The Daily Edit – Monday
10.22.12

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ESPN

Creative Director, Print and Digital Media: John Korpics
Senior Director, Photography: Karen Frank
Senior Director, Design: ­ Jason Lancaster
Senior Director, Art: Chin Wang
Senior Deputy Photo Editor: ­ Nancy Weisman
Deputy Photo Editor: ­ Jim Surber
Senior Photo Editor: ­ Kristine LaMana

Photographer: Gregg Segal

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

This Week In Photography Books – Yousuf Karsh

by Jonathan Blaustein

It’s quiet right now. I can hear the soft hum of the refrigerator behind me. Outside, the cottonwood leaves are more than yellow. Mustard? Cheddar? Honey? Something like that.

The tips of those trees glance the tops of the Piñons that dot the rocky hill above them. (A skyline, from my vantage point.) Above the green, the sky is a confident blue, fading to powder as it bumps against the upward thrust of El Salto Peak, due East.

The light is always so three dimensional around here this time of year. I suppose that’s true many places in Autumn. Who doesn’t think their city or town or pasture the most beautiful in the world every October? (Hey Australians, does that mean April for you down there?)

Light and color. Mutual obsessions of mine, and for so many of you as well. Unless you’re a grayscale junkie. (Do you love the smell of fixer in the morning?) However we choose to make our work, I’d like to think most of us can appreciate a book of great photographs, no matter the subject, format, or style. Great is great, though terribly subjective.

“Karsh Beyond the Camera,” turned up in my book pile on the last visit to photo-eye. It’s a medium sized, soft-cover book, and really, it looks like a biography you’d find on the shelf at Borders. So unimposing. It’s like something your grandpa Morten would buy. Some biography of a general in World War II. Yes, that’s it. Churchill’s on the cover, for heaven’s sake.

Most of you would have heard of Yousuf Karsh, the Turkish-born, Armenian photographer who made his name in Canada. I had not. Opening up a book I thought would be mostly text, I was thrilled to find so many amazing, technically flawless images of so many important historical figures.

The lighting screams drama. It makes you think of old Hollywood movies. Orsen Welles, or Hitchcock. Moody, smoky, straight out of the 40’s and 50’s. Badass.

We see portraits of the aforementioned Churchill, plus Jack and Jackie Kennedy, Picasso, Khrushchev, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Edward Steichen, (twice) Truman, O’Keefe, Bogart, Castro, Frank Lloyd Wright. I could go on. When you photograph that much of history, inevitably you insert yourself.

Beyond the introduction, there are personal anecdotes that accompany each image, as well as recollections from Karsh’s long time studio assistant. I read a few, and they were amusing in the least. One message did pop out. Apparently, one secret to his success was an insistence on being polite, friendly, well-dressed, and entirely focused on the person he was meant to photograph. Great advice, no?

Bottom line: A chunk of history in an unimposing package

To purchase “Karsh Beyond the Camera” visit Photo-Eye

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.

 

All Young Photographers Want To Be Famous

The students are less curious about things now. It’s that trophy generation that wants everything handed to them. “Can you tell me who to contact?” Instead of going out and making contacts themselves.

[…]some of them are very, very good. And the ones that are tend to be multi-talented with interest in photography, design, fashion, art. But the people that just want to make pictures and work for National Geographic, they’re not interesting people.

–Dennis Darling

via I Love Texas Photo.

The Daily Edit – Friday
10.19.21

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Popular Science

Creative Director: Sam Syed
Art Director: Tod Detwiler
Photo Editor: Thomas Payne

Photographer: Marius Bugge

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

Peter van Agtmael Awarded 2012 W. Eugene Smith Grant

The Board of Trustees of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund announced that Brooklyn, New York photographer Peter van Agtmael is the recipient of the prestigious 2012 W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography for Disco Night September 11, an American view of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The project earned Mr. van Agtmael a $30,000 grant to continue focussing on these wars, subjects that otherwise would be difficult to finance.

