was totally free, which is a rarity. Even the food was complimentary.
It was an august group of seasoned professionals, and, of course, the guy wearing the lucha libre mask. My friends and I giggled, reflecting the personality of adolescent troublemakers in the back row. “Dude,” I said to David, “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you climb on the table and tackle him, like Macho Man dropping down off the top turnbuckle. Twenty bucks, dude. Twenty bucks.”
He laughed, but was wise enough to pass. Then, the lucha libre guy got up from his chair, and started heading our way. “Quick,” I told the guys, “when he walks by, let’s all yell ‘Que Viva,’.” It’ll be awesome. Like. Totally.
The anonymous photographer was tall, and bore down on us like a lumberjack eyeing a tasty bit of tree. Just as he was about to walk by, our taunts at the ready, something surprising happened. He stopped.
Suddenly, I was looking up at a pair of sparkly eyes, peering out from behind the wrestler’s mask. “Heeeeeey, Jonathan,” he said. I let out a long breath, ashamed at my recent behavior. Everyone within a few rows was watching, or so it seemed.
Immediately, it came to me: Sol Neelman, who put out the cool book “Weird Sports” a couple of years ago. I reviewed it, and then we met once in Albuquerque. Had to be him.
“Sol?” I said, tepidly. It was indeed.
“I have a present for you,” he said. The next thing I knew, he handed me a lucha libre mask of my own. “Put it on.”
“Come on, dude, put it on,” chimed the gallery.
By then, it was clear I had an audience. What the hell, I thought, might as well be a good sport about it. As I posed for the inevitable photos, however, I realized that I couldn’t actually see. The mask didn’t fit, so my eyes were covered. Fortunately, David captured the moment in a Polaroid, which he graciously scanned, so you can now snigger accordingly.
What’s the lesson here? Maybe it’s best to keep your mouth shut sometimes, rather than mocking the one guy who looks different? Or, maybe we should all lighten up a bit? Que viva.
From there, I had a fantastic day, as all my reviews were stellar. I met with some excellent people, but, really, we’ve been through this before. I’ve written several articles about attending portfolio reviews, so let’s not go down that road today.
The next day, though, I was asked to review the work of a great group of younger photographers. (It was the first time I’ve been a reviewer at a portfolio review event.) As I was the only attendee to be on both sides of the table, it occurred to me that I could use this article to highlight the best work I saw. (You know, like an actual professional.)
I sat behind a table that Sunday, anxiously waiting to dispense advice. I was open with the photographers, admitting I was much less influential than the other people in the room, and that it was likely I could offer nothing more than my honest opinion about where to take their work. I hadn’t thought of writing about them in an article like this, so the possibility wasn’t discussed.
Given the international flavor of the event, three of the six photographers I met were European. Two young women, from Italy and France, had not-yet-developed work, so we focused on picking out the best few images as a foundation on which to build. The third artist visiting from the continent, Daniel Alvarez, was from Barcelona. (Who doesn’t love that city?)
He showed me a recently published book, which I’ve photographed for you. Black and white, high-contrast, grainy images of his Japanese wife were mixed within a non-linear narrative. They were more intense than erotic, and personal in a way you don’t often see with photography like this. (Probably because he actually knows, loves and lives with his model, rather than just being a male photographer fetishizing some random hottie.) The sequencing of the book was also strong, and I’ve included a particularly impressive run. (Negatives/modernist building/contact sheet.)
Of the Americans I met, the two young women also showed images that indicated promise, but were not quite there yet. I encouraged them, highlighted the best images, and pointed out that their evident talent and work ethic, extended over time, would likely yield the results for which they were hoping. The other American, Andrew Burton, was rather confident, and gave the sense that I was probably not high on his list. (Not that I blame him. I wouldn’t have ranked me highly either.)
Andrew is a photojournalist of the old school, and had pictures to show me on his laptop. The project we discussed had recently been shot in Afghanistan, where he was investigating the American military handoff. The pictures were unquestionably excellent.
I pointed out a compelling succession of images, and mentioned that the formal compositional structure would read well in an art context. (On the topic of how to show his work outside the journalistic milieu.) Many of the other images were more angular, with less rigid use of cropping. The advice was: the fine art photo world is, and will likely always be in love with formalism.
