Look for interviews with photographers Peter Rad and Caterina Bernardi and retoucher Adam Moore of Sugar Digital and…just in…Corey Arnold! Peter Rad has an incredibly sophisticated understanding of photography and has written a deeply thoughtful interview about the trend towards authenticity and honesty and how photoshop can be a friend to those bent on capturing this in their images among many other things…Caterina Bernardi is a lovely and passionate photographer who is not only a true artist whose inspirations run from Botticelli to the graceful curves of the Sydney Opera House to just about anything that engenders inspiration, which seen through her eyes is all around us all the time.

I have yet to meet Adam or Corey, but Adam is responsible for retouching many of the images that have been seen on this site and for building a devoted following of many of today’s top advertising photographers. And Corey, well I have wanted to ‘land’ an interview with him ever since his amazing fish photos were featured in the interview with his rep, Maren Levinson of RedEye Reps. I can’t wait!!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and see you soon!

She recently finished a project shot in collaboration with Dwight Eschliman, that she shared with me for SNAPS. Together, they created an image of everyday items that are made from petroleum products shot on a grid submerged in motor oil. The result is a hauntingly beautiful image that by its very beauty compels us to look and consider carefully what we are being asked to study. It is an interesting personal project for a stylist and a perfect collaborative team given Dwight’s iconic overhead shots and his Twinkie project in which he dissected and photographed all “37 or so” ingredients in a Twinkie.

A short SNAPS style Q&A follows along with the image. Big thanks to Christine for sharing with POP!

Petroleum Grid - Styled by Christine Wolheim/Photo by Dwight Eschliman

POP: What was the idea behind this project? Is it part of a series?

Well, yes and no. A photographer I collobarate with often, Maren Caruso and I had been doing series of “dissections” together for several years. What we did together involved vegetables. Then we did clothing. And then we got the idea of doing more “everyday” items, like sugar and wheat and coffee—I could not get the coffee plants back with me from Costa Rica, so we never made that one. But these dissections had morphed into not just what is in the “ingredient” but things that are made from it.

Then someone gave us a bag of coal! We wanted to make a fossil fuel dissection. But you know it just seemed so pedantic. But it got me thinking about petroleum products. Energy is a topic about which I had done some pretty political images with a different photographer Deb Sherman which I think are still timely.

POP: How much research did you do?

I started researching and of course everyone knows that Petroleum is in everything. But I was still stunned! There is no getting away from it. In the end I chose to focus on the most “everyday” items: the ones you don’t even think about because they are so much a part of our landscape. Like toothbrushes. In a way I think this is what we always deal in as stylists: Icons, classics of any given thing.

So, it took me over two years to get this image made! I had researched and shopped and then Maren and I had many dates scheduled and cancellations (when one of us got work), then she was pregnant and felt ill and then large and did not want to be up on a ladder, so she gave me her blessing to do it with someone else.

I had long been an admirer of Dwight’s (Eschliman) work, and then I worked with him for a Real Simple shoot and it hit me that he would be a perfect fit both visually and thematically with his plastic bottles image and Twinkie ingredients image, etc.

I approached him. He loved the idea and brought Dwight intensity to it. Even though I had a vision and I’d already amassed all the items, I wanted to show it all to him and let him have input and see what may come as a collaboration, or if he thought anything was missing. It was actually Dwight’s idea to immerse it in oil. (strangely Maren had said a similar thing way back when) Good minds thinking alike! Dwight was indeed the perfect photographer to shoot it with because he has a mount on his ceiling, which is incredibly high.

Even so we had to edit the items to fit it all in one frame…like I said Petroleum is in everything!

POP: How was this shot? and how long did the shoot take?

I can’t tell you any more about how it was done, cause then I’d have to kill you! No, really we shot this clean first with no oil, and intended to do as a diptych (one clean, one immersed) but the items with the oil were so much more mysterious and intriguing, or so we thought! It is hard when you look at something for so long to see it clearly any more. We worked on it, just shooting, for at least three days. Then there was a lot of post-production involved: I will tell you this: each item had to be in its own oil bath…I really admired Dwight’s dedication to the idea and the integrity of an image that he was willing to commit to so much post work (and his assistants too). It was really a pleasure to collaborate. In fact this is my favorite part about what I do, whether it be for an ad or a book or a personal project, but this collaboration and the blurring of the lines between “Fine” art and “Commercial” art. It doesn’t matter.

POP: There’s an interesting tension in this piece – it is quite beautiful yet it is about a very serious subject.

For me personally, I feel that an image should arrest you, should compel you to want to look at it. To seduce you as it were. Draw you in. Then it can be about anything you want. Personally I aspire to make images that are arresting, beautiful, AND conceptually intelligent, or they make you think, or laugh (there is a lot of irony in my work) or simply present you with something from a different perspective. I don’t always succeed, but this is what I would like to acheive.

I wish we had had it completed before the oil spill. We had shot it before then, but it wasn’t finished. But wow, we could have made it on so many covers during that time.

POP: Stylists don’t own copyright even though they are equal contributors at times. Do you see this changing at any point?

Sorry not touching this one! No, my take is this: as in any relationship, you need to negotiate….sometimes I get so excited by an idea that I forget to have that conversation BEFOREHAND. It really depends on what usage we each intend for the image. And if it involves money or not, too. It is disappointing that sometimes stylists don’t even get credited! I DO think it’s changing. But it’s not automatic; you have to ask for it. (from Publishers, etc..) The people I work with have always been good to me! Collaborating involves trust too!

POP: What have you been working on this year?

I just finished a beautiful spread in this month’s 7 x 7 that I styled with Nissa Quanstrom (I styled the food and Nissa styled the props), a new (still secret!) packaging for Happy Baby, videos for Verlasso, cookbooks for Aida Mollencamp and Cindy Pawlcyn (props) and an ongoing series of two-page spreads for The LA Times Magazine using ingredients and recipes from famous chefs for which I styled the food and the props.

Coming up I’m working on the True Blood Cookbook(!) for which I’m doing props. I am very excited as I am such a fan, and I imagine they will let us make it really fun!

With each interview, I learn to look at the world in a new way and to think more deeply about how we see, to recognize nuances in scale, light, and expression and to feel my way into a photograph to unearth from where the photographer made the image. In the stories that Saunders tells, one is taken quickly from the familiar to the fathoms, as if walking into the ocean and suddenly dropping off a sand ledge. And with his interview, I found myself dropped into the creative depths where the transcendent lives alongside the routine and the willingness to have one’s heart broken open by the disorienting sadness of love lost or the circumstances of a stranger carry equal weight.

January 25, 2010 – 11:00:21 PM | January 26, 2010 – 7:33:30 PM

This is the past two train rides I have been on. Both of these rides, this particular piece of music was again playing in my headphones while I sat there alone. Over and over and over it played and I was not feeling the comfort I once did within it and I was listening in a longing to feel this comfort once again.

I boarded these trains, sat down and only then noticed what was taking place directly in front of me and on each occasion, it was this same thing. Only I could see and hear these things together in this way: over and over and only inside my own head.

I also try to surface the thread that runs through their personal and commercial work, the current that defines who the artist is and how they bridge the two worlds. Jonathan was very clear that his personal and commercial photography are two distinct bodies of work. Throughout his work though, I found the heart and eye of a poet and a deep love for image making matched by a strength and vulnerability that enables him to walk into a relative stranger’s space and capture a compelling portrait of them in sometimes 15 minutes or less with the immediacy that connects with readers and drives newsstand sales.

Bill Gates for TIME

This is a long interview that has been months in the making, but I had a lot of questions and Jonathan brought the same fine-tuned attention to his answers as he does to his work and art. And he tells a great story. Thank you to Jonathan for all his time and work on this. I’ve included a lot of images, but it just scratches the surface. To see more, I would recommend setting aside some time on a weekend morning for going through his site, jumping from story to story with the same sense of discovery he brings to creating it…and be sure not to miss his bio.

I had been waiting for it to happen. Then it did. Someone did, it was not me. They took you and put you in the grass, this yard off to the side, out of the way. This someone cared enough about you for at least that. Then, over time, you were eaten by one after another that fought over you, sought you out as their source then moved on while countless more kept feeding. I don’t know who you were, but I can say with some certainty, you were once mine and that I saw you like no one else ever had or will or could. You were not my source and it never occurred to me to eat you like this or leave you like this, yet.

I can still taste your scent and I cannot bury you here.

[Where I lived in Texas was very suburban yet had deer running around more than children. These deer became very unique to me and very representative of many things in my life as well as one person in particular. I had grown up visiting this neighborhood and always been indifferent and removed from connecting to these deer. Now that I was staying here for awhile, I came to see the same ones over and over as well as slowly becoming connected in deeper metaphors. Any time I would see them, I would make a photograph, this became like a law. Let the food I was returning with spoil, let me be late for a meeting, photograph the deer. I never sought them out, I let them find me, even when I no longer wanted to see them or when I really needed to, there they were. In all that time I was there, in a very busy area, only this one was hit by a car. Through a process of elimination, I now even know which specific deer this once was.]

POP: What is your background? Fine art, commercial or both?

Well I got a camera for my 16^th birthday after my father found that I had secretly been making silly pictures of my face with his camera when he developed the one roll that had spent months in this camera developed. A few holiday snaps and the rest was all me making faces. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did, so I got my own camera for my birthday that year. The card literally said, “Now you can take all the damn pictures of yourself you want.” So I did.

I was in the middle of an eight-month stretch on crutches so spent a lot of time in the library at school reading American Photo magazine, how-to books on photography and photographer monographs, book by book, shelf by shelf, down the photo section. My senior year of high school I finally enrolled in photo classes and found I had a good technical head start. I was then able to intern at a commercial studio instead of attending high school which was invaluable. I went from reading books and fumbling with my camera on my own to assisting national ad campaigns when I was 17.

You Look Like Me When I Was You Before I Became Me

[Before I got hurt in high school and became unable to join the military, I was JROTC and dreamed of a military academy attendance and a career in the military. I wanted to fly. I was JROTC in Texas and now this is me photographing JROTC at an air show, in Texas. I had gone for many other things, but finding this, seeing this, this day in the fall of 2010 was just more than I could handle. I had received some personally devastating news shortly before and this all tied together visually with what was in front of me. I couldn’t stop making photographs, there were too many, too fast. I got overwhelmed and upset at one point during these and just quit. I walked to my car with a severe sunburn and dehydrated. I don’t remember driving to where I stay that day or how I made it.

