Heidi: What inspired this series of images?
Riteshuttam: The inspiration from this series came from a certain sense of visual fatigue. We often engage with politicians pre elections, tag along and make kiss kiss handshake photos that function as extended PR and very rarey as critique. There is a very performative element to it all. So I looked around for something that would bring the politician to a neutral ground that is beyond his or her control and orchestrations. Although the posters are made for them but their final destiny is what really brought out the above.
Did your early career in newspapers influence this body of work?
Absolutely. In fact one particular evening in 2004, I was walking to work and I noticed this under construction idol that was left to dry wrapped in a poster. She looked like an actress that has stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around. I took one, just one quick foto as I had to rush to office dump my card and run to another gig. Also, I was always rushing and add to that, dumb and naive to realize the full scope of such a sight and it didnt register that I could build this as a body of work. It is only when I was looking at my archive in 2009, searching for some photos that I stumbled on the photo again and I was like whoa, I had a great idea staring right at me all these years!
Has this always been an ongoing body of work?
es, and since it is not really tied to elections I can start and stop as and when I want. Its been on since 2009, lets see where it goes.
Which image was the genesis of this body of work?
The durga idol, which some guy came to my show and insisted was Lakshmi. It only proved how little he knew about it.
Will you continue to take images for this series?
Yes I will, I hope to make it into a book or a zine or give it some physical shape. Am yet to figure all that out. A lot of the visual work about politics in India revolves around personas. This one clearly doesn’t and in fact it looks at the afterlife of it, if any.
Lindsay Bevington who’s an amazing friend and supporter started a printing company about a year ago and we’ve been flirting with the idea of printing a book for this project. I made two other books before this using Blurb but they weren’t really mail friendly (totally my fault, blurb does a good job at printing materials) – the first one was 12in x 12in and the second one was over 100 pages. Neither of these attributes make them ‘promo’ friendly. The printing company wasn’t going in a right direction so she decided to close it down. But before that she really wanted to make something for me. That was the catalyst to put this thing together.
I did the design myself – I wanted it to feel punk and ziney so I used 4×6 white cards, printed the images on my Canon Selphy printer, wrote the copy with a label maker and put it all together with tape. Won’t spend too much time talking about the carpal tunnel I got from the label maker haha. But as the first promo I ever made I wanted it to be as personal as it can get. I’m basically introducing myself to a bunch of people and I want to be as authentic as possible.
Which leads us to the images – when I was in the process of selecting which images will make the cut and which won’t I had my friend Alessia over to help with the process – anyone can tell you it’s not fun to axe your own creations by yourself. So we had 2 walls filled with images, green and red stickers and some negronis. A few hours in she looks at me and says ‘you know I think this is the most comprehensive self portrait I’ve ever seen’. I knew then we were on the right track.
I started shooting these portraits a few years ago mostly because work was slow and I needed to do something to keep me from going nuts. I was living in this place that I still doubt was zoned for residential living. But it did have a private terrace which in New York is basically unheard of. To be fair you had to jump out of my window to get on it. Still not sure if I was supposed to be there. If my landlord is reading this – sorry not sorry.
Most of these guys are people I’ve met in my years living in New York. As the project grew more people were asking to be shot which gave me an opportunity to meet and swap stories with interesting characters. You get pretty chummy when you realize you have to jump out my bedroom window to ‘get to set’.
I kept the project going when I moved from that apartment to the new one & now I moved somewhere else with a killer courtyard that is off limits but I’m hoping I can weasel myself into shooting there as well.
I made about 80 copies and sent out about 30-40 so far.
This is a new endeavor for me so I can’t really tell if it’s going to work or not. I have gotten good feedback from the book and I hope it leads to some jobs but I’m still in the ‘planting seeds’ part of the journey. As a rule of thumb, and this is a direct quote from all my friends that have been working in the industry for years ‘ any way you can get eyeballs on your work is important’. You kind of have to do it all, man – social, print, linkedin, instagram, shouting it from the rooftops whatever is considered a platform. Survival of the loudest, right?!
In 1957, Miles Davis released a seminal album, “Birth of the Cool.”
Fair play to him, because by all accounts, Miles Davis was one
cool cat.
Over the years, plenty of musicians radiated cool, to such an extent, their names are dropped like a club membership.
Lou Reed, Johnny Cash, Debbie Harry, John Coltrane, Patti Smith.
(There are more, to be sure.)
When you read those names, you can conjure not just the person, and their aura, but all the times you heard someone tell you they “liked” said musician, in order to score cool points in your mind.
Sample quote: “Overall one is left with a shuddering sense of {Gen} X’s insignificance, its preoccupation with what more politically motivated successors deem ‘opulent micro-concerns.'”
The was plenty more snark, and I took the subtext to suggest perhaps Gen X was overly invested in the idea of cool, relative to all the other important values/traits in the world.
(That was my takeaway, in any event. Upon re-reading, it’s hard to pin down, but at the time, my reaction was strong.)
I stopped for a moment, and pondered.
Is it true?
Do today’s middle-aged Americans care more about being cool than making money, or saving the planet?
And what is cool, anyway?
How is a word so crucial to our culture so undefined?
As always, I’m asking for a reason, and we’ll get there eventually. (This feels like a long-read.)
If cool can be born, as Miles suggests, can it also die?
How do you kill cool, and what comes next?
My wife and I had this discussion throughout the winter, because our beloved local ski resort, Taos Ski Valley, used to be on the of coolest places on Earth.
A hidden gem in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where you could hang out with your hipster or hippie buddies on a mostly-empty mountain, smoke “illegal” weed on the very-slow-chair-lifts, and ski terrain that was much-more-difficult than your average tourist could handle.
Founded by Austrian Jews, Ernie and Rhoda Blake, in the 1950’s, the place oozed counter-culture, yet much of its tourist base came from North Texas and Oklahoma.
Ernie Blake, image courtesy of Adventure Journal, and Taos Ski Valley Archives
Now, before you chide me, I admit, those are not typically cool places, but then again, we haven’t defined cool yet, have we?
Folks came to Taos from there because it was the closest ski resort, so they could drive.
They’d pile the family in the pickup, haul ass for 6-10 hours, and wake up in a snow-covered paradise.
As locals, we’d joke about them skiing in blue jeans, or Oakleys with Dallas Cowboy hats, but they were down-to-Earth folks, happy to shoot you a smile, and often they ate picnic style, having brought food to save money.
So while they were not cool in the too-cool-for-school way, (which is not really cool at all,) they were cool in the way that matters to Gen Xers.
They were respectful, down-to-Earth, authentic, unpretentious, and chill.
Maybe that can function as a working definition for today?
So who killed the cool at Taos Ski Valley?
A hedge-fund billionaire named Louis Bacon bought the resort nine years ago.
A guy who’s best buddies with famous Anti-Vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr, and was once featured in Vanity Fair for an awful, petty beef with his perhaps-even-crazier, rich-guy neighbor on a small, Caribbean island.
Maybe in two paragraphs I’m laying out the case that Louis Bacon is not a cool guy?
At TSV, Bacon made a shrewd real estate play, by setting about to demographically replace the current customer base, and instead import wealthier, more “regular-folks” skiers.
It’s a long story as to how, (including replacing most of the Hispanic lift operators with White guys playing jam-band music, and launching an airline to fly in folks from Austin, Dallas, LA and San Diego,) but rest assured, it was a multi-step process, and as of 2022, I can say it has totally succeeded.
A Taos Air billboard above a San Diego sushi spot.
In so doing, he’s priced out, or chased away many locals, (who are scruffy, and don’t spend money on $18 burgers,) including me.
He bought almost all the restaurants up there, (or drove them out of business, as when he demolished some to build condos,) and owns a hotel as well as the condo developments, so the dude is practically the King of his own village.
TSV was BUSY AS HELL this winter, and his $1 million, 1 bedroom condos sold, (with private underground parking,) so it looks like his “evil” plan worked just fine.
Consider the cool dead.
For any other writer, that might be a long way to go to make a point… talking about Taos in an article about San Francisco.
But please bear with me.
When I moved to San Francisco in 1999, it was a hip fucking city.
We were young artists, and lived in the Southern part of the Mission District, an immigrant/hipster neighborhood, teaming with galleries, bars, and coffee shops.