The Daily Edit – Thursday
10.18.12


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Afar

Design Director: Jane Palecek
Director of Photography: Tara Guertin
Art Director: Jason Seldon

Photographer: Joao Canziani

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

Expert Advice: Forming A Photo Cooperative

by Bill Cramer, Wonderful Machine

With the recent shake-up at Luceo Images raising questions about the viability of photo cooperatives, I thought I’d share my own experiences with the photo cooperative business model.

Wonderful Machine didn’t always have 600 photographers. Back in 2004, we were a group of 3 working photographers (Chris Crisman, Ryan Donnell and me), a studio manager, a marketing director, a bookkeeper and a dozen interns. Unlike many of the cooperatives that have since appeared on the scene, which are primarily made up of photojournalists spread far and wide, we were all based in Philadelphia and we were interested in portraiture as much as photojournalism and commercial assignments as much as editorial.

I had been thinking of forming a cooperative for years before that. Every time I saw a successful law firm or medical practice, I wondered why photographers couldn’t do the same thing. I figured why not share facilities, staff, equipment, insurance, marketing and refer assignments back and forth in a way that would increase everyone’s revenue and decrease everyone’s expenses? I foolishly tried this years earlier when we were still shooting film, but it was too onerous to reconcile all those costs. When digital came along though, the whole dynamic changed. Without film, processing, Polaroid (and gels and filters for that matter), the variable costs dropped to near zero. And even though the fixed costs of cameras, computers and software increased dramatically, they were no more than the expendables we were used to paying for and they were much easier to share. (A busy commercial photographer might shoot 2-3 days/week, so that leaves 4-5 days for the others to use that equipment.)

While our cooperative only lasted for a few years before everyone went their separate ways and Wonderful Machine transformed into a marketing company, I thought we got most of the arrangement right, and I think it could be a good starting point for others to try. In a nutshell, each photographer billed all of his assignments and stock sales through our company. When a payment came in, the photographer and the company would be reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses related to the shoot and then the photographer and the company would split the remaining “effective fee” 50/50. The photographer was paid as an employee, through a payroll service, with taxes taken out. The company would cover all of the common costs: rent/utilities, staff salaries, photographic equipment, office computers/software/furniture/equipment, insurance and the employee portion of the photographers’ payroll taxes. Each photographer would pay for business expenses that were unique to them, including their personal computer and their promotional materials.

The logic of a 50/50 split was that the cost per photographer would scale up and down as the photographer was busy or slow. And with any luck, some photographers would be busy when others are slow. You could just as easily set up a system where each photographer would contribute the same dollar amount rather than percentage. But that would make it hard to have anyone in the group that made a lot less than the others. And if you had different people paying different amounts, you would find yourself constantly renegotiating.

Rather than hiring freelance assistants, we had a number of “apprentice photographers” who gave us two days of their time each week in exchange for being part of our group, with access to our equipment, facilities, supplies and insurance. We also gave them professional guidance and passed along assignments when appropriate ones came along. Those apprentices would help out on shoots or in the office depending on the needs at any given moment.

We found that there was definitely power in numbers. We ended up attracting several clients who liked the idea of coming to one place to solve most of their photographic problems. At one point, we had five different photographers working for a single client that we were billing as much as $90,000 a year. Clients liked the fact that we had full-time staff on hand to help set up shoots and process files when the photographer was out of the office. And as our more established photographers began to grow out of certain clients, rather than losing that revenue, we had younger photographers ready to step in to fill the void. Best of all, we were able to help each other out in lots of ways. There were many occasions where we referred clients to one another, shared creative ideas and even collaborated on shoots.

Also, many individual photographers would have a hard time justifying a studio manager, marketing person and bookkeeper. But our combined revenue afforded us that, which freed us up to concentrate more on photography and promotion and less on administrative work.