I had started the day to photograph just a few planes and ended up on three different flights. A vintage T-6 called Miss Texas, a vintage B-25 Bomber and a ride with the Golden Knights Parachute Team who at one point in my life, I had wanted to be.]

All along, I kept reading that many I admired went to the Rochester Institute of Technology so when it came time to find a college, I applied to many but chose RIT. At the time, it was very divided, photojournalism, advertising or fine art. One had to choose and that was confusing for me as I enjoyed it all. And really at the end off the day, I just wanted to make my own photographs—the specific career within photography seemed secondary. So I blew off the curriculum and just class surfed.

During this time I also got accepted to and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop, I was only 20. Here I was meeting with and listening to the very photographers that I had just read about shortly before. All because I submitted twenty images someone important found interesting enough to accept me. While there, I won one of the assignment awards. I still wish I could go every year.

I got back to RIT and it felt small and limited, so I just hibernated and printed my own work all the time while class surfing until money ran out. I left RIT before finishing the degree. Everyone was going to NYC or LA and neither felt right for me. I chose San Francisco randomly as I knew nobody, had no connections and wanted to build myself up on my own. I got to SF and used a Communication Arts Photo Annual to find Bay Area photographers to assist. For two years I assisted a small handful of editorial photographers who were far too nice to me and with whom I am still friends today. I would go for walks and just photograph. I lived in 5-6 places in those two years and had a couple hundred rolls of film I couldn’t afford to develop. I kept a mini-fridge full of it all for that ever looming ‘someday’ when I could deal with it all. I also once got shipped 50lbs of outdated expired film an assistant friend in NYC was told to throw out. That helped and also changed my life in some ways as it was free to shoot, even if it was cross-processed so I could print it out myself later in life.

During this time, about a year into SF, I did a blind drop at the LA Times Magazine. I picked up my book the next day and it didn’t look touched. A week later however I got a call to photograph Francis Ford Coppola at his vineyard for the cover. I owned no gear, had never been paid to make a photograph before and had shown what was essentially a documentary photography portfolio. A friend I assisted loaned me all his gear and everything that could happen on a shoot happened. The story of this assignment and how it played out could be its own novel. It was my first paid shoot, my first time using a light on a stand for a portrait, my first a lot of things. At the end of the day however, I had the cover and the inside spread and a year later, one image I made of Coppola that day would be a full page in the Communication Arts Photography Annual. I did two more covers for the LA Times before I left SF about a year later. Short of one other job I did for USA Today, documenting the winery business from predawn to dusk in one day, I was still assisting and photographing whatever my life was all along as well, throwing the undeveloped film in the fridge.

Francis Ford Coppola for LA Times Magazine

At this point, I re-enrolled back at RIT and went back for a summer independent study with an awesome professor so I could do nothing but dive into all that undeveloped film. I printed from 8am-9pm for almost 10 weeks straight and burned up all my money and credit and didn’t even get through it all. I still have handfuls of film from CA unedited or scanned or really dealt with.

After this, I went to NY and through a photo editor friend started shooting portraits. I feel like it all found me and I liked it that way. I never sought out to be a magazine photographer. I also didn’t really say no to anything. I just needed and wanted to work. Then it guided itself. Most magazines I worked for never saw my portfolio until websites became the norm. New clients came from PE’s that moved around from magazines to magazines, saw or used my stock or that somehow came across me. I really enjoy shooting people in the news or people of remarkable accomplishment. The randomness of how it works is an incredible joy. I never stopped photographing for myself or making things for me then or now, but there became a really big difference in the type of work I would get hired to make and what I did for me. I actually really liked this too. They are different beasts and tasks entirely, sometimes they overlap, some times they don’t so much as it’s the nature of the assignment or situation. I like this too and both are still parts of me.

Someday soon I hope to pursue an MFA so I can teach and not too long ago was awarded a BFA by RIT based on Merit (and a check). Frankly however, the study has never stopped. I still go book by book or site by site. I adore the constant learning and inspiration. That part has always felt the same kind of good, all along.

George Carlin for TIME

POP: You still shoot almost portraits exclusively. Have you always had an interest in people?

When I started, my portfolio was all large event coverage (marches on Washington, protests, etc.) along with some candid family moments and one documentary of an abandoned hospital with no photographs of people. I still have my original portfolio intact. But I got hired to make portraits and that just snowballed and was what I was known for and asked to do. I personally just love photographing. Assignment photography is mostly about people. Formal portraits were 99% of assignments I got and those seem to follow the traditional editorial script. Arrive 1-2 hours early, find a shot, set up, shoot then get the take in as fast as possible.

The nature of my clients (almost all news magazines and business magazines) and subjects meant that I never got to meet or sometimes even see them in person for more than a hello before I had to get ready for the 5-20 minutes I was allowed to actually shoot. So often, it was try to build one or two portrait sets or spots then use the time I had with my subjects as efficiently as possible for as much as possible. I read stories of other photographers that get all kinds of time or have meetings first where giant ideas and plans are discussed. But I read those and think I must be in a different profession as that is just not how my assignments are for the most part.

Tiffany Nicole | Awaiting Return of Imprisoned Husband

I am never given set budgets or allowed the funds for large crews, pre-scouts or even hair or make up. Sometimes it was frustrating but I enjoy being a one-man show; an assistant and the subject, let’s go make something. Here’s the time, here’s the place, here’s the name, make a photograph happen out of thin air. Occasionally on assignments that mean a great deal to me personally, mean more to me than the clients budget even allows or when I could, I would go early or if possible the day before on my own, unpaid, because that is what I had to do. Sometimes I would rent more gear than budget allowed or do things that may mean I made no profit at all, but I had to get it done how I was comfortable tackling the shoot.

Often, it’s a battle between the practical realities of business and what my brain or heart desires. But yes, I like making portraits very much. It’s a challenge and always gets my heart racing for the right reasons. I am trying to do more live coverage of situations or events combined with portraits if it fits the story or happening. This seems to be trickier than it should be and I really cannot see why. Images have never been more in demand or desired, yet there is a vacuum of lacking funds, lacking permissions and short sighted ambitions. The world is so wonderful and I don’t want to miss anything more. I just want to go make things. Today.

POP: Portrait photographers whose work inspires you or whom you admire?

Way back in high school I used to look at a lot of fashion magazines. They were using the most photography and many times, they were the few magazines that were pushing against the norm. They are still some of my favorite to seek out. I became instantly amazed by Raymond Meier and Richard Burbridge and Hiro before them. Burbridge’s portraits always sorta got under my skin a good way and he was such a good technician, it was hard to not be impressed. Then with Meier, it was also just how consistently amazing he was no matter what he shot, not just visually but how flawless the craft was. The what didn’t matter—shoes, man, woman, purse, house, solo portrait, group, it was always solid and perfectly executed every time.

Then a few years after I found him, I got to go on a tour of his studio. The studio was super clean and sparse and only what was needed was readily on hand. He picked up one small light and said you can shoot a whole job with this, let it flare the lens, point it into the lens, who cares, just know what it does and how to use what it does for your photograph. At one point, we walked by his desk and on his desk was a giant calendar that had almost nothing on it. Many days were empty but then every few days, it would simply say, Vogue, Italian Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, whoever.

I thought that calendar was so awesome and decided then that if one could just work everyday for themselves making what they love, then every so often, make something for ‘work’ or have a calendar like that, well, then you’re doing alright in life. He was most excited about his personal work he shared that day too, all that great stuff for Vogue and the majesty in all that, yet here was a man looking right at me excitedly bragging about these flawless, large alternative process prints of a something he shot only because he wanted to.

POP: What of your ‘style’ do you bring to a portrait shoot? Some portrait photographers have said they shoot in their own style regardless of whom they are shooting or shooting for.

This is a good question and tricky to answer at least when combined with this example. It comes down to what kind of assignment, who is the subject, who is the client and what are the specific parameters I am given to work within for the goal of the client. The short easy answer is, I have never been in, nor has any photographer I know, ever been in a position to just say no to whatever job they feel isn’t absolutely perfect. I have had great assignments that fit me very well but this is a business and I want to work. I take a lot of jobs that are simply jobs to get my clients needs done to the best of my abilities.

I make the most of these jobs for myself too or often if the situation allows, shoot for me in addition to what the clients need. I was hired to photograph on a white seamless not so long ago. I liked it, the subject was great and I did just as required for the client very well. The subject was great, had a wonderful story, we had some time and we got along. So we took a long walk and I made all kinds of photographs in addition to the seamless photography. I shared them with the client and the client was happy to see them, however, the task I was hired and the goal of the client was seamless and that is what ran. End of the day, client was happy and I got some photographs I enjoy a great deal.

Joseph C. Muscari | Alcoa

I have always struggled with many aspects of this kind of thought on assignments. On one hand, I completely relate to this attitude—wasn’t this photographer hired or sought out by the client for how they see in the first place? But the reason for even hiring this photographer can be tossed out the window by the simple practicalities of any shoot.

When I get an assignment, of course the client’s needs and the willingness of the subject are taken into account. If I get an assignment for a magazine, I am not going to go out of my way to make a photograph I know does not work or is outside the scope of what I know they will, need or want to run. Ideally, there is an overlap in what they need or desire and what I want to make or see. That and those moments are of course the most rewarding. It’s this overlap of right person for the right job for the right client that keeps me assigned again. When I get an assignment, I want that client to love what I made. I want another assignment as much as I want to make an amazing photograph. To me, the nature of assignments that involve other people in any way are by very definition of the particulars, as clichéd as it may be, a team effort, when each person’s role works out, that to me is the most rewarding and exciting. Next assignment please.

POP: With only 15 minutes with a subject, how do you prepare and then work with your subjects on location?

The way I go about anything is to be as respectful as I can, professional as I can, while also just trying to be the best of myself. I try to remember too that from the subject’s point of view, it is a very vulnerable position to be in to have a stranger come into your life to represent you on such a large scale. I do what I can to make people comfortable with that in the short time I am there.

I shoot only location work so often I do not know what I will shoot or see the location until I arrive. I like working off the environment of the subject so much that when we first talk, I will often just ask them what is unusual or special about their space. I of course search what I can about them online too before the shoot and see what about their presented history would work or may work visually as well as find some common ground with them in which I feel I can discuss or ask questions. People are fascinating and hopefully, the right few questions in the overlap of their lives and mine, even if seemingly superficial, can make for good connections or sparks for a way to approach them photographically.