Jimmy the Corn Man tattoo, image courtesy of Joshua Bote/SFGATE
Phil, the namesake behind the now-multi-million dollar coffee chain, Philz, used to make me falafel sandwiches in his dingy, little market, on the corner of Folsom and 24th St.
I remember, with a deep, gruff voice, he’d say, “You want the fool?” (For Fool Mdamas.)
“Sure,” I’d say to Phil. “You make it great. Hook me up however you’d like.”
As the dot-com-boom flourished, (before ultimately tanking,) early-version-tech-bros would take limousines into the neighborhood, standing through the moon-roofs, gawking at the poor immigrants.
On weekends, they’d drive in, and park in the fire lane, by the hundreds, content to pay the fine, rather than look for parking.
(Not cool, my friend. Not cool.)
But with the dot-com-crash, those folks left, artists held on for a bit longer, and the normie-vibe was mostly restricted to the Marina, Nob Hill and Pacific Heights.
The rest of the city was still diverse, and plenty cool.
In 2022, however, I’m sad to report that San Francisco cool is dead and buried.
Replaced, ironically, by a tech-bro-über-capitalist meets progressives-will-let-it-all-burn-before-they-admit-defeat style of un-hipness, and for many, a hell on Earth.
OK, let’s back up for a second.
I went to San Francisco in March, for a photo festival I won’t name today, because this is a negative article, and they’re a great organization.
(It’s not their fault their city went down the drain.)
As a journalist, I shared these theories with current and former San Franciscans in San Diego earlier this month, and they agreed entirely.
In 2016, I first reported here about the burgeoning, San Francisco tent cities, and how it seemed a new street class was being entrenched as a permanent way of life.
So many were denied the chance to live safely, because of the ravages of income inequality.
In 2019, I wrote a harrowing story about how bad things had gotten, with people howling in the night-time streets, and I was determined not to repeat myself this time out.
(Been there, done that.)
These days it’s national news, that the Tenderloin has turned into an IRL version of David Simon’s “Hamsterdam” from “The Wire,” so I was hoping to write something more upbeat for you, in 2022.
As such, I limited myself to the “nice” neighborhoods of North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf, (where the tourists go,) Pacific Heights, Chinatown, the Bayfront and the Marina.
In three full days, I never left that zone, in the hopes I could just write a nice-travel-story for you, and leave the misery behind for once.
(I swear, that was the plan.)
In the end, though, it caught up to me, because looking away, denying the reality in front of you, never seems to work out well, does it?
Let’s take an interlude.
Retrench.
Focus on the positive.
It is still possible to eat well in San Francisco, and you can buy really good weed too.
On my first full morning, I took a rambling, gorgeous walk, on a perfect California day, towards sparc, the closest dispensary that opened early.
I saw an unhoused man, lounging on a couch on the street, (before it was collected as trash,) and he was reading a newspaper.
He seemed content, so we can include that in the happy part of the article.
The bud-tender who helped me at sparc was cool, (thank God for the little things,) and he sold me a super-strong, horchata flavored indica joint, when I told him my mission.
“I’m about to walk for hours along the waterfront, in the sunshine, and I want to be the happiest guy out there,” I told him.
He obliged, (it was expensive,) and then I bought one more joint, to share, and they gave me a weed drink for free, because I was cool to everyone.
I’ll cut to the chase and say the pot was great, so I definitely recommend this joint, if you’re in town, or visiting.
After walking back to my hotel, it was time to eat.
So I had a double-double, animal style, from In-N-Out burger for lunch, before my big excursion, and it was excellent, as always.
You may think I shill for them because of “The Big Lebowski,” but really, it is that good.
(I even turned my Mom onto it, and she was dubious.)
From there, I walked for miles along the water, before parking myself in the sand at Chrissy Field. (A dog beach at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge.)
It was amazing, (as was the entire walk,) so I imagine tourists can still have a good time in SF, if they ignore the rot, and stay in the sun.
My friend Heather recommended Equator Coffees, in Fort Mason, so on the way back, I got a special turmeric latte, a brilliant almond croissant, and a flavored bubble water.
(Dehydrate, sugar up, rehydrate.)
I don’t remember exactly what I paid, but it was certainly reasonable.
Let that be today’s traveler’s tip: when in SF, stick to the street food, and you’ll eat well on a budget.
In my regular life, I never walk and eat, but in SF, I mowed down that croissant, a cannoli from Victoria Pastry for Sunday breakfast, and a couple of slices of excellent pizza.
Otherwise, it was takeout from an incredible Chinese BBQ spot, a brilliant, bombastically big Chicken Mole burrito from Cilantro SF Taqueria, and the aforementioned In-N-Out.
I don’t think I spent more than $10 on any of it, and it was all 1000x better than I can get in Taos.
So (in conclusion,) they still have good weed, street food, and nature in San Francisco, but you have to dodge all the shit to enjoy it.
(I’m being literal.)
I told you I stuck to the “good” part of town.
I even overheard someone refer to Union Square, where the department stores and boutique shopping is located, as, “a bad part of town now.”
(No lie.)
Sure, I saw some unhoused people sleeping in alleys, as I wandered.
But not many, compared to what I’ve reported previously.
And I didn’t see one tent.
Not one!
I made it to Coit Tower for the first time, after hearing they had some amazing murals, which turned out to be true.
(I forgot my mask, and didn’t want to be “that guy,” so I didn’t get up close to the art for very long.)
It was almost enough to forget what was going on in many other parts of the city.
Keyword, almost.
Because on the last day of the festival, as I was walking up to the location, I saw a huge glop of human feces on the sidewalk.
It was a pretty street, with fancy neighbors, but there was no denying the turd before me.
I had a flashback to my time in the city, and how by 2002, my wife and I were so tired of dodging human poop on the sidewalk, we were ready to go.
But that was in the Mission; a concrete, low-income part of town, with few parks.
Now the shit is LITERALLY everywhere.
Including right in before of me, on the sidewalk.
Unmissable.
I came and went a few times that day, and ultimately someone dropped a tissue on part of the poop, to warn fellow pedestrians.
“That’s OK,” I thought. “I don’t have to write that up. It’s only one turd.”
But then, it got worse.
Much worse.
On my last day in town, I had coffee at Caffe Greco with two photo peeps I’d only known online.
It was like the pre-times, as we de-masked, drank cappuccinos, and chatted about art and life.
One companion brought up the unhoused-sanitation-issue, complaining the city did not have enough public toilets.
If you live on the street, she went on, and the government doesn’t provide you with adequate places to go, you have to find places to crap every day.
Ultimately, that means public space.
(Most of the time.)
She was empathetic to the plight of the unhoused, rather than bitching about it, but the severity of the situation was not lost on me.
After an hour or so, I excused myself, to go back to the hotel, wash up, and then head out for some more takeout.
Earlier that morning, as I walked down the hotel stairs, I noticed an metal-grate exterior door to the alleyway.
Someone had left it open, so I closed it, and mentally noted that could be a problem.
On my way back from the cafe, as I ascended the stairs, I could smell something so pungent, it had heat.
I’m not kidding.
The air was warm with stench.
I didn’t see anyone, or anything, and popped into my room for a few minutes.
Being stoned, by the time I walked out ten minutes later, I’d forgotten all about it.
So I was hopping down the stairs at a good clip, and came to a screeching halt, as I saw what appeared to be a pool of urine in front of me on the landing.
Maybe I missed it by a foot.
From there, my eyes traced up, almost in slow-motion, and I saw the biggest human shit I’ve ever encountered.
Right there.
In front of me.
On the floor.
So I high-tailed it in the other direction, and took the elevator.
When I reported it to the front desk, they apologized, and said someone had gotten in, and it was a problem.
By the next day, when I mentioned it upon checkout, they had changed their tune, and lied, saying it had only been a dog.
Yeah fucking right.
The biggest dog on Earth, maybe?
I don’t think so.
After the encounter with excrement, I walked for an hour, trying to regenerate my appetite.
And I thought about things, over and over.
All I wanted was to have a few days in the city, pretending everything was OK.
I was prepared to avert my eyes, (for once,) so as to avoid having to write Another Critical Article About San Francisco.
Andy Anderson has a heart as big as the great outdoors, a favorite subject of the award-winning Idaho-based photographer. So it was no surprise that the news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would inspire him to take action. In his typical down-to-earth fashion, Anderson relates, “I was sitting in my man shed on a Saturday night having a glass of wine, and thinking about Ukraine, wondering what I might do to make a difference and I called my friend Max Hirshfeld.” That was one of five calls Anderson made that night. In a testament to the power of long relationships, within an hour Images for Humanity was underway.