Here’s what our contract looked like (you can download a Word version here):

We also created a spreadsheet to keep track of the revenue from each job, which we called a Split Sheet. It had spaces for the invoice total, all the expenses, and who was to get reimbursed for what (you can download an Excel document here):

But before you get too excited about all the upsides of a cooperative, you should also know about the potential downsides. Photographers tend to be lone-wolf types (which is why they aren’t doctors and lawyers in the first place). Getting them to cooperate can be like herding cats. So it’s crucial to work with people who are smart, creative, generous, understand the risks and are willing to give it a good try. Also, unlike doctors and lawyers who are prone to take a business-like approach to their careers, many photographers view their photography in more personal terms. That mentality can tend toward possessiveness about equipment and clients, and work against a spirit of cooperation. And any time human beings share anything, some will feel short-changed or resent the success of others.

Taxes and insurance were also issues for us. I know this may come as a shock to you, but many photographers tend to overstate their expenses, under-report their revenue, avoid paying sales/use taxes and insurance. Individual photographers can get away with murder, but as a proper company, we couldn’t operate fast and loose like that. So for some photographers, the cooperative approach will not be as attractive as a life of crime.

The most important part of our contract was that all photography revenue went into the pot. Naturally, every photographer thought that there was revenue that shouldn’t be shared – whether it was from weddings or pre-existing clients or from stock sales. But our logic was that the organization (and everyone participating) was there to support the photographer in all things related to photography, so all the revenue should be shared. And the minute you exclude one kind of revenue, there will be no end to the negotiations. And if there’s no revenue to share, there’s no revenue to provide the support that everyone wants in the first place.

Of course, this agreement just covers the relationship between the photographer and the company. Forming the company is a separate matter. In our case, my wife Adrienne and I paid for all of the start-up costs and guaranteed the rent, salaries and all the other ongoing costs. So we owned all of the shares. In cases where you have more than one established photographer coming together, you’ll want to form a corporation (probably an LLC) with each person getting shares in proportion to the cash and equipment they contribute. Those partners will then assume the profit or loss of the company.

Tips:

  • Pick your partners and employees carefully.
  • Create a set of rules that apply to everyone and stick to them. Then update that agreement once a year.
  • Have enough cash in reserve to get started and to get you through the slow spots.

If you decide to go down this road, our producer Jess Dudley can assist you with any questions you might have.

 

Photos Are Considered The Killer App Of Any Platform, Web Or Mobile

They’re the driving force behind Facebooks social success, and the reason for its blockbuster acquisition of mobile photo-sharing app Instagram, which recently surpassed Twitter in U.S. smartphone engagement. They’re why Marissa Mayer is said to be rethinking Flickr as she takes up the reins at Yahoo; why Google recently bought Snapseed; and why a slew of hot Internet startups from Tumblr to Pinterest to Camera+ have gained popularity. Even Apple introduced photo-stream sharing capabilities in its latest version of iOS.

via Fast Company.

Facebook Shuts Down Business Fan Page For Repeated Copyright Infringement

The Cool Hunter is an influential website that’s been aggregating/curating on the web for a very long time. It’s one of the precursors to Pinterest where the author goes out and collects things found online and reposts them for their audience. And, Cool Hunting is an actual job in marketing where people go out and spot trends that businesses can use. So, for any businesses selling “cool” products, landing on a website like this is something you want to happen. This of course runs counter to copyright laws, because the website reposts images without permission and even sells advertising next to the found images. They rely on their influence over brands and their ability to simply remove images if contacted about a violation to avoid getting in trouble over this. That’s what makes Facebook’s decision to permanently disable their fan page and its 788,000 fans so interesting. Cnet is reporting that Facebook closed the account due to “repeat copyright infringement” (story here). Any business that is not posting images they own on Facebook should be very worried about this development. It makes me wonder if Facebook is showing Pinterest that the proper way to curate is to upload something you own the rights to then enable the sharing.