When I photographed Billy Ray Cyrus, I shot him in a field with a dirt bike, a fence, his dog and sort of a sweeping view behind him for a sense of scale and place. I thought this shot worked great for the magazine and moved on to the second shot that was essentially a wall of trees and Tennessee greenery where he told me a story about a large bird he found there one day and nursed back to health. Now that bird follows him around his land.

Billy Ray Cyrus for People

The plan was to bring his other motorcycle down and shoot him on that. As I was setting it up, I realized I couldn’t shoot what is essentially almost the same shot with just a different motorcycle. So when he came back from changing, I explained “Let’s just have you stand back in the brush a little and make it more about you, your personal style, in this land you love.” It wasn’t as straight forward. He agreed to my idea and we shot a few frames. Then he basically stepped out and was like, why aren’t we shooting this other motorcycle again, what are you doing? I couldn’t explain it as fast as I could just show him the back of the camera. I figured, he’s a smart guy, he’s on camera all the time, he’s been around, he knows how to look at himself, just show him. He lifted his sunglasses, looked at the screen and then stepped back in. It’s a give and take whenever one photographs someone. That to me is what makes it so exciting and wonderful as I can be as surprised by something my subject brings to the table as I am by my own ideas.

Billy Ray Cyrus for People

When do you consider a portrait successful?

I’ve often gotten odd enough or off the map enough that a subject looks at me and says why or what are you doing. Usually I like to think I am pushing my own boundaries of vision and or trying to make this 450^th windowless, beige, conference room, with man in a tie, look as interesting as I can. The default, used too much answer that I always fall back on when talking to a subject, is something along the lines of:

It’s my job to make someone quickly flipping through a magazine, maybe forwards or backwards or maybe even over someone else’s shoulder at some airport or somewhere, stop and want to read that caption, want to read that article, want to learn more about that person. If I can make someone have a knee-jerk thoughtless reaction to a well executed, peculiar, different, wonderful, or maybe even just odd looking photograph stop and read, I like to think I did my job well.

Roger Faxon | Chairman and CEO of EMI Publishing

POP: Some of my favorite portraits of yours feature the subjects with their eyes closed—Seth Godin and Daniel Kahneman, Psychologist and Nobel Laureate. You also photographed Rush Limbaugh with his eyes closed for TIME. How did you decide on this approach for these subjects and what were you trying to convey?

This is a great observation as I didn’t even consciously put this together myself. I know I like closed eyes for a list of different whys but these three are all sort of different to me in nature at least in the how of their creation.

Seth Godin I had actually met many years before on a photo shoot that I was assisting. He was off my radar in the years before I got the assignment but when I got the job and looked him up, I remembered Seth right away and Seth was actually using the rights to the image I had assisted on for his own marketing.  I could even remember watching Seth make the expressions in this image as the strobe went off and even how the photographer had lit it.

So now it was my turn to photographic Seth and honestly I was a little intimated. Seth is a really smart guy and knows the photo shoot routine, is photographed a lot, so I knew going in it would be memorable again. His office space was pretty interesting so I was able to have I think three or four different sets mostly ready to shoot him in one after another. It’s a large mostly open space so I could hear him conducting a potential employee interview, conversing on the phone and going about his business as I set up. Listening to his mind work was the right kind of scary. There was a dichotomy in my head as I listened that made me want to work for him while at the same time, again, made me completely intimidated. The man is a thinker. The man is ruled by his brain.

So we shot one set and he went through a very calm set of expressions like I wanted and even started being playful with his expressions, he was great. As we went from set to set, I could tell his interest and ability to keep putting up with a photographer was fading. The last set up was a close set up and I told him, just a few more. So I shot a handful, then really just wanted a photograph that at least appeared to have his mind at rest. What is Seth like when Seth is not thinking? That to me is what I saw when I chose to share that frame. Seth was great, when I left he gave me a book and an action figure of himself and thanked me for being professional. I always keep that memory close like a trophy. I even entertained putting it on my business card. “Seth Godin called me professional.”

Seth Godin

I had gotten the Daniel Kahneman shoot pretty last minute and had started a set on his balcony overlooking New York City. It was dusk and the balcony was narrow and I was just having a hard time getting my light right fast enough for the fading light. I had a light inside mimicking the window light and also a light outside. It was starting to snow. I’d left my coat inside as time was too short to deal with it and I was trapped out there by own light, we just had to shoot so I was shaking, the light was too close to the balcony ledge, so I had my arm around it too while I shot.

I remember him just seeming annoyed and bored while he drank his coffee also standing out there in the snow with me, shaking and cold. I didn’t get many frames but it ended up being a photograph I like. As we were packing up inside I saw this little booth or nook he had. I always want or strive to have multiple shots and knew I could throw it together pretty quickly. He agreed thankfully and as I was shooting, trying to get the reflection in the table to look more interesting, he just rested that way and he frankly seemed to fall asleep. I got a frame or two of that and knew I had it. We were done.

Daniel Kahneman | Psychologist and Nobel Laureate

The shoot of Rush Limbaugh was actually a lot of fun. I didn’t think I would like him as I cannot say I agree with much he says. But it was really interesting and I remember him, at least in the context of this shoot, person to person in a tiny, windowless room in front of black velvet, being professional and likeable. The Abu Ghraib prison photos had just been released, so when I looked up his previous day’s transcripts to do some research, I read that he even said on his show that he was going to get photographed for Time and that maybe he’d show up with a hood on his head to look like a prisoner. This was of course a sarcastic line from this show but when he came into the room, I asked, “Where’s the hood? I heard you say I could shoot you that way, do you have any idea how famous you’d make me if I could photograph Rush Limbaugh with a black pillow case on his head?” Well, Rush burst out laughing and from there on it was ‘on’ so to speak. We spent much of the shoot laughing.

Rush Limbaugh

Another side note here that I never knew until I photographed him is that Rush is deaf or very hard of hearing and has a Cochlear implant. So often, he is shot from the side where one cannot see it. During our shoot, he kept turning his head as he didn’t want it photographed. At one point when I wanted him looking straight at the camera I don’t think he trusted me. As again, he always kept his head to the side. So I shot a Polaroid and handed it to him. You couldn’t see it and that I think combined with the constant joking, made him relax a little. Now, when I look at that photograph with his eyes closed, I think of Rush, quietly laughing lost in this world of his own thoughts.

POP: When you are photographing someone, what inspires you?

Well I would think this again depends on the context to a degree, assignment or otherwise, but really, I am not even sure how to answer this. We are all a product of the visual history before us and that surrounds us and I like to think its my brain and heart reacting to whatever is front of me at a given moment that inspires me the most. What is it about this person, this place, that I feel and react to the most in the moment I have to make something. This awkward, wonderful, difficult, easy, moment, that alone is the most inspiring. Trying to lose myself in the act alone is one of my favorite things.

Then I hope to build on what I reacted to in the past to make it different, to make it as unique and me as I can. My desire would be that when someone sees something I made, they know it is mine right away, they don’t need to look for a credit, they simply see it and think, “Only Jonathan would make something like that.” That thought alone is sometimes motivation enough for me to push myself as far as I can.

There are a lot of greats in every discipline of photography and I think looking at my own work, I can see far too many of my influences or loves in me. I once hounded a photographer I really admired until they met with me and one of the most important things they told me was that we cannot escape our influences, we have to push through them. So that getting lost in the push is where I find the most joy.

I still look at too many books sometimes, too many sites mostly these days. It’s as motivating as it is intimidating. I just love looking at all I can.

Newt Gingrich for TIME

POP: You shoot primarily editorial. Do you also shoot corporate portraits?

I do and have done everything from some annual report work, corporate event coverage to headshots. I did some really nice straightforward head shots not too long ago that I keep finding used in new ways. That feels good to know and to also see the client was happy with what I made. I’ve done some work for EMI Music that was used in-house and I think came out wonderful and also was just contacted by a writer I shot for MSNBC Online who wanted to use my head shot for a book. I’d like to do more of this work frankly. I like shoots where others are involved as much as I enjoy being a one man show pulling something out of thin air. They are both great photographic challenges for very different reasons. I find I do my best work when all my assignments are all mixed up. It keeps the brain alive and pushes me in new directions.

POP: How is your process with your fine-art work different from the way you approach commercial portraits?

In many ways, they couldn’t be more opposite and frankly, for me, they should be really different in most usual assignment circumstances. So the bigger question is why do you make and share work and how, for who? For me, this matters.

Me photographing a lover because I am in love or me photographing the sky because my heart is broken, is not that same as photographing someone in a conference room/set/their home where there are very particular client needs in place. Now I can bring all those emotions to a shoot and apply them when the assignment overlaps whatever emotional state I am in, but is that the correct thing to do for my client’s needs? To me, this question matters. So the situations are, or usually are, quite different with different goals.

Right time or right place or right image. My site is for me at the end of the day because I love making things. There is an assignment section, as I believe I can do many types of jobs very well, but that is not why I make things.

POP: Your personal work is quite narrative based, yet you shoot portraits for your commissioned work almost exclusively. Are you interested in shooting more narrative editorial or advertising work?

I would love to. It’s just that 99% of my calls are to shoot someone I never met, in five minutes, in a place not of my choosing. This is the nature of most assignments. So the nature of the work doesn’t always lend itself to these types of photographic adventures. These types of images or approaches are not always what is appropriate for the client either, but when it all overlaps or I can stretch it, it does get interesting.

Golden Knights

POP: There is so much intimacy in your personal work. What happens to this when you get 15 minutes to do a portrait of someone you don’t know?

Well I am still me, I cannot escape or run away from who I am even when I try. So by default of being me, there is always some me in there. Many times, the intimacy just vanishes as its like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes, with the right subject, they understand and or you find that common connection to them and try to embrace it. I am pretty open, talk too much and lay myself out there to be vulnerable. I like to think some people can sense this and then there is a connection. Other times, it’s all just a show or you fall back on previous experiences to get through or find some beauty.

Bill O'Reilly for TIME

The tasks are very different to me and this one rule of the same thing all the time to me just doesn’t fit. I think often as well that it shouldn’t. Of course me photographing my 450^th white man in a tie in a windowless beige conference room with 1h to set up and 5m to shoot for a news or business magazine isn’t the same as me spending an hour meticulously exploring a new space or area because my heart is breaking or I miss someone lost or the joy of someone new. They aren’t the same and shouldn’t be. Yet this overlap of me being me and seeing how I see, mix.