An Afghan National Army soldier practices drills at Command Outpost AJK (Azim-Jan-Kariz) in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, January 29, 2013.Soldiers in the Afghan National Army's 6th Kandak (battalion), 3rd company walk through a poppy field during a joint patrol with the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment near Command Outpost Pa'in Kalay on April 5, 2013 in Kandahar Province, Maiwand District, Afghanistan. The United States military and its allies are in the midst of training and transitioning power to the Afghan National Security Forces in order to withdraw from the country by 2014.An improvised explosive device (IED) detonates underneath a vehicle during a patrol outside Command Outpost AJK (short for Azim-Jan-Kariz, a near-by village) in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, January 28, 2013. No one was killed in the attack.A 10-year-old girl injured by an improvised explosive device waits for a helicopter to evacuate her for further medical attention from strong point DeMaiwand, Maywand District, Kandahar Province, on January 18, 2013. The IED also injured a 25-year-old man, who had both legs blown off.A member of the Afghan Uniform Police, on patrol with the U.S. Army, wipes his brow after an improvised explosive device (IED) attack during a patrol outside Command Outpost AJK (short for Azim-Jan-Kariz, a near-by village) in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, January 28, 2013. No one killed in the attack.
We also talked a bit about how the photography industry is changing, no matter which wing one inhabits. I shared with him my belief that today’s photographers have to be multi-talented, and be able to create various incomes streams. The old ways are dead, I theorized, and they’re not coming back. (Then, I might have pounded the table for emphasis.) Shortly after that meeting, Andrew was hired as a NYC-based staff photographer for Getty Images. Just like the old days. Shows what I know.
After the reviews were done, everyone got together for a pizza feast, again catered by the Times. The afternoon featured a slate of lectures, which I had to miss, as I was due for a second pizza party with my family, across the Hudson River in Jersey. Before I headed back into reality, though, I made sure to stop in to thank James Estrin, Lens blog co-editor, and the visionary behind the event. (Along with David Gonzalez, the Lens Blog co-editor, who took the time to give me some tremendous journalistic advice.) Mr. Estrin is a generous guy, and I’ll reiterate my appreciation here. It was an amazing event, and I’m honored to have been included.
All you have to do is reproduce the effect that a scratch on the lens would have created in a photo, and purist jurors will praise the photographer for not having gone too far with enhancement, Palmisano says with a chuckle.
Dr. Neal Krawetz of Hacker Factor Solutions specializes in non-classical computer forensics, online profiling and computer security. On Sunday he wrote a blog post titled “Unbelievable” that claims the World Press Photo Award winning image taken by Paul Hansen is significantly altered. Many people questioned the image’s veracity when the winner was announced (as is the case with most PJ contest winners), but most of the negative commentary focussed on the obvious enhancements made to the image and not any allegations of serious alteration.
Image size is not native so the picture was either cropped and/or scaled
The XMP blog includes a save history that has several conversions on different dates. He claims this “is what you typically see when a picture is spliced from two sources.”
The photo was edited two weeks before the contest deadline, not when it was taken back in November. The final edit occurred the day after the international jury concluded their meeting and announced the winner.
ELA analysis (error level analysis) shows “middle people are much brighter than the other people. Those are either due to splices or touch-ups.”
The lighting on the people’s faces does not match the position of the sun.
his conclustion:
Hansen’s picture is a composite. This year’s “World Press Photo Award” wasn’t given for a photograph. It was awarded to a digital composite that was significantly reworked. According to the contest site, the World Press Photo organizes the leading international contest in visual journalism. However, the modifications made by Hansen fail to adhere to the acceptable journalism standards used by Reuters, Associated Press, Getty Images, National Press Photographer’s Association, and other media outlets.
I have to say that his evidence is not entirely damning. Taken with a grain of salt it merely points to all the enhancements people were carping about previously and not some new smoking gun. I have heard but cannot verify that the RAW image has not been seen by the jury and I do not know Dr. Krawetz beyond a cursory google search, so I’m sure we’ll find out more if news outlets decide to investigate his claims further or World Press does something (a site called extremetech.com is taking the splicing allegation and running with it). If anything this is a great opportunity for those contests and media outlets featuring photojournalism to check what protocols are in place for when questions arise. And how about some guidelines for what you think is acceptable, so there’s clear rules to follow. Given how far the old masters pushed reality in the darkroom there’s no reason to think the digital darkroom will be any different.
thx for the tip Ellis.