Editors And Designers Should Sit Next To Each Other

“I have always believed that the old magazine-manufacturing assembly plant, where you get some words, you send them over to the art department and they send it over to photo, just didn’t make any sense. So I made a conscious decision that editors, photo editors, writers and designers should all get mixed together — and particularly editors and designers should sit next to each other — because they influence each other’s thinking.”

via Josh Tyrangiel Is Editor of the Year | Media – Advertising Age.

The Daily Edit – Tuesday
10.16.12

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Field&Stream

Design Director: Sean Johnston
Photography Director: John Toolan
Deputy Art Director: Pete Sucheski

Photographer: Bill Buckley

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

This Week In Photography Books – Caleb Cain Marcus

by Jonathan Blaustein

I don’t feel very well at the moment. Last week was a mad dash through San Francisco and Denver, by way of Albuquerque. Planes, trains and automobiles indeed. I caught a nasty cold at a children’s Church carnival in Denver, so I’m surly as well as exhausted.

Ironically, my mental state has actually impacted plans for an upcoming project. Still secret of course, but let’s just say that my ambitions for a huge chunk of travel have withered. I may not be old, technically, but I’m old enough to know that my body and mind have limitations. My schedule will change to suit reality.

Tired though I may be, I’m also thankful. Travel is the great educator. We learn more about our own lives and cultures when faced with others. Not the most brilliant thought I’ve put forth here, I admit, but true nonetheless. We push out to know more about where we rest our heads each evening.

Sometimes, though, to get to the core of a story, one must stretch personal boundaries. Occasionally, an artist has to travel to the literal ends of the Earth to scratch obsession’s itch. Can’t say it’s happened to me yet, but we know the results when we see them.

This week’s book is a perfect example. “A Portrait of Ice,” by Caleb Cain Marcus, was recently published by Damiani. It’s an oversized soft cover book, with a delicacy that matches well with its subject matter: the Earth’s rapidly disappearing glaciers. (Insert random environmental statistic here.)

Mr. Marcus must have learned to love the neck pillow, and probably racked up a ridiculous credit card bill, in order to bring back these photographs. He visited Alaska, New Zealand, Iceland, Patagonia, and probably some other places I’ve neglected to mention. The resulting photographs make up the bulk of the volume.

This book goes against the rhythms I’ve extolled lately, in that there is not much of a narrative build-up. Good essays, some more nice writing, and then the plates. The production quality might make up for a lack of editorial lyricism, but, really, this book impresses because of the photographs themselves.

The pictures are uncomfortable artifacts of the 21st Century. They’re razor sharp, with a ridiculous pixel count, and are slightly over-saturated in the manner that marks the hyper-real. It’s possible that Mr. Marcus used something other than a medium format digital camera, but I doubt it. (And if so, he managed to ape the digi-aesthetic in a fantastic way.)

A sense of scale disappears, and you can’t really tell if you’re looking at actual glaciers, or well-made models in a studio. The awkward beauty mystifies a bit, as confusion and appreciation commingle. I think it’s a very smart way to approach a subject that is both topical and ahistorical. Big mountains of ice rendered by big mountains of data.

These images function as documents of objects that may well cease to exist. But rather than tug on our heart strings, like that crying-Native-American-litter commercial from the 70’s, this project pushes us away as it draws us in. And it also deigns to make the large look small, which is a great metaphor for a compressed world in an Internet age.

Bottom Line: Fascinating, topical photographs of Glaciers

To purchase A Portrait of Ice visit Photo-Eye

 

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.

 

The Daily Edit – Friday
10.13.11

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Nylon Guys

Art Director: Chris Segedy
Co-Art Director: Evan Campisi
Photo Director: Stephen Walker
Photo and Bookings Editor: Rhianna Rule

Photographer: Michael Schmelling

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

Still Images in Great Advertising- Simon Harsent

Still Images In Great Advertising, is a column where Suzanne Seasediscovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.