The two photographers conceptualized a non-profit organization that could raise funds for causes close to their hearts. Photographers make human connections, both with their subjects and with those who view their images. Both men have traveled the world for work and understand there is no language barrier to a photograph—it speaks all languages.
Max Hirshfeld explains, “Photography is a core driver of our emotions and central to who I am as a human. It’s easy to see the unspeakable unfold in front of us through the media, send in a check to assuage our helplessness, and then go on with our lives. But when Andy reached out, I replied immediately with a resounding ‘yes’. In a matter of days his extensive network signed on, and our team got to work.
“Ukrainians fleeing west struck a personal chord in that my mother and her family had done the same — in reverse — after Poland was invaded in 1939. Images of innocent people leaving their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their backs was a vivid call to action, and I knew we could martial support within the photo community and the larger audience through our networks and social media.“
Once curators Meghan Benson, Amy Feitelberg, Mary Healy, Laurie Kratochvil, and Allyson Torrisi were brought onboard, they got down to business, lining up a stellar group of renowned and emerging photographers to donate prints.
“I am honored to be a curator for Images for Humanity,” says Laurie Kratochvil, former photography director of InStyle and Rolling Stone. “The outpouring for Ukraine is so encouraging and photographers around the world have been very generous. I encourage everyone to see the incredible images we are able to offer from donations from renown and emerging photographers.”
“It all comes down to past relationships,” Anderson explains. “These are relationships I’ve had for 20+ years. The photo editors and directors of photography, they are the unsung heroes of most magazines. They are the ones that orchestrate the visual complexity. I worked with all those people in the beginning of my career.”
And to keep it real, everyone stepped up to donate services and time. “We have a hundred thousand dollars of web design that has been donated. There’s a big pro bono effort involved, not just getting the photographers together but marketing, social media, production coordination,” he adds. Lyle Shemer and Penn Li, creative leads at Meta Design, are responsible for Images for Humanity’s website and branding.
Given the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine, IFH is raising funds for the Ukrainian Red Cross as its first philanthropic effort as a newly-formed 501 (c) (3). Thanks to the generosity of these world-renowned photographers, including Anderson and Hirshfeld, Ruven Afanador, Kurt Markus, Herb Ritts, Mary Ellen Mark and Albert Watson—among 100 others—IFH is offering an archival, unsigned print with each $250 donation. One hundred percent of the profits will go to the Ukrainian Red Cross. Only ten prints from each photographer will be available and each comes with a commemorative Images for Humanity label.
If this inaugural effort is successful, IFH hopes to raise funds for other worthy causes both at home and abroad. “I want to be remembered as a good person. It means more,” says Anderson. One of the preeminent commercial photographers working today, there is no question that Anderson will be remembered, not only for his honest and profound images but for his big heart and willingness to help address the pressing issues of the day.
To learn more, view the full list of participating photographers and prints available, and donate, visit Images for Humanity’s website, and follow the organization on Instagram at @ImagesForHumanity.
Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Solider, LVIV, UKRAINE – 15TH OF MARCH, 2022: Soldier Volodimir (20, l) and his girlfriend Tanya (21) while saying goodbye at the trainstation in Lviv, Ukraine on March 15th 2022. He departs to Kramatorsk, to fight in the war that started after Russia invading Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022.
Doug Menuez, Tequileros Making Tequila, Mexico, 2001
Ed Kashi, Trolley Bus, Crimea, Ukraine, 1993
Frank Ockenfels III, Lilah, 2021
Joe Pugliese, Marian, 2015
Matt Sayles, Havana, 2014
Max Hirshfeld, Chicago, 2015
Vincent Dixon, Blue Boy, Pushkar, 2013
Rina Castelnuovo, Morning Prayers, 2005
Ron Haviv, Escape, 2022 Scenes from the road leading to the broken bridge that allowed people to escape from the Irpin, suburb of Kyiv to safety. Thousands of people were ethinically cleansed as they fled Russian forces. These footsteps and tracks made by wheelchairs and strollers lead up to the makeshift crossing to semi safety. People left their cars and extra belongings as they crossed the bridge by foot to be sent to Kyiv and beyond, often to begin their lives as displaced or a refugee.
Concept: Architectural images showcasing a hotel and its amenities.
Licensing: Unlimited use of up to 5 images in perpetuity. Unlimited use of up to 30 additional images for 1 year
Photographer: Architecture and Hospitality specialist
Client: Large International Hospitality Brand
Here is the estimate:
Fees: This shoot required an experienced architecture and hospitality specialist with the ability to capture strong content in a very short amount of time. The shoot time was compressed as the location was re-opening with short notice due to the state’s relaxation of Covid regulations. Also, from what we could gather in our client conversations, was that a shoot took place recently and the agency was now tasked with getting it done right the second time. That put upward pressure on the fee, and I felt that a creative fee alone was worth $10,000 for the 2-day shoot.
The client requested two licensing terms for the 35 deliverables on the shot list. They requested 30 images with 1-year Unlimited use, and an additional 5 images to have a license for unlimited use in perpetuity.
For the 1 year Unlimited licensing, I felt $750 per image was appropriate for the quantity of 30 images.
For the perpetual Unlimited licensing, I felt $2,000 per image was appropriate for 5 images.
This totaled $32,500, and I arrived at a $42,500 creative/licensing fee by combining the $10,000 creative fee with the licensing fees. On top of that, I added a $750 fee for the photographer to attend a quick tech/scout of the location.
I added a Licensing Options section within the Job Description to outline possible additional image use fees, including possibly extending the use of the 30 images to perpetual use. This included a discounted rate for the bulk perpetual use.
Crew: We added a first assistant (who would also accompany the photographer on the tech/scout), as well as a second assistant. These rates were appropriate for the given market, and the rates the photographer’s assistants were accustomed to. I suggested to the photographer to bring on a separate person as digital tech, but the client pushed back on the crew footprint during Covid and the photographer was comfortable using his 2nd assistant to simply run a Capture One tether and backup files.
Equipment: We included $2,000 for cameras/grip/lighting, and a modest fee to cover the photographer’s computer set up to be used on set, and 2 hard drives.
Covid Safety: We included costs for 3 advanced Covid tests for the photography team, plus $75 for PPE.
Misc.: The location was about a 30-minute drive for the photography team. We added a line item to cover individual mileage for the 3 person team, parking, some additional meals, and a bit of buffer for any small unforeseen expenses that might arise.
Post Production: We included $1,500 for the photographer to perform basic color correction and provide a gallery of his favorite shots. The retouching estimate was based upon the photographer and creative team assuming each image would need roughly 2 hours of work. This would be billed at $125 per hour.
Results: The photographer was awarded the project. The shoot was a success and images are out in the world currently!
Heidi: When you look back on your images from the PCT with a camera in hand, how did that experience influence your photographic eye?
Colin: Looking back on the PCT – I had just graduated from college, I had no job or home to go back to. The experience was basically living out of a backpack for 5 months – it was both incredibly stimulating and repetitively boring. It was a fertile environment to really immerse myself in the photographic process and build habits around shooting daily. The hike was really my first focused endeavor into photography but by the end of the trip I had really begun to understand my camera and the fundamentals through daily repetition and experimentation. Looking back through Lightroom, I’m not very excited by the photos I took. I think what the experience taught me as a photographer and filmmaker was that if I’m fully engaged by a personal experience like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail – my creative energy and motivation flows from that excitement. I was so moved by certain moments, those synchronistic experiences of being immersed in nature and I wanted to share that. I learned that a camera could be a way to communicate things that cannot be put into words.
On a practical level, the PCT taught me how to be a “dirt bag”. I decided after that experience that I wanted to become a photographer but it took most of my twenties to pick up momentum professionally and really be able to get the assignments to build my portfolio. If I didn’t have the experience in my early twenties of living out of a tent, living out of a truck, living in shared spaces with seasonal workers, I don’t think I could have survived the lean years when I wasn’t making much at all as a freelance creative. I’ve really committed to pursuing the experiences and stories that I’m passionate about and the PCT was a big part of building that habit.
Tell us how this image of Tamo came about.