UPDATE 1: Paul Hansen speaking exclusively to news.com.au:
Hansen said the “photograph is certainly not a composite or a fake”.
“I have never had a photograph more thoroughly examined, by four experts and different photo-juries all over the world,” he said.
The story in extremetech.com said that Hansen “took a series of photos – and then later, realizing that his most dramatically situated photo was too dark and shadowy, decided to splice a bunch of images together and apply a liberal amount of dodging (brightening) to the shadowy regions”.
But Hansen said he had done nothing of the sort. Here’s what he told us:
“In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.
“To put it simply, it’s the same file – developed over itself – the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them.”
“However, in order to curtail further speculation – and with full cooperation by Paul Hansen – we have asked two independent experts to carry out a forensic investigation of the image file. The results will be announced as soon as they become available.”
UPDATE 3:World Press Photo has independent forensics experts review the image and they concluded that “we find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing. Furthermore, the analysis purporting photo manipulation is deeply flawed” and “I can indeed see that there has been a fair amount of post-production, in the sense that some areas have been made lighter and others darker. But regarding the positions of each pixel, all of them are exactly in the same place in the JPEG (the prizewinning image) as they are in the RAW file. I would therefore rule out any question of a composite image.”
While writing this blog entry, the photographer made a statement. He explained how he made the picture. Specifically, he is quoted as saying:
“In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning. In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range.
“To put it simply, it’s the same file – developed over itself – the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them.”
This is exactly what I have been saying. It is a composite. It is more than a simple color adjustment or burning. He made it using variations of the same picture. This even appeared in the metadata as multiple as multiple records from Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 7.1. I did add that I could not rule out separate pictures. However, I definitely detected the layers and edits.
At minimum, Hansen appears to have combined multiple versions of the same photo with different intensity mappings in order to emphasize harsh brutality in 2012 and grief in 2013. But that’s just the minimum. I still cannot rule out splicing between similar images. (This doesn’t mean it happened, it just means that I cannot rule it out with the given data.)
and
Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me that World Press Photo would award a manually altered picture their highest honor. World Press Photo claims to feature the best in photo journalism and claims to strive for ethical integrity. But I’m just not seeing it. World Press Photo and I seem to have differing opinions regarding what is ethical and what is acceptable manipulation. And they can run their contest however they want.
Design Director: Chris Dixon Photography Director: Susan White Art Director: Julie Weiss, Chris Mueller Senior Associate Photography Editors: Sasha Erwitt, Susan Phear
Last week Adobe announced a sudden shift to subscription only on future releases of Photoshop. This seems inevitable as the whole software industry has moved away from major releases in favor of incremental improvements. An article in Mashable has Adobe explaining the reasoning behind the move from perpetual licensing to subscription:
With the traditional perpetual model, product updates had to happen on a certain cycle. If the Photoshop team wanted to push out a new feature or update, it had to stay on the same cadence as the updates for other apps in the suite. The product life cycle was roughly 18 months, which meant that it would take at least that long for new features to make their way to the final product.
That’s fine for some applications but it meant that Adobe couldn’t be on the cutting-edge with its support for the latest web standards and technologies. To fill in the gaps, Adobe introduced its Edge tools and services as as a way of giving users access to tools developed on a more agile basis.
What Adobe found with its Edge apps was that customers really liked getting new features in their apps more quickly. Adobe could roll out the updates to users automatically and add support for new standards and features outside of the confines of a standard product cycle.
With Adobe CS6, the company started a dual-track for its development, focusing on a core set of features at launch for the product and then adding subscriber-only features for Creative Cloud members. Some of those features — including support for high-resolution displays such as the MacBook Pro with Retina — were rolled out to all users, but the team was basically on a dual-path.
That’s not sustainable and so, moving forward, Adobe CC products will continue to see enhancements and updates throughout the year. Major releases will likely still have some general cadence but the product teams will no longer need to wait to release new features for an app.