I am trying to do a series for this column featuring some of the winner’s from this year’s Communication Arts Photography Annual, so I reached out to Simon Harsent.  One of the things I love about Simon’s work is that his assignment work is an inspiration of the work in his galleries that are a combination of assignment and personal work.



Suzanne:  How did this beautiful project come about when you don’t have any underwater images on your current website?

Simon: I had just finished shooting a personal series called “Into the Abyss” which was originally meant for a group show I was involved with late last year.
I had an idea to shoot women completely consumed by water whilst I was shooting another ongoing project of the ocean, the idea with “Into the Abyss” was to have her falling gracfully though water and seemingly into an Abyss, the final exhibition.  I collaborated with my father who is a Poet who wrote a piece for it and I also had a video installation playing on multiple screens.

Around the same time I was shooting “Into the Abyss”, I got a call from Noah Regan who was the Creative Director at the Ad Agency The Monkeys. He was working on The Ship Song Project and asked me if I was interested in doing the poster for it.

The Ship Son Project is a re-recording of a Nick Cave song of the same name by various famous Australian and International musicians, it’s a celebration at what goes on behind the scenes at one of the worlds most recognizable buildings.

The Opera House structure was said to have been inspired by Sail’s, so that was the starting point for the poster idea, the original idea was just to shoot the Sydney Opera House. In a split level shot and the words The Ship Song Project were to be made up of discarded things floating under the water such as barrels, ropes and bits of timber. When Noah was showing me the idea I talked to him about the “Into the Abyss” exhibition I was working on and suggested we do something similar to the girl under the water. I liked the idea of having the women in the water to represent a Siren and the bubbles that trail her would act almost as the hull of a ship emphasizing and playing on the sails of the Opera House structure. Luckily Noah loved the suggestion.

I’ve known Noah for a long time and have always done great work, most recently we worked on a Charity project for Guide Dogs for the Blind. We shot four print ads and directed four TV spots. With clients like Noah, I’m lucky enough to be asked to be involved at quite an early stage on a lot of projects. I like the collaborative process and trust that happens when working this way.

Suzanne: I love that the Opera House is in the background.  What were the challenges in getting this shot?

Simon: Shooting the Opera House was quite a tricky shot, the easy way to do it would have been to shoot the water level and the opera house as two shots but I wanted it to include the water level in the shot of the Opera house so I could use the whole portion of that shot. I try to shoot as few elements as possible when doing multiple comp shots I feel the little eccentricities that happen when you do stuff like this add to the realism. The area that the Opera House is seen from is called Circular Quay and it is the where all the harbor ferries pull into port so the water traffic is very busy plus there are quit a few bull sharks in the harbor so getting in the water wasn’t really an option, I ended up shooting it off the back of a water taxi, I had to lie down on the deck between the back of the boat and where the engines are attached. I had my Canon 1Dlll in an Aqua Tech underwater housing and I just held the camera half in the water while I was shooting, the most challenging thing was the chop of the water, the swell combined with the passing boats made it quite a challenge to get the perfect shot.

Suzanne: Was doing the work for World Wildlife Federation the inspiration for your fine art show: Melt?  The campaign and the show were the same year.

Simon: No it was the other way round. I had already completed Melt, when some friends of mine were working on the WWF Campaign. They had this idea for the ghost effect when they saw my shots from Melt and asked if I would be interested in working on the campaign, obviously I jumped at the chance. For the Iceberg ad we used an image that I had taken when I was shooting Melt and the other three images were shot specifically for the Campaign.

It happens quite often that people will see something in my personal work they would like to re-create for an ad. I think that is why it’s so important to show personal work on your website.

To be honest ultimately for me it’s about my personal work, if I didn’t do commercial work I’d still be a photographer (just a very broke one). I love photography it’s much more than a job to me, it’s who I am and the commercial work finances the personal work. But the personal work has and will always be the most important aspect of what I do.