Tamo and I had the opportunity to travel around Hokkaido, Japan a few winters back in a little camper van. We were working on a documentary film project together and after the shoot wrapped, we blocked out a few weeks to try and visit different backcountry zones around the island. Our budget for the trip was very, very shoestring. We rented the smallest van that we could afford in Tokyo and drove it all the way north, caught a ride on the ferry and finally made it to the perfect zone. We’d tour up into the mountains all day. Make it back to the van by sunset. Visit a nearby onsen, grab ramen and then sleep in the closest parking lot. It turns out that car camping is culturally accepted in Japan, so we were actually camping near other local folks doing the same thing.
After a few weeks, the trip became a wonderful blur of deep snow, gas station sushi and hot springs. Some zones in Japan are just so magical. The snow is so deep and fresh – it is clinging to everything. Skinning up through the ancient birch forests feels just as rewarding as dropping in and going down. This big shelf fungus gave us a laugh, mid way up a tour and Tamo plopped down to pay homage and get some cover from the falling snow.
How did making the Brotherhood of Skiing inform you as a creative adventurer?
Making Brotherhood of Skiing was really an influential experience for me. Previously a lot of my work had focused on “wilderness” and spaces that are mostly absent of people. The National Brotherhood of Skiers is really about community, connection, and celebration through being outdoors together. The opportunity to hang out with NBS showed me how much that kindness, inclusion and joy is often missing from predominantly white recreation spaces. There is just some much love when NBS hits the slopes. After that film I started looking more carefully at what stories I wanted to work on and whose voices were a priority to amplify. It’s about equity in representation but also about keeping the creative experience fun and how much the process can flow when the folks in front of and behind the camera are resonating.
What are you working on now?
This summer I’m working with my partner to finish a remote cabin in the Tongass Rainforest in Alaska. My partner Elsa grew up here in coastal Alaska and part of putting roots down is a commitment to the visual storytelling that we think will benefit this community. I’m trusting that prioritizing personal experience over chasing jobs, will lead me professionally where I’m meant to go. I want to let my creativity flow from what I’m excited about in my life. A lot of my work right now is around documenting maritime and fishing culture. A new wave of Alaskans are striving to live in balance with the land after the decades of industrial excess and exploitation in Alaska. I strive for my photography in Alaska to be a celebration of that movement and the reciprocity between people and land.
Who designed it?
Steve Secviar at Less + More in San Diego.
Tell me about the images.
The images I chose to print were ones that I thought might capture my audience within the food and beverage industry. My audience being art directors, editors and even specific restaurants.
How many did you make?
I ended up printing 100 promos based on cost.
How many times a year do you send out promos?
I try to send out twice a year. I will be mailing out promos again towards the fall of this year.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
In terms of feedback/response from using printed promos, I’ve yet to determine if it’s beneficial. I mean I guess it would be hard to qualitatively determine if the printed promos are helpful, especially with such a strong social media presence these days. But I think most people like having something tangible so I’m hoping that someone who sees it will take into consideration the time and effort that went into making them.
And I’ve been tending to sick kids all week, while beating back the self-destructive tendencies of a normally-great teenager.
(Like I said, I’m beat.)
Then again, my teenager reads the column, and we were discussing photo books as we waited at the fire-house-bus-stop this morning.
The fire-house-bus-stop
(He really liked both books we featured the past two weeks.)
For the first time, I brought my camera along on the morning ritual, as yesterday, I noticed the light was gorgeous at 7am.
Unfortunately, the light wasn’t spot on today, as there were high clouds, which burned off shortly thereafter, returning our hyper-dry, uber-blue-sky days.
I’d had a shot in mind since yesterday, and as I lined it up, the light, which glimmered a second before, flattened out.
I stood there, camera to my eye, and decided to pass on clicking the shutter.
Just then, literally a second after I lowered the camera, I saw a flash of brown to my left.
Rather, it was a deer, bounding across the field, less than 50 feet away.
As I’ve written before, I’ve been shooting here in Taos since late December 2020, and have images of all sorts of animals: dogs, snakes, cows, spiders, horses.
Odessa, who died in March of this year
But no deer.
I’ve wanted the deer, but really, how often are you standing there, with your camera all dialed in, and a deer wanders into the frame?
Turns out, it was a whole family of deer, hopping along, one at a time, so I got a few shots.
The light wasn’t perfect, but the whole thing was so random.
Right place.
Right time.
Some artists have an idea in mind, and make the art to fit the vision.
Others shoot whatever they see, over months or years, then build a jigsaw puzzle out of the resulting edit.
Neither way is “better,” but in my copious experience, I’ve come to believe groups of images that are pre-conceived, or made to cohere to a concept or structure, often have a slightly enhanced sense of intent.
(That’s my two cents, anyway.)
And the last two weeks, it seemed like we featured books where the images were shot, and then the story was built after-the-fact.
(Can’t be sure with Stacy’s amazing “The Moon Belongs to Everyone,” but that was the vibe, anyway.)
Today, we’re going in a completely different direction.
Let’s look at a book that represents a very personal story.
A book that’s about life, death, and friendship.
A book that melds archival imagery, poignant vignettes, intricate design, and well-crafted, large-format, contemporary portraiture.
Let’s look at “The Boys,” by Rick Schatzberg, published in 2020, by powerHouse in Brooklyn.
Full disclosure, before I say anything else, I worked with Rick during the book’s production process.
I’ve written before that I consult with artists on photo books, and have a policy not to review books I’ve created with my clients.
(I am included in the final credits for “The Boys.”)
However, this time, the maquette was made, most of the text was written, the photos were shot, and in retrospect, my role was quite minimal.
As such, since it’s an excellent book, and he sent it to me with no expectation of review, I decided it was fair game.
Let’s get to it.
Like me, Rick grew up Jewish, in the suburbs of NYC.
Unlike me, Rick is from Long Island, and as he’s 20 years older, he and his friends are really the test-case for suburban living in the United States.
(Total coincidence, but I saw this hilarious tweet this morning, as a Slovakian tried to make sense of America’s suburbs in 2022.)
“The Boys” is not about me, in any way, but I think all suburban kids can relate to what these guys used to do.
Find some woods behind the neighborhood, before everything was developed, and wander.
Hang out.
Go somewhere, even if it was an empty field, as there really was nowhere else.
But I was a total goody-goody, and Rick and his crew were proto-Jewish hipsters.
Stoners.
Disaffected kids, listening to music, drinking, and scattering when the cops showed up at their favorite hangout: The Pits.
A few months ago, I reviewed a book by Karen Marshall, in which she followed a group of New York kids, and then reconnected with them when they were grown.
This flips that methodology on its head, as in “The Boys,” Rick gives us photos of his bros, (as we call them today,) with their Jewfros, jean jackets, bandanas, and beers.
We see these guys in various stages of life, including the 80’s power suits, and the vacation photos, from when they went on Boys Trips.
As a pure Pisces, always moving forward, always changing, I don’t hang out with my middle/high school buddies anymore.
I don’t have a frame of reference for the love these men feel for each other.
Nor for what it’s like as they pass away, one by one.
(A group of 14 is now down to 10.)
Tragically, for Rick and The Boys, two men chronicled in the book actually died before final publication.
What a bummer.
I like almost everything about this book, though I don’t think the insert essay at the back, by Rick Moody, was particularly necessary.
Often, publishers like to see big name writers attached to a project, to make it easier to market.
It’s the done-thing, and I don’t blame Rick for going that route.
Hell, he and I spent time brainstorming which writer would be a good fit, before he networked his way to the other Rick.
But it’s a compliment, what I’m saying. For an untrained writer, Rick S.’s stories pop.
They engage, and present the kind of first-person narrative that reels viewers in, and allows our imaginations to fill in the details.
Strong stuff, for sure.
Beyond the personal, though, a case can be made that “The Boys” also explores the reality of the aging, White Baby Boomer.
Those dudes take a lot of shit these days for destroying the world. Maybe rightly so.
(OK Boomer?)
But Rick made the interesting choice to photograph his remaining friends shirtless.
We see the aging flesh, mottled with spots.
We see the scars.
The sagging muscles.
You might disagree, but I think there’s bravery in being vulnerable for the camera like this.
There is a vignette in which Rick describes why he chose to include himself, with the high-end selfies.
And how hard it was to overcome vanity, and not create more flattering portraits for himself than he did for Joelie, Brad, and the crew.
Just the other week, I wrote about the passing of my friend, Dave.