The issue for photographers as explained in this photographyreview.com article and comments is the $20 a month you must pay to access your photoshop files. If you don’t pay, your files are “digital trash.”
At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people.
Creative Director: Alex Gonzales Design Director: Anton Ioukhnovets Art Director: Anna C. Davidson-Evans Photography Director: Caroline Wolff Photo Editor: Jacqeline Bates
Have you ever been to Walmart? It’s a fair question. If you live in a major American city, or elsewhere in the world, you might not have had the experience. (Spoiler alert: you’re not missing much.)
I avoid Walmart whenever possible. Sometimes, though, I have no choice. Here in the sticks, if you need something specific, immediately, you might have to succumb to the unctuous undertow. I try to find an alternative if I can, because I’m so tired of being “Walmarted.” Yes, my wife and I use the noun as a verb.
To be “Walmarted” means to go into the store looking for a particular, inexpensive item which, invariably, they’re out of. Then, as you try to navigate the chunky aisles, in which things are sometimes moved around to confuse, you end up grabbing other goods; stuffing your basket with unnecessary trinkets made in China. Finally, you find yourself in a long, slow queue, wasting time. After five minutes of waiting, you realize you aren’t actually buying the thing you came in for. Fed up, you put down your basket, and walk out of the store.
Classy.
If I were asked, by some time-traveling Americans from the future, to codify the signs of our collective decline, Walmart would be a pretty good place to start. It has its defenders, who focus on its ability to deliver low-cost goods, but the Arkansas-based mega-conglomerate has many sins for which to repent. Chief among them, the corporation has done much to hollow out America’s once-thriving Middle-Class. (Look here, and let me distract you with super-cheap garbage that will break in a few weeks time, while I run your Mom-and-Pop establishments out of business.)
Yes, Walmart would be my answer, if queried by these imaginary Americans from the future. What if, however, they asked me to show them what America looked like in the past? Perhaps they were curious about depictions of the United States the last time we were mired in a period of deep stagnation?
“You want a sense of what things were like during the Great Depression, future people? That’s easy,” I’d say. “No worries. Here’s a copy of the 75th Anniversary edition of ‘American Photographs,’ by Walker Evans, recently re-issued by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Have a seat, take a look,” I’d say. “By the way, do you guys have flying cars yet? Because that would be righteous, future dudes.”
This book needs no actual introduction, so I fabricated one, as I’m wont to do. It’s just that good. Clinical, poetic, formal, intelligent, political photographs line up for your perusal. All you have to do is turn the page, and stare.
While I rarely mention price, this book is not expensive, so it belongs in any good collection. (Hint, hint. Buy it.) It begs repeated viewing, as the details are so compelling. Even photos you’ve seen before feel fresh and modern, like the “Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Wife,” from 1936. Another, “Interior Detail, West Virginia Coal Miner’s House,” from 1935, is another I’d seen before. This time, though, the humor of the situation jumped out at me. Who on Earth would use those cheesy adverts to decorate a living room? This guy, apparently.
Structurally, the book is broken down into two sections. The first deals with people and signage, predominantly, and the latter focuses on American Architecture. Both are stellar, and show Mr. Evans’ range. There is a sequence of structures in Part 2, a few ramshackle churches, interspersed with a Greek-Style stone facade, that indubitably influenced the Becher style, decades later. Brilliant.
Finally, I must give a shout out to the incredibly-well-written and somehow timely essay by Lincoln Kirstein, which follows the plates. (From the original publication in 1938.) It’s the rare bit of intellectual prose that holds one’s attention with its severe intelligence, and I found myself shocked by the contemporary relevance. (“A batch of younger photographers, usually their dark-room assistants, is always just around the corner, ready to do the new jobs for less cash. Just as with automobiles, the style-turnover is rapid and the old dogs can’t seem to learn new tricks.”)
Two closing statements, by the curator Sarah Hermanson Meister, give a clue as to how much work goes into re-producing a book like this. She also offers us an inside look at how seriously those MoMA folks take their jobs. Obsession and attention to detail are a given, I suppose.
Those of you who pay attention might just have realized that I foreshadowed this review in last week’s column. I, too, take my work seriously, even if that only means keeping it fresh from time to time. This book, by a master, as promised, is one to own. No questions asked.