To be able to do a project like Melt was amazing but I only could have done it with the freedom to produce the images I did because it was self-financed. That’s one of the reasons I do commercial work but also I like the discipline and the creative collaboration that comes with producing commercial work. I like the problem solving aspect and working as a team it’s very different to how I do my personal work, which is quite often by myself or with very little crew.

Suzanne: You have continued to do work for charitable organizations like World Wildlife Federation and it continues to win high honor awards.  How has that client been in getting advertising campaigns?

Simon: As far as getting other commissions from the work I do for charity I really don’t think it differs from other work that is on my website or in my portfolio.
The recognition at award shows is nice, I’ve never been really sure if it directly effects future commissions but it does help to keep your name out there and acts as a form of endorsement to a certain extent.

I think advertising photographers are far more likely to get more work from shooting an ad that wins awards for the idea rather than the photograph alone.
Years ago I shot an ad that won the Grand Prix at Cannes my phone didn’t stop ringing for ages, I’ve never had the same effect after winning a photography award, I think mostly Art Directors are interested in the idea and that you as a photographer understand ideas and can make them better.

I think it’s important to do charity work if you can, apart from the feel good factor quite often it can be less restrictive so the creative product is often better than everyday advertising. There is a freedom that you get with charity work that you don’t normally get with other advertising work. Having said that I don’t really look at in any different way to regular advertising, the main aim for me is always to do something I would be proud to put in my portfolio which hopefully leads to new work.

Suzanne:  The work in your assignment gallery has a diverse selection of ads you have done.  While the other galleries are definite examples of the inspiration to the ad work but some ads are so different than that work.  Are you at a level in your career that you can use your assignment work for a selection of great ads and the galleries are images that are what you want to show?

Simon: To be honest I’ve always done that, maybe to my detriment at times, I could make both my portfolio and website more centered but I try to put in my portfolio and website what I love to shoot and ads that I’m proud of regardless of whether they are a still life a landscape or portrait. Part of what I like doing with advertising is creating a look that is specific to the job in question and as the industry goes in and out of phases and trends, you as a photographer find yourself moving with them.

I think if you are showing ads then you should show the better ones ultimately Art Directors and to a certain extent Art Buyers are looking at the quality of ads you are working on as well as the quality of photography. I know some people will show an ad just because it’s a big brand but I’m not like that. I think people want to be inspired when they look at your work which is why my website is more centered on personal work and projects.

Having said that my website is due a massive update. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to update it for over a year, I also find it very time consuming. I put a lot (probably too much) of thought into it and how people will look at it and how I want them to experience my work.

The reality is that I enjoy shooting a variety of things.  I’m not the type of photographer who just shoots one thing, I started my career in London as a still life photographer because that’s what I fell into and over the years I have now progressed into what I do now. But I’ve always loved to shoot a variety of things, it’s one of the reasons I like doing advertising work. You do get the opportunity to work on different types of projects and tackle them in different ways.

My intention has always been to approach advertising work in the most artistic way I can, and try when I can to approach it in the same way I would if it was a personal project but the most important thing in advertising is the idea. What I need to do is find the best way to communicate that idea and if possible enhance the idea with the photograph.

I do find that in some cases, like that of the Ship Song and the WWF, that Art Directors can get inspiration from my personal stuff. I’m lucky in the fact lot of my clients are people I have worked with for years so they know me quite well and trust me to bring something to their idea. Being in the business as long as I have I you understand what the creatives have had to go through to get it this far. When you understand the amount of presentations, rounds of revisions and the general struggle they have gone through to get the campaign this far you realize that they are handing over and trusting you with months of hard work. That can be quite a responsibility and needs to be treated that way.

Suzanne:  Do you think moving to Australia was the best thing you did for your career?  Because when you moved to New York you had a great body of work and you have been very successful since.