I got known by one editor for pulling things off against silly odds. So I can remember this PE calling me and saying, the subject is not attractive, rough to deal with, the space is awful and there is no time, so we thought of you… While flattered that the PE knew or trusted my attempt to make it grand, I do think I would like to try a pretty, nice person, in a pretty place, with lots of time, I just never get that call. I like the challenges, I like working. If I didn’t go through all these things, I know in my heart I wouldn’t be able to make the things like Roswell [below] either. So while not visually so directly related, it is, very much so.

POP: Your stories are very personal. Do you consider them self-portraits?

It took me a long time to really see what I was doing. But if anything, I think of them as letters. I use to keep what essentially were large journals. I made about five over the years and when each 100-page book was done, even if it took 30 days or four years to get there, I gave them away. I didn’t consciously, at the time, think of them as letters. It just felt correct. Now I see the site as a simple continuation of that. Some are or for or are lost in the thought of someone specific, sometimes a mix, sometimes its just for me, a letter to my future self so I don’t forget. I am not really sure and try not to get lost in the why, even if I think too much about how it all came together or what my true sources of thought were. Someone once referred to my stories as each being a block in a pyramid, I liked that idea, even if I don’t always think it fits or see my stumbles along the way.

I think photography itself, by definition, is only ever about the one making it. I can show you 1000’s of photographs of one person that I have made and you wouldn’t necessarily know or maybe understand that person any more or less than I do or in any real way at all, but you’ll learn a lot about me.

I see hundreds of photographers go to far away lands and make photographs of these exotic places I will never go to. But I don’t for a moment think that defines the place, or really teaches me anything more than what that place looked like to that photographer. That for me is how photography is and clearly, I think is wonderful.

S.Matt Read who walked the perimeter of Texas for Texas Monthly

POP: Your site is called I Like to Tell Stories. What kinds of stories are you drawn to or do you feel compelled to explore? Both for your fine art work and editorial?

I enjoy the happenstance of life. The things that happen or one sees because they are just aware of the world around them. Paying attention to the everyday drama of an errand to Target can be as dramatic as a giant political drama for a magazine to me if one pays attention correctly. They are the same, the gravity of this human condition we all experience exist on the same plane. Real life is more fascinating to me to than make believe or created performances only meant to titillate. Both of these are exciting and have their place in the world, but for me, the joy is found in facts, in reason, in purpose, even if only a memory explored or a desire desperately truly wanted. I hope I bring a unique voice or way of seeing these things to the table and I like to believe that is why people look at my site or hire to me make things.

When I first started reading or visually paying attention back at 16 in those libraries, I read something Minor White said that basically was, “One could spend their entire life photographing the block they live on.” I took this to heart in that it’s not where you are or who is in front of you that makes a photograph, it is you. I think one should be able to photograph anything anytime anywhere, make something amazing, tell a good story, at any moment of any day, simply because of who they are.

So before I left Rochester, NY for the last time, I went to Minor White’s old block and made a book of pictures there. The smallest detail can become so large to me and I like that, very much.

POP: Do you look for stories in your daily life?

I feel like things find me more than I go look for them. So many photographers have these large grand ideas and make a very calculated effort to achieve whatever goal they preconceive. I could never relate to this very much as it removes or limits what possibilities of happenstance I enjoy or may see. I am even jealous and wish sometimes I could work that way, but it just never feels correct in my heart when I try. I don’t want to have a goal or have to make an arbitrary list of whatever to get me out the door or on the path to discovery. I just pick up my machine and start looking. It takes a faith in myself of sorts I imagine, but I’d rather be found than go looking.

POP: Where does the inspiration for your personal work come from?

The photographers I admire are countless. But lately I have realized a few distinct things. There are all these details in my desires and daydreams of or about life that I realize tie back to very distinct movies from the early 80’s: Vision Quest, Starman, Taps, Falcon & The Snowman, War Games, The Dark Crystal, Empire Of The Sun. What they have in common is that they all evoke a sense of awe. Much of what photography or the making of things is a person’s need or desire to capture or create a sense of awe.

I think for me, that time in the early 80’s when these movies hit me, is that they gave me this sense of in stories and daydreams that coincided with an awe I felt for women. Then a few years later, I saw Koyaanisqatsi and not too much later, Sherman’s March by Ross McElwee. One about the awe of life, earth and sound. One about the pursuit, confusion and awe of women. This I think was a dangerous combination for any young man with a camera whose first profound book discoveries were Mapplethorpe’s Women, Emmit Gowin’s photographs of Edith and Galassi’s Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort. How does one not just photograph what they see or love everyday after all these get mixed together? These things go after, fight at, struggle for and within the things that define life itself. For me, I am not sure what else there is as its all the same thing.

POP: When did you start to document your daily life and did it shift the way you engage with friends, partners and everyday situations? Or were you always looking for the narrative?

I couldn’t really walk (crutches) when I first got a camera and I had just moved high schools and I didn’t have friends or a girlfriend, so I just built things or made things out of what was around me. It is what I have done ever since I picked up a camera. It seems like what they are made for. Assignment photography was really hard for me for a very long time. In college, I distinctly remember the conversation I had with a professor. The assignment was due and I had not done it at all as not only did I have no interest, I was also intimidated. Yet I had brought over 100 work prints to class that had nothing to do with anything really. So his response was, well, give me an F for not doing the assignment or compliment me on not having left the darkrooms for two days. Then it was Thanksgiving break and he gave us an assignment to just shoot whatever we wanted, a diary, journal, whatever we wanted, just bring back pictures. I was like, well, I do this everyday already. It was the first book I ever made.

Now what I find exciting is that sometimes I will find a narrative while building or noticing another just in what I make everyday. I’ll be in front of the computer, editing or looking or writing one story when I realize 10 others, all connected, or maybe I did the same before, or maybe I remember that this moment I connected to because of a scene in a movie I saw 20 years ago or a love I just found yesterday or longed for all along or realized too late. It seems the nature of just making things that things find me or find themselves. I have laughed out loud and cried just sitting here connecting all the things I couldn’t or didn’t always see while making them.

I never really thought about how it shifted my relationships until I told a friend about a journal page I had made about her. We were only friends but I wrote about something in it and told her about it. Without ever reading it or seeing it, her just knowing I had written something down we both shared was enough I guess to scare her as she dropped me from her life and told many mutual friends I had done something inappropriate. This was before the Internet long ago and to this day, to the best of my knowledge, she’s still never seen it. I will always think what I wrote was beautiful and if she cannot understand that, she wasn’t the friend I thought she was or we just never understood one another like I thought we had.

Since then, I have been far too open with what I make to a fault. I started a new relationship shortly after this incident and as I lived in a small studio, with my walls and journal table out in the open at the time, I would just let anyone see anything. I never liked secrets, I cannot keep them anyway and they only lead to hurt. So since then, ten years now, I try to live without them. I woke up one morning and found this new relationship I had started sitting quietly with this huge journal on her lap reading every page. It was hard, but I felt a great window into who I am, how I make things and how I live. I asked if there were questions. We talked and we were then together for a very long time. In my relationships since, well, my site is right there and I have yet to be in a relationship since I started it that hasn’t seen it or known this part of me long before we got very far. I have even had a relationship seek me out because of my site, go to great lengths to meet me in person only to then hate me for it. It’s really hard and can be confusing.

These 7 Days, These 7 Nights

For the most part, I think I have just been really lucky in that I found some amazing, very intelligent, beautiful and understanding people along my ways. I’ve made some mistakes, been duped and hurt people I loved when I was trying to make beautiful things out of painful things and I have done what I could to correct and protect those I love from ever doing it again. It is really complex and I’ve found leaves me an easy target for those that wish to hurt me as much as it is a way to find those that love me for who I really am, too. If one is in my life enough that I photograph them, I would think it goes without saying after seeing all I make, on a relationship level, I photographed them in the first place as they were my everything. Not that many people ever really photograph me and when they do, I think it is a wonderful gift they cared enough about me to do so. I understand that it is theirs and that its something I gave them I cannot take back.

I recently met a woman I didn’t know at all and didn’t know me or my site, yet in 3 minutes of hearing me tell a story, she called me a “romantic pragmatist.” I liked this.

Another woman I haven’t known long in person but who knew my site very well before we met, said that watching me make things in person “was seemingly arbitrary yet known to be intentful.” I liked this too.

POP: Does your approach to your personal work have any influence on your commercial portrait work? Do they influence each other in any way?

They are starting to overlap more so since I left NYC just by the nature of the jobs and the environments I find myself in. I always try to push myself to make something like never before or if similar, somehow a step further. If I do a big lit shot now I also try to do something more for me and sometimes have taken it so far I don’t even show the client all I have made as its just too far off the map. Or, I show it and it doesn’t get used, but they know I am out there pushing. It again depends on the shoot itself.

A rep I wanted and was sharing work with once asked me why my professional work didn’t look more like my personal work, as they reacted to my personal work much more and all I could really offer in return was that no one hired me from my personal work. It is the norm for everyone to say they like and maybe they really do, but it is just not what I actually get hired for. It is in my experience another elephant no one really talks about.  I once showed all my magazine work in a fancy portfolio to a famous art buyer and then I showed them a hole punched, 4×6 flipbook of journal pages. They barely touched the portfolio and even told me, why show this, anyone can do this, this flipbook is great, just show this. So a year later, I met with them again and only showed the journals, that even included some mashed up assignment work and the only response was, “Do you expect to get a campaign with this?” So I just went back to pushing the assignment work as that is what really led to more work.

There aren’t that many places that really use the types of images I make personally. A small handful of elite magazines in specific stories, well, I showed my personal work to many of these over the years and if I waited for everything to overlap and be a perfect mesh or these places to hire me, I couldn’t be a professional photographer.

There is a PE out there who is great at hiring a certain type of photographer for a contradicting subject. Sometimes that is really great, for that PE and for that magazine. Say that PE hires a war photographer to shoot a wedding. Great, interesting, but to whom? Would the bride have paid to see her one big day shot that way? Maybe, but even if she sees the value in this, its likely not what the bride paid for. It’s a silly example, but maybe it helps explain my point. For me, it’s right shoot for the right client.

Say I love some book by someone really gifted. This book they made for themselves changed my life and the way I see. This is a wonderful thing. Yet, I then see this person go shoot an assignment and I see them mimic this, force it, fall back on a technique or formula or type of shot they are known for. I then don’t look back on their book the same. I see them shooting patterns of themselves for money. Sometimes this mesh of job and who they are fits and its sadly very rare and I think many times, photographers tell this to each other in bars in the dark, but heaven forbid out loud or written down. This to me has always been a dilemma and for the most part, I have enjoyed how different assignments have looked from my personal work until that spark of overlap hits again.