This week, his sister Monica gifted me Dave’s Aikido gi.
(He switched to Kung Fu about 15 years ago, which we trained together, but he kept his Japanese fighting robe.)
And now it’s mine.
My Sensei suggested I wear it to train, to honor my friend.
I’ve been under the weather since I got it, (the whole family has,) and haven’t had the chance to put it on yet.
But I’m excited to feel that connection to my departed compadre.
Lately, I find myself talking to Dave. Almost daily.
I haven’t lost many people before, so I don’t know if that’s normal. Thinking they’re up there, somewhere.
Listening.
So I’d like to offer Rick my condolences, and also my compliments, for a job well done.
If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
As I look to the future, to the world that my son will inherit, and to the forest where I live that may soon be on fire, climate change and the immediate impact on the environment constantly weighs on my mind. To research this devastating phenomenon, I acquired a series of educational glass slides to examine and consider. Each revealed a vintage photograph of glaciers, now disappearing or already gone. I shattered the glass negatives to call attention to this loss and fragility of our planet, but also to echo an experience with my newborn son’s first four month’s stay in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care or his 20 surgeries and six years of 120-hour a week home nursing. Cracks in the Ice is a metaphor for the precariousness and vulnerability of those I love. It is also a way to speak to the profound loss from global warming and a planet under siege.
The “Cracks in the Ice” project was inspired by my 15-year-old son, Björn. During one of our many daily chats, he asked about Climate Change and what the world will look like in the future. I realized I had only murky visions of that future myself and could not give him a clear answer. His precarious start to life and surgeries makes him crave stability. As a father, I hated that I could not provide much clarity for Björn and knew I needed to explore this idea with a photography project. “Cracks in the Ice” was born.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
If you barely dip your toes in the NFT community, you will encounter Punks and Apes. You will see many influential people using them as their PFP (profile picture or picture for proof), and there’s a never-ending discussion about their floor price and utility. The Punks are 10,000 computer-generated pixel art pictures of… punks. They were created by larva labs in 2017 and given away for free to anyone who wanted to claim one. The lowest price to buy a punk right now is $122,808 (floor price) and the total lifetime sales of punks changing hands are nearly 2 billion dollars. Apes are BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club), another 10,000-piece NFT collection of computer-generated cartoon primates created in 2021 that initially sold for 0.08 ETH ($190 at the time) and are now worth $233,209. The Apes are famous for their utility which means owners get perks (coins, dogs, mutants, land), and they own the IP (Intellectual property) to their drawing. These extremely successful NFT projects have spawned thousands of copycats, and this is also where you will find most of the scams taking place. Projects where the founder disappears with all the money or just pump-and-dump behavior are rampant with 10k and PFP.
In January of this year, @fellowshiptrust announced they were bringing the world’s first-ever 10K+ photography NFT collection (Note: when this tweet first appeared, the link did not have the photographer’s name) to the blockchain.
The legacy of one of the 20th century’s most important photographers is coming to the blockchain.
On 10th Feb we are launching the world’s first ever 10K+ photography collection. The work will be free to mint!https://t.co/P4PoJReLXC
Given the action around Punks and Apes, this looked like an excellent idea for the photography community. Fellowship seemed to know this was an opportunity to make history, and project information was filled with hype: “The release of this project will mark a turning point in the history of photography.” In addition to the hyperbolic writing, there is a process for selling the NFTs to achieve maximum FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), where VIPs were given the opportunity to pre-mint the NFT (this is called a whitelist) before the artist behind the project was even revealed. It’s common for 10k NFT projects to work with VIPs and create whitelists for early access because it all generates a feeling of exclusivity. When a project is popular and sells out, this guarantees an increase in price once it becomes available to the public, similar to what happens with IPOs on the stock market (oversubscribed). The people who got in early can flip the NFT for a profit.
If that weren’t enough, project creators taking a cue from Punks, build rarity into the NFTs and withhold revealing what you minted until a project has a chance to sell out. You have a one in ten thousand chance of getting something rare at the reveal, and that lottery-like feeling drives the floor price of collections. Photography archives have this already built-in because a small percentage of images are popular or appear in important collections or books.
So, once Fellowship assembled the whitelists and images were pre-minted (with a placeholder) it was revealed that the photographer was August Sander, and the public was allowed to mint any remaining images. The entire collection sold out in minutes. A big reason for the project’s popularity had to do with the price. It was offered for free “just gas”. This means you don’t pay a fee to mint, just the gas fee for the NFT to be written to the Ethereum blockchain (usually around $20).
As soon as I found out it was August Sander, I went to the project website and read up on the collection. August’s great-grandson Julian Sander had put the project together to create a permanent archive on the blockchain where I was told information about the images could be added by the community. I liked the idea of utility and owning a piece of the archive and the possibility that I could interact with other photography fans and even the estate because of my ownership. I also thought about winning a valuable August Sander NFT that I could flip for a premium.
Buying August Sander NFTs before the reveal reminds me of my baseball card collecting days of yore. Let’s hope I get a Mickey Mantle or two and not a Walt “No Neck” Williams. 😊 pic.twitter.com/BXxLvowi03
Then in mid-march, the entire collection was taken down from Opensea.io At first, people thought it was a glitch of some type. Then on March 19, Julian Sander released a statement confirming what many were already discovering with simple google searches: “It was suspended because a third party, which claims to have certain rights in August Sanders’ photographs, submitted a complaint to OpenSea. I believe the complaint is not valid, and I am liaising with my legal advisors to get this resolved as soon as possible, and for the collection to be reinstated on the platform. This is my top priority right now.”
How is it possible nobody mentioned this? Many well-known people championed this NFT release, including Christie’s own Darius Himes, who was reportedly involved in bringing the project to @fellowshiptrust and interviewed Julian on his Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZ0UoULIqIj/). Still, nobody thought to bring up who owns the actual copyright to the estate?
And this is the nut of the problem with NFTs and this project in particular. Nobody seems to give a shit about copyright. When the project was removed from Opensea.io everyone involved simply said the project is still on the blockchain and is visible on marketplaces like rarible.com, where DMCA takedown notices have no effect. A central tenet behind NFTs is decentralization, so there’s nobody to complain to when your images are stolen. In one of the twitter spaces, I listened to Julian say that photographers have too much power and the DMCA is a problem. He went on to say that placing the collection on the blockchain was fair use arguing that owning a print gives you the right to sell it as an NFT (this changes the nature of NFTs from artist issued originals to eBay for anything in your possession). The members of Fellowship seem to agree with this sentiment as nobody is concerned that this is a legitimate copyright violation and they shouldn’t have put the project to live forever on the blockchain in the first place.
One other aspect of the project being glossed over is the claim that the NFTs were given away for free. Yes, you could mint one with no fee given to Julian or Fellowship, but when I asked Alejandro Cartagena, founding member of Fellowship Trust specifics of the project, I was told that they kept 4.5% of the 10,395 images. Also, 10% of the secondary sales (over $1,000,000) go to Julian (7.5%) and Fellowship (2.5%). In online conversations, I’ve listened to Julian talk about wanting to profit from the work and that the money will determine its value. Anyone saying the project was given away for free is being disingenuous. Not to mention that involvement in a historic project like this has enormous value beyond simply making money off it.
Finally, one aspect of NFTs that I absolutely loathe is the idea that as Alejandro put it to me, everything is “publicly accessible on the blockchain for anyone to read and verify.” When I asked him about randomization process or people minting then selling the NFT’s on the secondary market, I’m told it’s all visible online. The truth is that most people own multiple wallets where they move NFTs and ETH around so you can’t track them. Finding out who owns all the different wallets and following the path from one to another to the marketplace is quite tricky to verify. There are bots buying and selling, people selling to themselves, and money being traded behind the scenes, making it impossible to know what’s real. The transparency of NFTs is a joke.
I’m not sure why everyone involved in this project fumbled so hard. People associated with it refuse to admit they knew about SK Stiftung Kultur before the takedown notice was issued, and all seem perfectly complacent with the idea that the blockchain doesn’t care either. Overall, I’m just disappointed that my NFT purchase doesn’t give me access to the actual August Sander Estate, and instead I’m stuck with Julian, who, as the Great Grandson of the famous photographer, seems bitter about where the archive ended up.