Simon: To a certain extent yes I do. I think it was a great springboard and I still spend a bit of time there every year. I’m part of a collective with four other photographers in Sydney. We do joint exhibitions and have just released an App on iTunes. I really like the interaction that brings with other photographers. Photography can be quite a lonely pursuit at times so it’s good to have people to bounce ideas off of.

I also love the carefree attitude of the Aussies and quite often the work that comes out of there is good creative work such as the WWF and the Ship Song. But moving to NY in 97 for me was the best thing I ever did for my career. It was also the hardest and still throws up challenges. It was like starting over, it really didn’t matter what I had done before I got to NY, it is a tough town and I had a bit of a shock when I got here for lots of different reasons. First, because I realized I was a small fish in a very large pond and second I didn’t realize how specialized photographers were here. There aren’t just Still Lifers there are Still Lifers who specialize in liquid, Still Lifers who specialize in pours, watches etc. etc. The same with landscapes, cars, portraits they were all broken down to such a micro levels of specialization. I found it quite amazing coming from a place where one day you would be shooting a car and the next day a nude. So at the start a lot of my portfolio would just confuse people and it took a while for people to understand what I was about. It took a lot of hard work to adjust at the time but also it taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learnt, that I could never take anything in my career for granted. I realized then that it was going to take a lot of hard work to have a successful career in the US, but like a friend on mine says “if it was easy everybody would be doing it”

A lot of that has changed now the market has change dramatically. I think ad agencies are embracing diversity in peoples work these days. The thing about New York was the amount of talented photographers and the level of photographers you compete against are the best of the best, which is true now more than ever. When I first moved to NY mostly you would be competing against photographers based in either NY or North America. But these days as a NY based photographer you are not just up against local photographers you are up against everybody from around the world who has an agent here and some that don’t. That and the fact it’s a lot easier to be a photographer these days means the ad agencies have a much bigger pond to fish from so you have to be incredibly focused on your career. I guess it’s a good thing I’m enjoying it more than ever right now. Mostly thanks to Canon, digital changed everything for me it reinvented my enthusiasm in photography again. I used to shoot a lot of large format black and white but when I got into digital it was like being a kid again and discovering something for the first time. I do miss my 8×10 and 4×5 cameras and I recently did a shoot with the 20×24 Polaroid camera which was amazing but digital really helped me discover a whole new side of my work.

Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.

Simon Harsent was Born in Aylesbury, a small market town in England, where his passion for photography grabbed him from an early age. He enrolled to study the subject at Watford College and, after graduating, he went on to assist some of London’s top photographers. In order to pursue his passion further, he left London and with it another great love – Chelsea Football Club – when he moved to Australia in 1988. From Australia then ten years later on to New York along the way he has received numerous national and international awards and been featured in a host of  magazines and books (Cannes Lions, One Show, Clio, D&AD, London International, Australia’s first Cannes Grand Prix, Archive, Campaign Brief, Creativity, Communication Arts, Capture, Graphis, Photo, the D&AD Art Direction book and Photo District News).

Currently dividing his time between New York and Sydney, Harsent continues to work on award-winning campaigns for some of the world’s top advertising agencies and designers while working on gallery projects such as his 2009 collection, Melt.

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.

The Daily Edit – Thursday
10.11.12

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Sunset

Art Director: James McCann
Deputy Art Director: Annie Hong
Photo Director: Yvonne Stender
Photo Editor Home/Food: Susan B. Smith

Photographer: Dave Lauridsen

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted

Art vs. Craft

I am not, in fact, an artist at all. At best, assignment photographers are craftsmen, not artists, solving other people’s problems and putting other people’s ideas into effect in the most timely and cost-effective way possible; to think otherwise is delusional. Sure, part of the job is bringing a personal point of view to the party, in fact that’s often the reason you’re hired, but a point of view is not art, and there’s never the degree of autonomy and self-direction that I think of as a precondition for something to qualify as a truly artistic endeavour.

via Art vs. Craft | planet shapton.