POP: Both the domain/title (“I Like to Tell Stories” ) and navigation of your website prioritize your personal work. What is behind this decision?

I think ones personal work is the most exciting and or interesting thing someone can witness. If one wants to see my assignments they are just one easy click away. I don’t want to be defined by my assignments even if or when I am proud of them. The combination of my all I believe or hope is much more fascinating.

I think people try too hard, make it all work work work. Look at me on this site, this site and this site, look at this last job I did, look at 20 outtakes spread out over a month, four months later. I lose interest pretty quickly when it starts to feel forced. It feels as times get harder people are getting more desperate or shouting too loud. Regardless of my assignment load or social circles, I want to make, and see, exciting work. And I really fear someone looking at my site and seeing some of the things I just described so I go out of my way not to do that.

One site, one place, this is me.

POP: Your book, btk, was inspired by a project you were hired to shoot for the ABA Journal on the Wichita, Kansas serial killer Dennis Lynn Radar. You write in the book that you were hired to shoot the DA, the Task Force Lieutenant and the houses of his victims, but that once you were back in New York, you felt compelled to document Radar and the victims themselves as well. It feels like you completed the story by doing this. What was your experience with this project and why did you feel like you needed to continue the project?

This is a perfect example of the happenstance I mentioned earlier. I had literally been back from Kansas about five minutes, struggling with my gear in the doorway when my phone rang. A friend who knew what I was up to called and asked if I was still in Kansas. I said no I just got in, why? He told me to turn my TV on, as a documentary on BTK had just started. I turned it on and there was Radar’s face, in my apartment, I had just been in front of his home and now he was in mine. At around this moment my father called too, telling me to turn on my television. I got my camera out and just started photographing the screen. I saw the houses I had just photographed and Radar’s face from his court appearance, but more disturbingly, the faces of the victims. I had only seen very small reproductions before but now here they were, their faces lighting up and glowing inside my home when I had just photographed their homes, the places they were killed. It was the very thing I couldn’t photograph in Kansas.

The assignment had been really hard and it was exactly why I had agreed to it. The budget wasn’t much but I made it work and knew when I got the call I would regret letting my worry about it stop me. The more an assignment call worries me the more eager I usually am to do it. The forethought and happenstance of why a PE chose me, called me, put me on a particular assignment is something I really treasure. I want it to change me, I want my experiences or photographs to make me a different person than I was before. This was unique as it was an assignment. I was telling the story of the men who helped, contributed, to putting an end to this man’s abuses. I wasn’t a thrill seeker or off on my own for some personal experience. It was an assignment first for a greater goal than myself that then became personal. Sometimes it’s a hard compass to follow but it’s how I have slowly learned who I am.

POP: Do you still shoot film for your personal projects?

I have been shooting almost exclusively digital since fall of 2005. I still have thousands of rolls of film to scan and sort—I am overwhelmed by myself. Not just with that but with digital too. I have about 7-8 books I need to sit down and make. I just don’t have time. Ideally, I would just work all day everyday for myself, taking the jobs as they come for fun or the challenge. I have one project barely started or dealt with that alone is 13,000+ photographs.

POP: With both your personal work and your portraits, you push past the comfortable to an unexpected place. With your portraits, you said that this sometimes has to be explained to your subjects because it can be uncomfortable. With your personal work, it is the point where the documentary becomes poetic and profound. It must be an interesting moment when you are photographing someone and for you the most comfortable or familiar place is in this deepening and they are being asked to go there with you to the unfamiliar. Are there times when you pull back from this?

The only time I have consciously pulled back is with children. Children are so wonderful and many times the play or rough housing or goofy I do that has them laughing away and playing back with the camera can be too easily misunderstood or not look like the something’s I hope to find. I don’t have my own children so when I photograph them I try to be sure the parents are familiar with me and the things I make and the ways I make them or I just don’t photograph them in the first place.  While they aren’t my children in any of my photographs, while I photograph them, for me and my world, they are and I try to protect them as such.

Not My Daughter

All other times, it’s that discomfort or metaphor in awkward I embrace or seek out, as that for me is the moment I find beautiful in trying to understand someone in what I would like to believe is a real connection. Even if in the end, it’s only a real connection I felt. For me, it was as real as real can be, even if only that moment of a fractured second.

POP: What was the concept behind your Visitor series?

The visitor series is just that, people that visited my apartment I had in NYC, #1RN. It was small, old and cramped and bursting with photographs and boxes of them. I arranged a small space in which to photograph people, so whenever someone came by, I would take their portrait. No matter the who or the why, if they were in this space, they knew me well enough to know that I would want their picture. It started as Polaroid at first and then for a brief moment is was an antique camera in the back courtyard. But it eventually became people inside, on black, let me see you. There is someone in that group that is a one frame shoot. There is someone in there that is thousands. I see people so rarely, it became really special to me that someone would come by. I haven’t counted them yet, I think there are about 80 in the 13 years I was there. This amazes me as each one felt so special.

POP: For a recent personal story, you photographed Roswell. Can you talk about this project? Rather than photograph in the expected way, you chose to photograph the sun as a way of imaging the feeling behind our fascination with these places.

Roswell was only supposed to be a quick stop. I don’t have much connection to it other than a small fascination with the myths surrounding it and how the name almost has a mystical quality. I drove the small downtown, saw the small shops and almost didn’t stop. I am making a small series of images with my phone for someone as a gift, or joke, so I stopped to make one small image.

Then seeing how depressing these older gift shops were banking on the alien folklore, I wanted to get away and walked one block east. There was a small alley that had a few blocks of older telephone overhead wire structures. When I get lonely or wish I could hear from someone I miss, I tend to photograph phones, phone poles, wires, etc. So that was part of it but so was the desire to want to hear from someone, something, far away, in physical space or mental space. So I shot the sun peeking through poles as the sun is the only star I could see during the day. Then I also photographed the clouds around Roswell. Looking up, looking up into the sky with a desire to see something, not knowing exactly what. That hope, that desire, that longing, that longing to me is what the myth of Roswell is. The clouds were than placed on the sun/poles photographs later, almost randomly. Look up, look up with longing, what does that feel like, what does that look like?

What I Saw Up There, Here

I WANT TO BELIEVE

I started sandwiching images long ago for a very specific reason and person, but since then, they have become much more akin to Frederick Sommer’s methods. Using multiple enlargers and several negatives to make a single print. Not multiple exposures of random calculated happenstance, but thought out, specific plans of action to make an image, specifically. This process always fascinated me. So while I don’t retouch or use software any more than a traditional darkroom worker would, it does lend itself to a wonderfulness these new technologies now offer that never existed before as easily.

POP: A perfect day when not shooting?

Well, making things is what I enjoy most. So I would have to say a car full of different types of forever machines, an open road in front of me, some music on too loud, the windows down and someone I love within arms reach, or touch, going someplace new, or new to me.

A couple I once knew were lying on a couch together under a window, quietly being affectionate with each other, I was photographing them. The man was sleeping with his head in her lap as she was caressing him. She looked up at me, I knew her less than I knew him, but she softly said, “I’ve never seen you as happy as when you’re doing that.”

Diane was hired by Winokur to help generate awareness for the ‘Animal’ category on his site among Bay Area art buyers through the promotion of photography recently shot featuring “Lemondrop,” a Burmese albino python on special exhibit at The Academy of Sciences SF.

POP: How did the concept evolve?

The Academy of Sciences had used several images that Michael shot for gift-store merchandise. It was the beginning of August and the exhibition was closing after Labor Day. So at this point, we had a goal for timing, artwork and something to gift this targeted set of contacts. Beyond that, Michael had shot behind the scenes footage of the Lemondrop shoot and had a great film clip.

With all that to offer, I started to think that we could create a “countdown to Lemondrop” tool that we could repeatedly post. We didn’t actually need to get people to the Academy of Sciences because we were bringing them the best of it in our promotion – gift store swag, unparalleled photography and film footage of Lemondrop that a museum attendee wouldn’t be able to capture.

The next step was to figure out what we could offer that would make it more about Michael Winokur Photography…that’s when the idea of customizing the gift package started to take shape. We decided to develop a targeted promotion that would involve a custom package, hand-delivered to a targeted advertising and editorial list that would also have a social media component.

We selected a kraft box that would snuggly contain the merchandise and then began to personalize the piece. One of the gift-store treats was a reusable plastic summer drink cup (with lid and straw). I don’t like to send an empty cup, so we needed something to go inside. I found a recipe from a local SF bartender for a Lemondrop cocktail that called for smashed lemondrop pieces (lemon drop candies were another one of the merchandise gifts) and prepared a traditional looking recipe card in courier type to slip next to the cup. We added a customized business card with a shot of Lemondrop the snake plus two 5” x 7” cards with various shots of Lemondrop + an inset image of another one of his animal portraits, a bunny that fittingly has a worried look on its face.

The point of using the inset shot of another animal was to loosen up the theme and remind people that he has shot many more animals and the call to action was to see all the people and animals he has on his website.

In order to further personalize the piece and create a catalyst for follow-up, a handwritten note on Winokur Photography stationary invited people to enjoy the gifts and to invite them to call anytime they have a project appropriate for Michael and/or if they wanted to see a portfolio.

We focused on the outside of the package being fun and inviting, while high-quality enough to support the contents and dutifully represent Michael’s portraiture aesthetic. Michael created a custom snake sticker wrap for the box by compositing a repeat sample of Lemondrop’s skin plus a head and tail. Small-type rubber stamps were used to write “squeeze me” on the outside of the box, along with a gift tag with Michael Winokur Photography logo artwork.

POP: What response did this generate? Can you share any with us?

Sure! We had a great response from our recipients plus Michael was really pleased that he has a conversation to build on with potential clients. Here are just a few:

“Michael, what a lovely package of goodies you made. Thanks so much.  It sounds like youre having a lot of fun with the zoo.  We won’t forget you.  Thanks for thinking of us.”

“Thanks. That was a cute promotion and raised quite a fuss here. I’ll keep you in mind.”

“I loved the care package and your snake shots were fabulous!  Hope we get the opportunity to shoot some animals in the future, because I would  love to work with you.”

“LOVED  lemondrop, and have the snakeskin on my office wall.  Shared the ingredients with the “kids” here.  Thanks so much!!”

Thanks to Diane and Michael for sharing with POP.