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
I’ve been shooting professionally for 15 years. I started in San Francisco shooting home brands like Pottery Barn and Design Within Reach then moved to New York expanding on the “home” idea shooting family situations for editorial and advertising clients. I’ve always been interested in the idea of “americana” and “home” and the evolving meanings we give those concepts. Over the years it’s given me the opportunity to shoot for a lot of the big brands in the U.S. whose advertising by default represent american culture. As a culture we’ve moved on from Norman Rockwell americana but we still feel connected to that world. Like it or not, electronics and gadgets are a big part of most peoples lives now – our society is obsessed with electronic devices like the iPhone. I love finding visual ways to redefine contemporary americana – creating a visual “mash-up” where Norman Rockwell meets the Jetsons.
Are you self-taught or photography school taught?
At University of Wisconsin-Madison I majored in both engineering and fine art but strangely never took any photography classes. In hindsight all of the math and science fed the technical side of photo while classical drawing, painting and printmaking fed the creative.
As a teenager I always had a camera in my hand. My family moved to a new house when I was starting high school and I set up a darkroom in the basement and read a bunch of how-to photo books to teach myself how to print. Honestly, in the beginning I was mostly just interested in taking pictures of pretty girls but then I realized if I could master color printing I could make fake-IDs for myself and my friends. My mom couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly spending so many hours in my darkroom. I made a couple lame fake IDs before she busted me, but through the process I became pretty good at color printmaking. The next summer I used my new skills to get a job at a one-hour print lab where I worked for a couple years, then in college I got a part-time job at the local pro photo shop where I got to tinker with all of the newest camera technology and also met professional photographers.
My sophomore year a photographer came into the store looking for an assistant to work with him shooting a fashion catalog for Harley Davidson. It was a three-week job with minimal pay and I was a full-time student and it was right before final exams but it meant getting to work on a fashion shoot in California. Of course I leapt at the opportunity. We shot up and down Highway One at a bunch of amazing locations and I got to make film runs to the lab on a brand new Harley – the whole experience had me hooked.
Who was your greatest influence that inspired you to get into this business?
I’ve always been looking at what other photographers and directors are doing in both the fine art and the commercial worlds. I just finished three days of judging for the Society of Publication Designers’ 2013 Magazine of the Year awards where I got to review some amazing work. It was a fascinating experience looking at the micro and macro world of brand and photography.
I assisted a few different photographers in San Francisco when I was first out of school in the 90s and picked up different techniques and ideas from each. Shaun Sullivan taught me a ton about lighting. He had an easy demeanor and infinite patience and made really complex lighting look really easy. Stan Musilek taught me a lot about the business side of photography – managing a big crew and juggling a lot of projects at once.
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?
I’m lucky I get to shoot a lot of different types of work. Half of my work is studio tabletop and food and the other half is environmental lifestyle shot on location. In smaller markets there are a lot of photographer’s who work this way out of necessity but it’s pretty unusual for New York. The industry demands specialization and once clients get to know you as one type of photographer they are reluctant to see you in any other way. The challenge for visual artists is that once you’ve been pegged, you’re stuck. A photographer who shoots jewelry and just jewelry will inevitably get really good at shooting jewelry. He’s going to dial in his lighting and master composition and figure out all of the tricks for making amazing jewelry pictures. But if that’s all he does year in and year out, same thing every day, he’s going to get set in his ways and it will become more and more difficult to see things in a “different light”. It’s a dilemma faced by almost all visual artists.
I’m constantly shooting and I find that the two styles inform each other and keep me fresh. The lighting I use shooting a food story one day might give me an idea the next day for how to light a living room full of people. Photographing kids running around a backyard in Malibu with gorgeous morning light streaming through the trees can plant a seed for me to try a different approach lighting washers and dryers on a studio set the following week.
I still have my own “look” for all of the work I shoot which definitely helps me land jobs where often there’s a range of visual content needed to illustrate one story or one ad.
And of course I shoot a ton of personal work. I have a couple on-going projects that a lot of creatives tell me they are fans of – all of this helps to keep me on the radar.
Do you find that some creatives love your work but the client holds you back?