Founder and Art Director: Holly Catford
Founder: Helen Graves
Founder Rob Billington
Heidi: How did Pit and Cheese magazine come about? Holly: I started Pit with Helen Graves and Robert Billington in 2017, it was an idea I’d been thinking about for a long time and was a huge fan of Helen’s blog (foodstories) and so emailed her to go for a beer and basically we just never stopped drinking beers and having a lovely time together! Rob I’d met commissioning him for a story in Noble Rot (that I art directed with Jeremy Leslie from Magculture a million years ago) and we got on like a house on fire too so he seemed like a perfect third partner. Five years later we’re on our 12th issue and attempting to work out how we can get our little side project to start paying us. As a team we worked on Helen’s first book, Live Fire.
Cheese was started in lockdown, I’d worked with Anna Sulan Masing on another little digital magazine/event. She tweeted late one night (not sure if there was any wine involved) about wanting a cheese magazine, so I replied saying we should do it. It turns out Apoorva Siripathi had done the same thing, so we just thought we should give it a shot. We’re working on the third issue now.
How did you get your start in magazines? When I graduated in 2012 I got a weeks work experience at Esterson Associates with Simon Esterson. I just never left. As a studio we specialise in editorial design, Simon’s been running the studio for several years. I’m very, very lucky to have been able to come along and work on such amazing projects together, I’ve learn everything I know from him. He also owns and runs Eye magazine with John L. Walters, so I also get to work on that which is every graphic designers dream. Looking back on my student work, I can see my love for editorial in everything I do. I was constantly putting together books and publications asking friends to do illustrations and take photographs, interviewing people, while everyone else did posters and logos.
You work on a variety of other titles, are you art directing and designing them all? I’m the art director of History Today, Pit and Cheese. The art editor of Eye, Pulp and Museums Journal.
What kind of circulation do you have for cheese and Pit? Both are 2000 copies.
How did this potato cover idea unfold? We wanted to put the British classic the potato smiley on the cover, and then me and Rob started talking about ‘iconic potatos’ and thought of Mr Potato Head. The idea sort of spiraled from there, I bought a few potato head sets from ebay and then tried to find potatoes which would look like ourselves. Each one is a member of the team Polly (Holly), Bob (Rob) and Melon (Helen).
Do you have a regular stable of photographers you work with? Yes and no. I have a few people I work with really closely (Rob and Caitlin Isola) on Pit. But we work with loads of people on wider projects. Philip Sayer, David Levene, Francesco Brembati, Julian Anderson, Orlando Gili,
Suki Dhanda, Ed Park, Maria Spann… the list goes on and on. I also work really closely with Millie Simpson on History Today who is an amazing picture editor. I’m very very lucky to work with all of them.
Yesterday, the smoke from New Mexico wildfires was unpleasant enough that we stayed inside all day. (Until it filtered out in the evening.)
To have fires here in April and early May is something I simply cannot recall.
Sure, it’s a drought, and La Niña is a bitch.
But early-spring fires?
Never.
(Climate Change is NOT joking around.)
In art school, we learned that Kant considered the Sublime to contain a degree of the awful, or the terrifying.
(Maybe awe-inspiring is the better term? I graduated in 2004, so it’s a little rusty.)
But as I remember, it’s more than just beauty, the Sublime.
Three quarters of a day with my reality constrained by smoke pollution, and as soon as I got outside again, the world shimmered.
Sunday evening, after the smoke blew outThis morning, before the smoke blew in
Yet billions of people live with pollution every day.
(I consider myself fortunate.)
Frankly, people around the planet live in all sorts of places, and all manner of ways.
It’s a big world out there.
I bring this up right now, having just put down “The Moon Belongs To Everyone,” a phenomenal photo-book that arrived in the mail last June, by Stacy Arezou Mehrfar, published by GOST.
(Like I said to Shawn Records last week, thanks for your patience, Stacy!)
Really, this book is terrific.
I love it.
Last week, I wrote that because of the clear, Joseph-Campbell-inspired-structure, Shawn’s book didn’t make us think too hard.
This one is the opposite, as its lack of text, and great variety of imagery types and styles, make you guess what the heck is going on, as you turn each page.
No lie, we see frozen waterfalls, jungles, desert, oceans, and rock formations, just off the top of my head.
The paper changes, through the book, which I also loved, including these eerie portraits that seem almost like silver ink on black paper.
(Though I can’t say for sure.)
We see nature, and food, in various forms, including a killer photo of a super-intense-looking pomegranate.
The pomegranate was also featured in a design-trick I thought was clever, in which some images have a color sampled from within, and it’s turned into an entire color-block-page.
This happened a few times.
(Orange, magenta and red, if I recall.)
Books like this, which use only photos to tell non-linear, abstracted stories, are often called “poetic.”
And sure enough, the only text in the entire book, (beyond the credits,) was a poem by the artist that I read twice, much as I did with the photos.
If I’m being honest, at first I was a bit skeptical, but kept an open mind, (all those slashes,) but by the time I was done with the second pass, I was convinced.
Cool rhythms, repeating motifs, and if you pay attention, the message is there.
Like the imagery, it’s non-linear and abstracted, so it makes for a fitting close.
The poem speaks to immigrants, and emigrants.
To where we begin, where we end up, and who are we anyway?
How does it always come down to the patch of Earth on which you were born, or the spot you choose to put down your roots?
This book definitely qualifies as a work of art, in my opinion.
If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
The images in HEALER offer an opportunity for people to stop, breathe, and open their hearts and minds as they connect with the eyes of the dog. These photographs create a pathway for people to quiet their minds and breathe while simultaneously receiving the penetrating, soothing, and unconditional love of a dog.
So many of us feel that we can’t slow down and stop the anxiety and chatter in our minds, even for a few minutes. I wondered, could viewers access stillness and a sense of calm if they connected with the eyes of a dog and just breathed? Could they feel the incredible love and healing that I know dogs are here to gift us through their unique and individual energies?
Viewers are guided to connect with the dog’s eyes, breathe slowly, and to listen for the messages of love the dogs are sharing with them. Feedback has been pouring in from people as they engage with the work – messages of love, hope and pure acceptance! It’s been profound to hear about the experiences people have had – from crying, to feeling they’ve been to a therapy session, to truly feeling seen and understood. A common response is “Wow, I can’t believe this worked!” One high school counselor shared that in lieu of therapy dogs, she’s been using the HEALER images with students in crisis.
In these tumultuous times, many of us are looking for ways to find moments of peace and healing. It is my deepest desire to offer people these opportunities, even for a few minutes, by engaging with the beautiful healing energy of dogs through this photo series.
To see more of another healing project, click here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
Once you are up to speed on the terminology, licensing and have converted fiat (government-issued currency) into ETH, you can purchase your first NFT (Part 1 of my NFT series is here).
If you spend a few seconds on Twitter anymore, you will see streams of tweets from photographers in various stages of promoting their work in the NFT marketplace. From what I’ve seen, there’s a progression to how most photographers get involved for the first time and continue to promote their work on Twitter:
Talking about your work and posting images on Twitter. Engaging with collectors and influential photographers by retweeting and commenting on their tweets.
Getting an invite to a platform like Foundation.app and setting up your profile.
Creating a collection and “minting” a number of pieces inside that collection.
Tweeting out the availability, then doing a long thread on the collection or each piece to let collectors know the history behind it or your motivations for creating it.
Starting a twitter spaces to talk about the work.
When someone places a bid letting everyone know an auction has begun (when and NFT is bought there’s a 24 hour period where someone can outbid you to encourage a bidding war).
Tweeting out a sale!
Buying NFT’s from other photographers with your proceeds.
Congratulating other photographers on a sale.
Periodic tweeting of the number left in the collection or secondary sales that happen.
Tweeting out a list of photographers you admire, have collected, or interact with.
I decided immediately that this was the photo I wanted to collect, and after I got my wallet and ETH situated (which took a week), I bought my first NFT. The beauty of the whole transaction was that I was able to find a photographer whose work I liked (I did visit his website several times https://www.adam-powell.net), and he had a project and image that spoke to me, and I could support that photographer with cash immediately. In exchange, I got a photo for my digital wallet that I can also display in an online gallery or digital picture frame. The ease with which it happened (once I had a wallet loaded with ETH) made me think this is a pretty great way to support photographers.