At the time I contacted Matthew, I was training to climb Mt. Whitney. I’m not generally an outdoors person and the weekly training hikes took me to an experience to which I had not given much thought—that by getting out of my car and heading out onto trails and up mountains, I could visit places to which I wouldn’t otherwise have access. And, aside from the memories, this simple act of discovery was the experience and it was finding its way into my daily life which started to feel like as much of an adventure as climbing a 14,600 foot peak. At the heart of this though was the awareness that the Earth was vast and that in my time I would be privileged if I only saw a small part of it.

When I saw Matthew Turley’s work, I recognized something akin to this in his images of the mountains, of which there are many. And when I spoke with him, I learned he was also planning a Mt. Whitney ascent, albeit up the much more demanding climbing route after a 150-mile bike ride. But back to his photography. I also recognized a love for the medium—he often shoots with vintage cameras and lenses—and despite having twenty+ portfolios of work on his site, has an unmistakable visual and conceptual vernacular whether he’s shooting at the top of a mountain, the fjords of Norway or in a pool hall in rural Nevada. His images hold power and acquiescence in balance, a confidence born of knowing one’s right place. They have wisdom and I sensed a depth and deep intent.

I had interviewed Andy Anderson just a few months prior and didn’t realize Matthew Turley had worked for Andy as his assistant and retoucher. I saw some of his influence, but I was interested in the point of departure, the quiet humility and a relationship to vast spaces and our relationship to them (and man’s place in them) that traces its way through his outdoor lifestyle and travel images and also finds its way into his portrait and lifestyle ad work. And how he is able to bring the experience he has at the top of a mountain peak down onto the pages of adventure magazines and into the world of advertising. And where in a Home Depot ad, this same humility and sense of man’s place in the world is transformed into light, expression and gesture.

In the introduction to his portfolio Man and Mountains, he writes “I am fascinated by our terrifyingly vulnerability and relative insignificance as we travel afoot within a brooding natural world.” When I spoke with Matthew, he was deeply thoughtful and kind and at turns serious and funny. A true craftsman, he brought a level of care and respect to the interview that one would need to slowly make their way up a sheer cliff at 14,000 feet or to capture ten shots of the last space shuttle launch on a 4×5 to how he answered every question.

This was one of those interviews that could have lasted for months. I still have questions for him. It was such a pleasure to meet him and get to know his work. And like so many of the best photographers, he shoots what he loves and beauty, inspiration and a little magic are the result.

POP: What is your background and how did you come to photography?

I went to Brigham Young University, initially as a pre-med student for three years studying physics and astronomy. I finished with a BFA in photography and a minor in chemistry. College was hell because everything around me was so fascinating. It took me almost seven years to get one degree—not so much because I was messing around but because I kept taking classes for fun—geology, astronomy, humanities, side classes. The library was the worst place to study because it was full of interesting books. Whether it’s more of a strength or weakness, that same quality follows me today. I’m constantly distracted by things and I like to think it keeps me well-rounded. I love learning new things and mixing it all together.

POP: After college you moved to New York. What were you shooting when you were in New York? Was this a time when you were trying out different styles? How did you narrow down your understanding of who you are and how you wanted this to come through in your work?

Well, actually after college I ended up working for Andy Anderson in Idaho for a while, which was where my real photo education took place. It was after leaving Andy that I ended up following a girl to New York and getting married. Honestly, I had no business living in Manhattan. It just wasn’t me. I had gone from living in an isolated cabin in the mountains to a noisy apartment in Spanish Harlem. Unfortunately, our marriage didn’t work out very well either and I found myself back in Utah less than two years later. That said, I totally appreciate the time I spent in New York. It was there that I really got my business underway—I had my portfolios made, developed my website, and developed some great client relationships.

However, unlike a lot of people, I never felt a lot of pressure to live within a large market like New York. I believe you can be a commercial photographer in today’s world anywhere you have the internet, FedEx, and an airport—something I learned from Andy, who was living proof of the idea by being based out of a tiny town in Idaho. I figured I could continue building my relationships with clients in bigger markets like New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles while living the life I wanted from afar.

POP: Did you have a rep before you moved back to Utah?

No. While in New York I spent a fair amount of time looking, but it wasn’t until I returned to Utah that I got a few offers including one from a particularly large, reputable agency. But as tempting as that was, it just didn’t feel right. I had always liked Andy’s relationship with Heather and decided to hold out for a similar fit. Eventually a friend suggested I talk with Marianne. When I called her up she was very enthusiastic and suggested we should meet up the next time I was in San Francisco so I said, “How about this week?” I flew down a couple days later to meet her and it was immediately apparent that she was the right person to represent me.

POP: What do you think most inspires your work?

I’m inspired by a lot of things, but it’s hard to ignore the influence I’ve felt from the mountains and by being outside. I’m originally from Idaho and spent a lot of my life in the mountains, climbing and skiing, so naturally it informs the way I look at the world. Ultimately, one’s vision comes from your background. I think I’m most successful when I can align my work with who I am. It’s a delicate balance between responding to ever-changing subject matter while staying true to yourself.

It really comes down to a sense of scale for being human. A sense of man’s place in the world. A humility. I have a hard time photographing people in a heroic style. Even in my sports and action work, I am uncomfortable with pure adrenaline. This is something from my experience outside. Mountains are very humbling. You can think you’re something until you spend time in mother nature.

POP: What do people look for in your work?

I have no idea. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, and can only hope they’re finding it, even if I haven’t completely found it yet myself. With art, you do what you do and at some point you relinquish control to your audience and hope that something resonates with them. I hope that they are getting the emotion that I’m feeling, but maybe they’re not. I’m not in the business of controlling my audience’s emotions. All I can do is create something and hope they get something out of it as well.

When I first started out in photography, I was very interested in this idea that I could create a photograph that would elicit the same response from everyone. I gave that up a long time ago. I think it’s a lot less direct than that. Literature is the same way even though you’re using words. People create things and whether they were conscious what it is or not, we take something from it. Everybody is bringing something to it.

POP: In the introduction to your portfolio ‘Men & Mountains’, you write that “…although we may be granted the privilege to stand briefly on a mountain summit, it is foolish to imagine ourselves as conquerors.” I find that this natural reverence and respect is present in and evoked by many of your images. Is this conscious?

Not really. Once I get behind the camera, I’m usually not articulating ideas in my head or making conscious connections between my thoughts and experiences and what I’m shooting. It’s a little late for that I think. It’s probably more like food, you know, as in ‘you are what you eat’, but it’s not like your day is going to be dictated by a bran muffin you had for breakfast. It’s the cumulative effect of a thousand little doses over time.

I actually wish I were more conscious of the process. Occasionally I’ll look back at one of my images and think, ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ It sounds dumb, of course, but I think it reflects the process inherent in the photographic medium, which allows you to be unconscious behind the camera and then take credit for what you’ve managed to find in the edit.

POP: You’re inspired by the mountains and the outdoors. When did you start shooting people and how do you bring the same sensibilities to your portrait work?

The first I seriously started photographing people was while working on my Men & Mountains project. I certainly wasn’t making portraits in the traditional sense, but I think I was in the middle of some kind of existential realization that the landscape had little meaning outside of a human context. It just exists. Not that it can’t be fascinating on its own, but once man enters the frame things becomes infinitely more interesting. Most of my portrait work has evolved from that same intersection of people and the landscape.

POP: So much of your work is either landscape-based or related to nature and the outdoors. What is your philosophy on retouching, compositing and CGI?

In a way I’ve come full circle. From the beginning I had always gravitated towards photography which was relatively pure—sort of a group ƒ/64 philosophy. But in school I started experimenting with compositing, found I had a knack for it, and ended up working as a retoucher where there wasn’t much of anything left that was sacred.

That background has definitely worked to my advantage in my commercial work where retouching is so often necessary to remain competitive within the constraints of time and budgets, or when concepts push the boundaries of reality. But in the last few years I’ve begun to rediscover the power of straighter, un-composited photography—at least in my personal work—preferring to spend my time in post working with color. Not that my photography is very journalistic, I just find myself craving authenticity in the face of this ever-widening gulf between reality and photography, including much of my own.

POP: What influences your color palette?

I know I’ve been influenced by other artists, but color is where I often like to make my departure from reality. I have very little interest in completely representational color, so you’ll probably never see me with one of those white balance color charts. There’s just so much to be said with color. It’s like timbre in music, where the same notes can be expressed and combined in a million ways, and each type of instrument has a unique range of emotional response.

POP: You shoot a lot of personal work. Where do you get your ideas and inspiration?

My personal work usually tends to follow the course of my life, which is more serendipitous than planned. I’m much more of a finder than a producer which probably explains why I never got into studio shooting. It’s almost like my photographer self follows my curious scientist self around, poaching shots over his shoulder.

Inspiration seems to have its own delivery schedule, which apparently I’m not privy to. All I can do is keep asking questions, keep exploring ideas, keep looking around. Ideas are always churning in my head, and most get tossed out, but every once in a while there’s one that resonates with who I am.

POP: How do you bring this level of inspiration to shooting say a RAM truck or Home Depot campaign?

Well, it’s a little different with commercial work where the idea is someone else’s and you have to get on board as best you can, which is sometimes difficult, but you find ways to identify with the concept and to see where your strengths fit in. With both of the campaigns you mentioned it was refreshing to actually have the creatives discuss with me why they chose me.

For instance, I didn’t have a single automotive image in my portfolio when I was up for RAM, but they told me how much they appreciated my sensitivity to the landscape, as well as their familiarity with and confidence in my ability to assemble the composites on a super tight schedule.

That said, I often find that the collaborative process itself is what’s most inspiring—all these talented people working together to create these intricate, calculated scenarios. Even then, however, there’s always a point where I revert to being a finder, since the more I direct the worse it often gets. You’ve got to allow for chance and imperfection to play a role, otherwise things feel too staged.

POP: How did you get the shot of the two climbers at dawn?

That was from a shoot for Fortune magazine. I got the assignment to shoot the owner of Black Diamond equipment. I picked that location because it was striking. It’s on a ridge twenty minutes from my house that we climb quite a bit for training. It’s 2,000 – 3,000 feet, a fun scramble. I shot it on a Speedgraphic, hand-held 4×5.

The editor actually went with another shot for this one. I’ve actually started speaking up more when an editor doesn’t choose what I consider to be the best image. I would love to get to the place where Dan Winters is and just hand in one shot.

The editor knows what they’re going for, but I’ve been pleased to find that when I’m respectful, it’s recognized that it’s not strong-arming or being stubborn, that they appreciate the ability to collaborate. The photographer is telling the story too. For example, they might choose the image with an intense expression when the subject wasn’t intense.

POP: What is on your studio walls?