A lot of my work involves some complicated productions – big set builds or location scouting for specific room styles in homes and then huge talent castings, etc. Working collaboratively with clients / art directors / photo editors keeping a bunch of plates in the air can be challenging. I really enjoy all of the aspects of these productions and if we get into areas that are new to a client I’m always happy to help buyer educate client as needed.
On set we always design our productions to run efficiently, but there’s often still an urge on the client side to want more and more content, especially with kids. I’m a parent with two kids of my own and am often complimented on the great rapport I have with kids on-set. Realistic expectations for a bit of time required to get a young kid warmed up on set are important and managing client expectations by finding the right balance is key to making great images.
What are you doing to get your vision out to the buying audience?
I believe in momentum so I’m always shooting – it’s essential to staying relevant. I shoot a couple of my own projects every month that I share with clients and a few times each year I’ll do a reach-out via email but I always keep it personal.
My agency Bernstein & Andriulli has developed some great themed look books that they send out and they also do a big printed journal once or twice a year which they mail to thousands of industry creatives. We also do LeBook every year in New York and L.A.
What is your advice for those who are showing what they think the buyers want to see?
I think most art buyers are pretty well informed so are looking for something new and different. If you look to other media – what are trends in the art world, what are visual trends on primetime TV or in other popular programming, what is big in movies or in other genres of photography. If you can wrap your head around a new aesthetic, process it and then figure out a personal way to express it in your own work – that’s going to resonate with everyone who sees your work.
Are you shooting for yourself and creating new work to keep your artistic talent true to you?
For about a year and a half I’ve been working on a project about kids and their living room forts. It started as a personal project but evolved into a bigger concept where people started sending in pictures of their own kids’ living room forts. The website is called livingroomfort.com.
I had been shooting exquisitely designed interiors for years – typically these spaces are shown with everything in the room perfectly placed. I always thought it would be great to let a kid go wild building up a fort in the room and shoot it in context. It just seemed refreshing to show pictures of these decorator designed interiors with a hot mess of kid stuff piled up in the middle of the room.
I shot most of them with just one assistant or even just solo. We typically arranged something with the parents, often when the folks were off at work and the kids were home with a nanny. We would walk in with our camera and start a dialogue with the kids about forts and then do just one thing to the room – maybe flip their parents fancy sofa on it’s side and dump the pillows on the ground. The kids would sort of look at us in disbelief for a second but then quickly get on board and start dragging all of their stuff out of their room and piling it up in the fort. I could just suggest something like “you probably are going to need books to read in your fort, right?” and they would get a gleam in their eye and then make like 12 trips back and forth from their room with every one of their favorite books stacked in their arms. The same would go for stuffed animals, snacks, whatever. Depending on the age of the kids we helped them with something tricky like tying a knot in a curtain, but the older kids would run with it and do it entirely on their own.
Every kid loves this kind of thing – it’s like it’s programmed into their genetic makeup. A self-made fort is like the ultimate expression of “home” for a kid.
They rig together some kind of private space out of blankets or couch cushions or whatever and surround themselves with all of their most precious things, then hunker down and fantasize about being an astronaut or a truck driver or something. We would lock a camera down and just shoot the chaos, usually choosing something in the middle as a final image, since the end result was always way over the top. We even turned a few of them into stop motion videos to show the process. I think some of the families thought I was a bit crazy but they went along with it. The kids always had a blast and would beg their parents to let them keep it up forever.
We’ve been in discussion with a couple organizations about doing a gallery event with big prints of the final series, maybe even with a big kid fort in the middle of the room. We’ll see what comes but with the right kid sponsor we would love to turn it into a charity event.
How often are you shooting new work?
I’m a photographer. I shoot every day of my life.
Mark’s bio and contact:
Mark Lund’s formally composed modern interiors are regularly featured in home lifestyle stories for Real Simple, Glamour, and InStyle. With a knack for problem solving that has evolved from his education in structural engineering and fine art, he continues to create compelling images for clients. Mark’s website can be viewed at www.lundphoto.com.
Mark is also the director of photography for Homeroom Studio in New York, leading a staff of associate photographers and producers that take pride in approaching each new project with efficiency and professionalism. Please visit www.homeroomstudio.com for more information.
Mark lives in New York with his wife and daughter.
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.