Adam reached out to me after the sale to see if I wanted to know more about his work, so I asked if I could interview him for this article:
Adam moved to Brooklyn, NY, from East London 6 years ago and started wandering the streets every day, taking pictures with a film camera his dad gifted him. He immersed himself in the street photography scene and was a part of the collective NYCSPC https://www.nyc-spc.com for a while, but then the pandemic hit, and suddenly, there was nobody on the street to make pictures of.
Influenced by the subculture documentary work of Louis Theroux, notably his series Weird Weekends, Adam had visited various niche subculture events and conventions, beginning to explore the stranger sides of the American culture. Adam said, “at some point, a lot of street photography started to look the same to me, and I wanted to reestablish my photographic Identity. I moved away from the well-trodden paths of midtown Manhattan and began making work that reflects how weird the world is in small moments hidden in the every day, right under our noses, in NYC and across the USA”.”
Adam started sharing his work on Instagram, posting regularly, and at first found a lot of community there, but he says, “it started doing terrible things to my mental health.” The number of likes a photo got warped his view of his work, but he said, “it’s a load of shit because an algorithm that doesn’t understand photography controls what gets likes and what doesn’t.”
Sometime in 2020, his friend Zak Krevitt told him he should be making NFTs. Adam had invested a bit in crypto and saw the headlines of artists like Beepel selling work for millions of dollars, then Zach sold a trans liberation march piece (all for charity) for 17 ETH. Around the same time, Adam photographed the capital riot and took these crazy photos that he thought he could sell for a lot of ETH, but when he uploaded the images as NFTs, nothing happened. He told me that at the time, he didn’t realize how much work goes on behind the scenes to make these big sales, so he logged off.
Six months later, Adam had coffee with David Brandon Geeting, who was starting to get some traction in the NFT space and thought there might be some longevity to this now that artists like David, whose work he liked, had collectors buying it. So around the holidays, he dove back in and said he found Twitter to be “a very good place to be, very very supportive where Instagram is just a click world, Twitter is more engaging.”
Adam decided to start with his “6 favorite photos from 2021, the best photos I took that year.” The first photo he minted out of that group sold the same day. He thought, “this is going to be easy,” and slowly minted five more over the course of a few months, and even though a pretty prominent collector bought another one, he didn’t sell any more from that group.
Initially, Foundation, the marketplace where he minted his images into NFTs allowed you to sell individual images, but they changed the policy only to allow collections going forward, so Adam decided the next project would be “Enjoy Your Stay!” which is where I collected my first NFT. No others have sold since I bought my piece, and Adam says he doesn’t know why. The posts he made got good engagement, but the collectors and DAOs he DM’d said the work did not line up with their personal taste, which Adam says is ok because “this is an experiment; I’m not relying on it to make a living.” He says, “If it had sold out, maybe I would not be as motivated to continue to build the work. It invigorated me more.”
Adam told me this winter when he minted the pieces, he had a lot more time on his hands to promote the work and spend time on Twitter engaging with people, but now he’s seeing consistent assignments and doesn’t have time to promote his work. He says the assignment work “will always be number one for me because that’s how I get access to subjects.” He says he’s “worked very hard to get where I am professionally” and “creating personal work is the most important part of my photographic practice” and doesn’t want to give that up to spend more time promoting his NFTs.
I asked Adam about all the work required in the NFT space to promote yourself to collectors, and he said, “it’s not exclusive to NFT; you have to play the game” in every aspect of professional photography. He said, “the people doing well right now are really good at community building and promoting their work/brand; when collectors see that, they see people trying to grow the NFT space.” He thinks one aspect of the space that needs more attention is that it’s becoming a “criticism-free zone.” Adam says, “for good art to exist; criticism is an absolute must so photographers can improve their practice.” Adam thinks the fear of criticism comes from a fear of “offending the collectors and prominent artists.”
Adam says that buying an NFT from an artist is “one of the more impactful ways that someone can work with a photographer.” As someone who’s still establishing themselves, you cannot command much for a print, and the day rates for photojournalism are not high, but “.5 ETH is $1600 and can make a huge difference for a photographer.”
I asked him why he chose to price his work at .5 ETH, and he said, “Firstly, because it seemed on par with others whose work I like in the space, and then a lot of work I see being bought on Foundation is sold at the same price.”
If Adam had been offering prints or a Patreon to support his work, I would not have done either, but purchasing a 1 of 1 NFT seems like a good match to me. I can certainly imagine some future world where I have a digital gallery online displaying the original works I’ve collected over the years. I have stacks of books and prints lying around my house that I never look at, and I feel like I’m more apt to take a quick look at my digital collection than pull out some dusty book I’ve long forgotten. And as a person who collects to support photographers and have something to enjoy, this fits my model well. I do not believe NFTs will ever go away, and it’s something photographers can easily add to their business model right now if they are not relying on it as the primary income source. Many people are seeing outsized success or even defining their careers through NFT sales now, but for 99.9% of photographers, what’s happening with Adam will be more the norm.
I’m 48, yet lack significant experience with grief.
(Knock on wood.)
I hadn’t known anyone who suffered horribly from Covid, much less perished.
Man, what a shitty situation.
A million dead, here in the US, and so many friends and loved ones left with holes in their hearts.
This was particularly cruel, though, as I’d begged Dave to get a booster shot.
(He’d only had the J&J vaccine, last summer, due to an employer mandate.)
But he said no, despite knowing his lifestyle, weight-lifting at the gym, working security at the local bar, meant he was almost certain to contract the virus at some point.
Dave in Kit Carson Park, Taos, September 2021
Dave, who was conservative politically, and came from a religious background, wasn’t willing to engage in further vaccination.
We even spoke about what would happen if he got Covid.
That he would end up with unpayable medical bills.
That he might die, due to pre-existing conditions.
And now he’s gone.
(Such a bummer.)
In my mind, Dave was a hero.
He was kind, selfless, curious, and wise.
He went out of his way to help people, and took his job in security seriously.
(This week, I saw an FB comment that Dave used to walk a woman into work each day, at 4am, during his rounds.)
When we’d train in the public park, (for hours at a time,) unhoused, or very drunk people would stop to talk to us, or watch what we were doing.
Every time, Dave treated the person with so much respect and compassion.
It was amazing to see how polite he was, under the circumstances.
When I had a beef with my Sifu, Dave pushed me to grow, repeatedly advising me to be humble, apologize, and move forward.
Dave was an action-movie hero, but in real life.
An experienced Aikidoka, and Wing Chun Kung Fu expert, (in addition to his knowledge of firearms,) Dave should have been the next Danny Trejo.
Danny Trejo, Courtesy of Estevan Oriol/Getty and The Daily Beast
Dave lived through things, and it showed.
Plus, his deep, gravely voice, (from years of smoking cigarettes,) was a perfect complement to his massive biceps, and calm demeanor.
While training in the park last year, I pitched Dave on the idea of being an action-movie hero, for real.
I suggested we write a film, in which he could star, so we could get him the type of recognition he deserved.
He was dubious, but I developed plot points, and as we punched and kicked at each other, he began to see the possibilities.
But a fucking virus put a stop to that.
Hero is such a powerful word.
It gets tossed around, willy-nilly, but what does it mean?
Maybe it’s someone who does the right thing, even in difficult circumstances?
A person who rises to the challenge, lives by a code of honor, and tries to improve every day?
Maybe, like Spiderman, a hero believes she/he/they has a responsibility to help, and if blessed with being strong and powerful, uses that to the benefit of others?
(That can serve as a working definition, anyway.)
But as long as there have been humans who could walk and talk, there have been heroes.
The protagonists of our stories.
The leaders we admire.
The guideposts for how to live.
How do I know?
Just ask Joseph Campbell.
If you’re reading this, you likely work in a creative field, or are at least creative-adjacent.
He was a genius academic, writer, lecturer and researcher who, like Jung, delved deep into the human consciousness.
Predominantly, he did this by researching origin stories, myths, and cultural bedrock tales, from around the world, to look for commonalities.
Like pyramids being built in Egypt and Peru simultaneously, thousands of years ago, with no possibly of crossover, certain creation mythologies popped up again and again, across the world.
One of Campbell’s seminal books, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” breaks down traditional narratives structures, from different cultures through time, in the ancient world.
It’s fascinating, if you’ve never read it. (I have, in bits and pieces, but never cover-to-cover.)
And trust me, it’s relevant to today’s discussion.
Because I’m finally reviewing photo-book today!