Just a Bradford Washburn poster for now. It’s an aerial photo of some climbers on a ridge in the Swiss alps. I love how Bradford used photography to bridge mountain exploration, science, and art. Someday I’ll swap it out for a real print.

POP: How did you differentiate from your mentors?

I think you have to trust that as a unique person, you’ll create unique work. There’s little point in being less yourself for fear of duplicating someone else, so it’s more about finding and staying true to yourself. It’s obvious that I’ve been influenced by Andy—I mean, the main reason I wanted to work with him was because his work resonated with me. But we’re very different people and bring different things to the table. In fact, I like to think I’ve influenced him as well to some degree—who knows?

POP: I see a lot of him in your work, but of course your images are very different and your own in terms of subject matter, composition and tone.

An artist gets no satisfaction from simply imitating someone else, but there’s also no such thing as art in a vacuum. Everyone’s related like some massively complex genealogy.

I am more inspired by photographers whose work is outside of what I do. I’ve stopped looking at other photographers who are like me. It’s kind of distracting in a sense and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. I also have no interest in duplicating what anyone else is doing—I look for the differences and work that is different than what I do. I’m inspired by photographers like Christopher Griffith and Nadav Kander.

POP: Are you shooting motion?

Not at all for now. I still have a lot of aspirations with photography and I don’t want to get distracted. Some people can do both, but I imagine many are just doing their work a disservice. The other thing is there’s just so many moving parts to shooting motion – at some point I feel I’d have to give up that sense of sole authorship that got me into photography in the first place.

POP: How is this different from collaborating with an AD?

Good question. I guess it’s because despite the collaborative process, which I actually love, I’m ultimately responsible for crafting the final image. It’s a lot different from handing a bunch of raw footage off to a chain of people for editing, color grading, rotoscoping, etc. which is too fragmented for me. Maybe I’m a bit of a control freak that way. Which is also why I do my own retouching. I want to have my hand on the image from start to finish. It’s funny, I still do retouching for some other photographers, but I could never imagine doing that myself. It’d be like having someone else raise your kids.

POP: Given this, what is your process for working with other photographer’s photos?

It can definitely be a challenge, especially if the client wants a treatment similar to one of my images. I’ve made it a principle to always give my clients’ work the same attention I would my own, but I find myself volunteering far fewer suggestions these days, at least as far as style goes. It’s much better when they bring their own vision and we go from there.

POP: How much of your work is shot on film and large format?

Nearly all of my personal work is shot on large format film and I still push for shooting large format on jobs when it’s appropriate, but that’s getting harder to rationalize to clients who have come to expect the immediacy of digital.

POP: Have you worked with an AD or client who understood this difference?

SKI magazine hired me to shoot the Canyons Resort in Utah. I called them and told them I wanted to shoot in on 8 x 10. The resort had been shot to death and I didn’t want to shoot it the same. The AD took it to the editor and they approved it. I told them my max shutter speed was 1/125 and that there would be a lot of motion in the shots. I also wanted to shoot on a lens from 1890 that has some very unique fall-off and vignetting.

This is what I like about the older cameras and lenses I use. They’re very optical and distinct. the images a very unique look that is not reproducible in post. It gave these images a very different sense of place.and made the environment seem like the place. It’s this gorgeous motionless landscape with these transitory skiers going through it.

It cost quite a bit more, but they were on board. It was 4 – 5 days of shooting and the selects started coming in and they had the flaws and imperfections of shooting on 8 x 10. They have re-used the images in many Best Ofs and they got a lot of feedback. I think it resonated with them.

POP: Why did you decide to shoot the Space Shuttle with a 4×5? If you can make digital look like film and it’s a fast-moving subject? (The photos are amazing. They remind me of the photos from the 50’s of the atomic bomb tests.)

I think art has a lot to do with how you choose to limit yourself, and I think there’s an element of that, but shooting large format isn’t actually as difficult or limiting as it might seem. The biggest challenge for me is usually dealing with TSA and airline carry-on limitations. In this case I knew I’d have a day and a half to scout locations, and hours to set up beforehand on the morning of the launch. I figured I could shoot one, or maybe two magazines of film (6-12 sheets) before it disappeared into the clouds, but you really only need one shot, right? Even if I’d shot it at 10fps, I’d just end up with a ton of outtakes. I guess I just thought, if I’m going to go all the way out there, why not shoot it how I like to shoot?

And that’s really it, the main reason I shoot large format is how it affects me behind the camera—the effect on the image is, in a way, secondary. I’m more relaxed and comfortable shooting on a view camera—there’s a certain ritual inherent in the process that slows down the pace, alters how I approach the subject, alters how I frame the image. If I were to shoot the same subject with an SLR and view camera, I would come away with very different images. So it’s not so much of a technical consideration like it used to be, as it is a personally aesthetic one. Sure, I end up with incredibly detailed images shooting 4×5, but it’s not much more than my digital Hasselblad—but the experience behind the camera is totally different, which in turn, ultimately determines the look of the finished image.

POP: Dream job/client?

Wow, I can think of a lot of dream clients. Right now, I’d love to be shooting a really clever tourism campaign for some far off place that could really use more visitors, like Tajikistan.

POP: What are you working on or thinking about right now?

In a way, I’m in between ideas right now. I would say I’m on a search for authenticity right now. I’m at a point where I feel like I’m repeating myself and want to do something new. I think I’m burned out on all the post and compositing. I want photography to be more and maybe I’m asking too much.

The stuff that I’m most inspired by right now is Nadav’s Yangtze or Burtynsky’s mines or oil project. I want to shoot something on par with that. My favorite photographers have melded together art, commercialist and journalism. Or at least fine art and commercial and have a career in commercial art. I want my photography to be important in a larger sense of myself. I want it to mean something beyond just a pretty picture.

I’ve been a believer for a long time that there’s not a hard line between fine art and commercial art. So much of what we turn to are commissions—the Medeival cathedral art and Ansel Adams. Art for art’s sake is kind of a modern notion.

People sometimes tell me that the interview process helps them refine their ‘mission.’ Christian asked me quite a few questions about why I founded POP and the guiding philosophy behind how I select interviewees which I found very helpful to clarify. I’ve included that up front, but the I think the heart of the interview is further in where I simply share what I’ve learned over the course of the last year and a half of publishing POP.

Thank you to the San Francisco APA and to Christian for the great questions and the opportunity. This is a starting point and by no means an exhaustive conversation on these subjects and I welcome any comments and additional feedback.

CP: What led you to start POP?

I was consulting with photographers on their marketing and saw that personal work and a point of view were playing a larger role in getting hired. I really enjoyed the process of finding what was unique about each photographer (or stylist or rep) and what inspired their work. I initially launched the blog to feature assignments and give credit to all involved and found myself naturally starting to interview people.

CP: How have your past experiences helped you with your blog?

I studied fine art photography in college and some graduate school and then worked at a photo gallery, for a rep, at a museum and art book publisher before deciding to get serious about my career. I studied marketing and ended up at Future US, a web and print publisher, where I worked for nearly ten years on brand and corporate marketing.

I art directed a lot of marketing collateral and photo shoots and also managed some on-set PR for some of our celebrity editorial shoots. So I had an understanding of the commercial and editorial photo markets and a grounding in conceptual fine art photography.

And honestly I was always a bit envious of the editorial teams and frequently pitched product ideas to management and worked on a lot of launches. Marketing was very creative and fun for many years, but at some point it wasn’t. Budgets disappeared and we were left with PowerPoint as our primary marketing tool. I missed having a creative job.

POP was a creative outlet for me and allowed me to resurrect my love of photography in a new format. I have no experience interviewing people, but love people and their stories and this is really what drives this. I’m also kind of continually baffled by things and therefore always have a lot of questions. I also

And while it’s essentially an editorial product, I can’t not be a marketer. I’m always looking for what is unique in my subjects and trying to formulate questions which allow them to talk about this. My goal is to interview people who are interesting or groundbreaking in one way or another and to bring this out and look at it from many angles in the interview process. I think this might be the right use of marketing in a way. Just highlighting what is unique about someone or something.

CP: What do like best about working on your blog?

After the feeling I get when I hit ‘publish,’ at the top of the list is the people I meet. I tend to get ‘crushes’ on each person I interview during the process. I just fall in love with their work and what they put into it. It’s really more of a deep appreciation for them. I hope this comes through in the interviews.

I also love that I get to feature so much work on the blog and the sequencing of the images to support the interview. It’s a very fun process.

The women almost always want to meet for coffee or lunch and I end up with a new friend. Somehow it is always fun. I recently met a new interviewee for lunch. And six hours later we were still sitting in Farley’s laughing and talking and a Swedish folk song came on that her mother used to sing to her when she was a child. She hadn’t heard it in years. And these things happen over and over. I don’t make any money off the blog and I spend up to 10 – 15 hours a week on it. But it’s all worth it.

CP: You like to interview people.

I guess I do! I kind of always interview people when I meet them. I am always interested to know them, who they are, what their story is and what they’ve learned from life. Or what they haven’t learned! All is good. I’m an extrovert at heart and get so much from meeting and getting to know people.

Interviewing someone in depth about their work, which is not the same as a personal interview, is an interesting way to get to know someone. I think we can learn so much, maybe more about a person, from what they create.

CP: What do you look for in your interviewees?

I look for a lot of different things. But generally, a fresh approach or highly inspired and developed personal vision. It seems like a watershed moment, when the individual contribution is valued in a new way and I wanted to look more deeply at this and to add to any conversation or understanding of this.

There has to be a story—it can be a compelling personal project, a new body of work, fresh talent or even just beautiful images or someone who is particularly aligned with a trend in the market. The images we see every day are very powerful and I am also very interested in talking with people who are injecting something real or human into their work and who are starting to take a chance with a way of working that relies more on collaborating and networking than competition and who are willing to share information that will help others. Basically, anything that moves the conversation forward and would be of interest to and of help to the readers.

It’s also a lot about timing and what I’m thinking about or seeing as a trend at the moment. I’m often led to the next person who happens to answer a question I was just formulating. For example, I’ve been thinking about image libraries quite a bit and found myself working on a job with a photographer I know who happens to shoot a lot of image libraries. The owner of the agency was also on set and I got to know him a bit and followed up and asked him for an interview.

CP: Why did you decide to interview stylists?

I’d never read a stylist interview and know so many truly gifted and inspired stylists and had a hunch they would make great interview subjects. They are such strong collaborative partners and pure artists who love to talk about their inspirations and what they bring to the creative process. The stylist posts get the highest traffic of all the posts on the blog.