Feels like it’s been a month, (or more,) since we last did a book review, but today, it’s back to the bread and butter.
And what book did I grab, randomly, from the book pile?
Glad you asked!
It’s “Hero,” by Shawn Records, published by aint bad, which turned up in the mail nearly a year ago.
(Thanks for your patience, Shawn!)
It’s a cool little book, for sure, but not one that needs deep analysis.
(No pun intended.)
Because it presents its structure in an obvious way, then tells the story abstractly, but in a manner that will make many a photo-book lover happy.
In this one, it’s all about the pictures, and many are very good.
(Not brilliant, but they don’t need be.)
There is almost no text in the book.
We have the end credits, and a crucial title page, which apes the structure of “The Hero’s Journey.”
Literally.
Each supposed chapter has a page number, and that’s it. (And only those pages are numbered.)
So I looked at it twice.
First, I flipped slowly, taking it in.
There were strong photos, for sure.
Like the dog peeking its head out of a hole in a garage door, and the great monkey shot, (as we saw in Rich-Joseph Facun’s excellent “Black Diamonds,”) makes me wonder if that’s not the new “put a bird on it.”
But surely, I liked the images, because they are very photographic.
As I said about John Hesketh’s work last week, what’s not to like?
On second viewing, I tracked the chapter titles to specific images, and sure, they are suggested in the photos.
Not screamed, or shouted.
(Perhaps murmured would be a better verb.)
The credits page tells us the images were made between 2006-19, so this strikes me as the product of a photographer who shot for years, and then found the through-line after-the-fact.
Nothing wrong with that methodology, and it likely adds to the ambiguity.
So, to wrap it up, as my brain is tired from grief, (and a long trip to the pediatric dentist in Los Alamos yesterday,) I think this is the kind of book that collectors, and photo lovers, will like a lot.
It’s smart in its allusions, but doesn’t make you think too hard.
You can just look, admire the quality, then move on with your day.
If you’d like to submit a book for potential review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com. We are particularly interested in books by artists of color, and female photographers, so we may maintain a balanced program. And please be advised, we currently have a significant backlog of books for review.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Jody Quon, the renowned photo editor of New York Magazine, was inspired by a series of work I did with John Malkovich a couple of years back. Jody contacted me soon after she saw the Exhibition “Malkovich, homage to the Masters” and asked me to think about a series of important women that have changed the world. I fell in love with idea and was given the opportunity to work with the world-class actress Jessica Lange. I re-created iconic images of Mae West, Simone de Beauvoir, Frieda Kahlo, Gloria Steinman, Georgia O’Keefe, Janis Joplin, Marlene Dietrich, and Diana Vreeland with Jessica impersonating and playing the role of each iconic woman. This work came to me from a personal project I did, again emphasizing the importance of doing personal work. From this project and the Malkovich Homage to the Masters project, I was commissioned by David Lynch and the SQUARESPACE Group to do a film for David Lynch Transcendental meditation foundation. I know personally I continue to get hired Nationally and internationally because of my long history of doing personal projects. I feel Art Directors and Creative Directors are looking for photographers and Directors that have their own ideas, not just people that can execute their ideas. The power of the personal project not only feeds my heart and creative soul, but it continues giving back in terms of commissioned work.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
Wonderful Machine has a fantastic event planned that you should check out:
The Business of Photography
Saturday, May 14, 2022
Wonderful Machine is teaming up with ASMP Colorado for a fun and informative virtual event covering the business of photography. You’ll learn about current trends in branding, marketing, social media, SEO, estimating, and shoot production from our photo editors, marketing specialists, and producers!
Event Schedule
Opening Conversation
10:30-11:00am ET / 8:30-9:00am MT
As our viewers settle in, moderators Rick Souders of Souders Studios and Bill Cramer of Wonderful Machine will share some thoughts about what they’ve learned in their combined 70 years in the photography business.
Join Senior Photo Editors Honore Brown and Deborah Dragon as they discuss what makes a great photographer’s website and share a few examples of successful sites. They’ll cover how to create a cohesive edit and how photographers can present their pictures effectively online to cater to their target audience.
We’ll learn how two photographers turned their self-assigned projects into self-published books – and the impact on their photography business. Joining us will be photographers Muhammad Fadli and Tadd Myers. Wonderful Machine Creative Consultant and Daylight Books Cofounder Michael Itkoff moderates.
Senior Designer Lindsay Thompson provides us with a bird’s eye view of the many ways to share your photographs with clients (including emailers, print promos, print portfolios, promotional gifts, PDF presentations, Adobe Express, stationery & business cards).
Join Senior Project Manager Nicole Poulin as she breaks down how to identify your elevator pitch and target clients that match up with your goals (touching on client research, individual emails, email campaigns, and client meetings).
Project Manager Marianne Lee moderates a conversation with two photographers who are producing content for (as well as promoting their business with) Instagram and TikTok. Joining us will be Taylor Brumfield and Andre Rucker.
SEO Specialist Ashley Vaught shares his thoughts on best practices for attracting organic web searches. He’ll also show how to track and understand the traffic coming to your site.
Executive Producer Craig Oppenheimer explains the basics of creative briefs, estimates, terms & conditions, treatments, and creative calls. He’ll also provide insight on how to negotiate effectively with clients.
Senior Producer Bryan Sheffield will explain his process of producing a big-budget photoshoot including crew, talent, styling, and location needs, how to manage a budget, and put together a comprehensive production book. Bryan will be joined by photographer Emily Andrews to discuss a recent project they worked on together.
Heidi: Tell us how this assignment hit home for you.
Andrew: Who would have thought as a teenager in Dublin watching the telly and seeing cyclist Greg LeMond win his first World Road Race Championship back in 1983 or his first Tour De France victory in 1986 that I would one day meet the legend, let alone take his photograph and do so in Knoxville, Tennessee of all places. Well, that 13 year old had no idea where Knoxville was and could never have dreamed any of that could or would happen.
Were you always interested and following in cycling?
Yes, I have always been a keen cyclist so in November 2020 I was super excited to see the @lemondbicycles announce on IG the release of two carbon commuter E-Bikes, the Prolog and the Dutch, to be followed in 2022 with road and gravel versions.
Greg has always been a pioneer in cycling technology and design especially when it came to the use and development of carbon fiber. Even in his racing days he was at the front of the peloton when it came to innovation, aero dynamics and geometry and launched his own manufacturing company LeMond Bicycles.Long story short and after a licensing deal with Trek, that created what would become one of the nation’s top road brands, went bad, ended up in lawsuits and was eventually settled in 2010. Greg has since pivoted to the research and development of disruptive carbon fiber technology leading to the creation of his company – LeMond Carbon
Was this assignment was a perfect mix of work and play?
So when I got an email from Beth @wired wondering if I would be up for photographing the new bikes and Greg himself for an upcoming feature in the magazine it was a no brainer yes.
How long have you been in Atlanta?
I have been based in Atlanta the last couple of years and have been road tripping to assignments throughout the south. FL, AL, LA, SC, NC, AR and TN are all well within driving distance so was an easy-ish commute to and from the location in Knoxville.
Did you get a ride in?
The weather was pretty wet that day so that limited the shoot to inside the facility and office space. Although I did get to test ride a Prolog around the assembly floor have to say it’s a winning ride as well as being an absolute looker!!!
Was was the direction from the magazine?
The creative was to shoot as much of the building and assembly process as was allowed and wasn’t top secret. Samantha Cooper who had taken over as the photo editor on the shoot from Beth by the time it became reality put together a shot list and an image pull from my site for creative. The one must get was a shot of a bike itself dismantled with all its parts showing. This was pre-approved by LeMond and we had help piece it all together from their Creative Director on set which was a huge help. I also got an edit of the story in advance (which is not always the case) and that’s was super helpful to help wrap ones mind around creative and indeed logistics.
Were you star struck?
I heard Greg’s voice down the hall before I met him and have to say I was a little nervous. He is a legend after all. Happy to report he is an absolute class act, a true champ, one of the most engaging, animated, passionate, honest, open and panache filled folk I have ever had the pleasure of photographing. He wanted us to shoot everything, even the secret stuff and had to be reined in a couple time there. Obvs, I was totally star struck fan boy but dug deep and managed to hold it together (I think) like a pro for the shoot.
We shot with Greg first and then wrapped the shoot with the bike parts as that took a little time and finessing…