CP: What are some of the most interesting and surprising things you’ve discovered interviewing people?

How generous everyone is with sharing information that will help others. There seems to be more comfort with a new way of working and doing business that is based less on competition and more on just being oneself. As photographers (and stylists) are more and more hired for their own style, the more people feel valued for who they are and the less competitive they are. This chips away at the walls we have built between us. And when we realize we are valued for who we are, it’s less about being better than someone else and more about being the best we can be.

I’ve also been greatly affected. I see the world differently than I did a year ago. I look for light differently. I see landscapes, people, cityscapes, the most mundane things differently. I can’t explain it more than to say that I’ve learned to look and see. I think before, even as a visual person, I didn’t look deeply or carefully. And as a result, I’ve started to appreciate simply being and looking.

And honestly, there’s something surprising in each interview. Everyone is so different. I appreciate getting to know each person.

CP: What kinds of responses have you or your interviewees experienced from your postings?

I don’t know specifically what responses my interviewees have gotten. I don’t ask only because I don’t look at the interviews as having any dotted-line impact. I like to think they are one more touch point for them and that in return for sharing so much with the readers, it comes back in a positive way for them.

I do get a lot of positive feedback that people have enjoyed the interview process and that it has been a jumpstart and they start to get more work after not as the result of the interview directly, but more as a result of being excited about their work. It seem to be different for everyone though.

CP: What trends have you noticed?

Overall, I’ve noticed a deepening level of transparency, accessibility and engagement made possible of course by the internet and social media. I think we all probably see this but there are some interesting developments in the photo market.

Art buyers are very interested in seeing personal work and learning as much about who the photographer is. This is directly related to how much more we share more of who we are on blogs and social media, and particular to photographers—where they can discuss their inspirations, their process and stories behind their shoots. Art buyers recognize that this helps them know more about what a photographer would bring to a job and what they would be like to work with. Some art buyers have even said they are very open to being ‘friended’ by photographers they have a relationship with

I also think Twitter has opened the door to a potentially new way of thinking about marketing with a focus on sharing information rather than promoting oneself. I always hope this will make its way into the way companies actually run, with an emphasis on simply providing a good product or service and more truthful advertising and that the photographers and people behind the advertising that are there with a level of authenticity in their images will have a place at the table. I think beyond relatable imagery, authenticity can even be a feeling an image conveys (I have a soft spot for even the most highly retouched and CGI images).

Accessibility and the trend towards sharing information has added a new dimension to personalized marketing—art buyers repeatedly say they want to work with someone who wants to work with them and is excited about their work. Even a well-researched and crafted email to someone you truly want to work with can result in a meeting.

And lastly, something we’ve already touched on—a relaxing into sharing resources, even in a highly competitive market.

CP: What do reps look for in photographers and stylists they sign on to their rosters?

Every rep and rep relationship is different, but there are some things the reps I’ve spoken with seem to agree on:

– A clear, unified vision
– Unique, fresh work
– Work they can sell (In Ashley Klingers interview, she gives a great example of working with Amy Postle to evolve her sexy, noir style of shooting women of all ages and body types highly marketable to pharma clients)
– Always shooting and staying current with a willingness to reinvent as the market evolves
– Personality match—the best reps say they talk with their photographers every day and that the personality match has to be there so that it’s a fun and productive relationship.
– A level of professional dedication that includes a willingness to be a true marketing partner.
Someone who really wants to work with them, who has done their research.
– Most also say it’s a gut feeling when they know they want to work with someone
Well-known published book or body of personal or fine art work – this is a bonus and not a requisite.
– Maren Levinson said it is like courting someone, that it takes months to get to know someone. But she has a specialized roster.
– I think the reps I’ve interviewed all want their photographers to be true to themselves. I’ve heard many stories though of photographers whose reps try to mold them to what they feel the market needs. But with anything, I think there is a spectrum.

CP: What gets an art buyer’s attention?

Thankfully we had an art buyer in the audience to help me answer this one and expand on what I knew. I talk with art buyers, but haven’t featured a lot of them on the blog yet—I have several upcoming. She emphasized that she hires the photographer who ‘gets it’ and that she’s often surprised that her first choice will sometimes not be awarded the job, that often in the phone conversation, her second or third choice will show a better understanding of the assignment.

In my discussions with art buyers, I hear a few things over and over. They’re similar to what a rep looks for with a point of departure when it comes to trust:

– A clear, unique vision. They want to open a portfolio and be able to say ‘That’s XX work.’
– Again, unique, fresh, different.
– Photographers with a genuine enthusiasm for their work. They assume you will bring this to your work for them. I almost always ask photographers about their personal work and how they bring this same enthusiasm and passion to their commercial work. This is because I hear over and over again that this plays a role.
– Collaborative partner
– Very importantly, trust that they will deliver beyond the brief. It has to be a trust that can be sold to client.

CP: You’ve mentioned targeted marketing, what is this exactly?

A targeted campaign is a narrowly focused campaign targeting a carefully selected group of prospects for which there is a good fit. This isn’t new. What is new is the emphasis on targeting prospects for whom you have something to offer them, from that place, and whose work you respect and would want to work with. And then building a relationship based on this.

For a photographer (or stylist), it means building a list of your top prospects and building a campaign (email, phone, personalized direct mail) depending on your budget and making sure to research your prospect so your messaging is as much about them as it is about you. It’s more about relationship building than selling.

This is supplemental to traditional mass marketing and advertising what you do best—we all still speak this language. This includes being in the online sourcebooks, eBlasts, direct mail, etc. It does seem like photographers have to do more marketing than they used to so margins are shrinking as budgets decrease, competition increases and marketing expenses increase.

CP: Talk about the importance of relationship building in this process.

In her interview, Shannon Amos talks about how she researches and finds photographers whose work she likes and contacts them directly to tell them this and to say how much she’d love to work with them. And that this results in working with them more often than not.

In my work with photographers, we’ve had good success with very targeted lists and well-crafted emails and follow-up calls. We get meetings almost every time if the client has budget and possible work and there is a real synergy.

CP: Have you noticed a difference in photographic styles between the east coast and the west coast?

I have asked a few people about this recently, just because I’ve been trying to understand something I’ve noticed. Of course there are a lot of photographers that shoot in the style of their region. Lou Mora who has a very Southern California aesthetic. Andy Anderson’s epic style based both on his personality and where he lives. I sometimes think this is inside of each photographer as well, an expansiveness or a mellow, more laid-back approach. But not sure one can really differentiate. It’s hard to say.

However, with the trend towards authenticity in advertising, I think we do that very well in the Bay Area because of the soul of our city and the Bay Area in general. There are of course shooters in New York who shoot like this, but it seems more common out here and that there are a lot of photographers here who do this exceptionally well. I also see a genuine expansiveness and that is uniquely characteristic of California and the West Coast in a lot of the work shot by Bay Area photographers.

What’s in the future for POP?

I have a lot of ideas. Top of the list is a redesign. I’m talking with a designer now and should have something up soon. I introduced a new column, Snaps, that features current projects by previous interviewees and I have been hesitant to move forward with it because it interrupts the interview layout and schedule. I like to feature the interview and having it run down the entire length of the page.

I’d also like to do an annual POP event that brings the Bay Area community together, possibly a show featuring both work shot and styled by local photographers and stylists and projects produced by West Coast ad agencies and media. It doesn’t need to be shot by local talent.

But one thing I can say for certain is that there will be more interviews.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Trained at California College of the Arts as a graphic designer, Dana spent many years working as an agency art director before transitioning to commercial photography, where he expands on his award-winning graphic sensibility to produce his instantly recognizable lifestyle, landscape, travel, automotive and conceptual images for an international client list that includes American Express, Four Seasons, Lexus, GM, AT&T, Eli Lilly, Frito Lay, Johnson & Johnson and Intel among others. I often try to get to the heart of what informs a photographer’s work. With Dana Neibert, it came back over and over to his love of image making which is evident in his precise and expressive compositions and color choices, and the ease and beauty he captures in his portraits and lifestyle shots.

I spoke with Dana about how a chance shoot with Andy Anderson convinced him to make the move from art director to photographer, launching a successful commercial career from Coronado, the evolution of his portfolio and the important role that personal work plays in both growing his vision and in landing commercial work. Thank you very much to Dana for all his time on the interview and for treating my repeated requests as if they were coming from a valued client—each was met with a ‘yes’ followed by a quick response. And on top of it all, he is extremely nice and makes beautiful images, which again I had trouble editing down. Enjoy!

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: You were a trained graphic artist and an agency art director before making the move to commercial photography. How did you make the transition? Had you always been interested in photography?

The transition from art director to photographer was a gradual one. I worked for several small agencies who naturally had small clients and a lot of times hiring a photographer was not in the budget. You either used stock or shot it yourself. Over time I created more and more images and started putting a portfolio together. When I left art directing, I’d been working on my portfolio for about five years. I’m almost entirely self-taught except for one black and white darkroom class I took. Basic black and white printing helps you understand fundamental Photoshop tasks because the basic tools in Photoshop are what you would find in the darkroom.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: How long was it until you were working commercially after leaving advertising?

I was working commercially as soon as I left advertising. In fact, I was booking jobs before I left advertising and that’s what helped me make the decision to make the switch. I had started a search for an agent before I left and had several dialogues going. Right off the bat I signed with Fox Creative and have been with them ever since.

POP: Were you living in Coronado when you first launched your commercial career? When were you able to leave the city and has it impacted your career in any way?

I have been in Coronado since I was an art director. My family loves Coronado and it’s one of the reasons I made the switch from art directing to photography. San Diego isn’t known for it’s large ad agency market, so at a certain point you kind of plateau career wise and if you want to advance further then you have to move to New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. The good thing about being a commercial photographer is you can live anywhere in the country because you end up flying wherever the agency wants to shoot anyway. There are a number of top tier shooters that live in small towns in the middle of nowhere.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: How did you build a crew while not living in a metropolitan photo community?

I’ve had the same crew for the past 5 – 7 years. When you find good people, they know good people. It’s word-of-mouth. My entire crew is based out of LA. If the client doesn’t care where we shoot, I shoot in LA. My crew is there and you can get a camera at 3am if you need it. Since I do mostly location work though, so I don’t have to live in the middle of a city.

POP: What did you first start shooting? Film or digital?

Film. 4 x 5. At first, digital lacked the dimensional and organic quality of film. But in the last five years digital has really become nearly indistinguishable with whatever magic the camera makers have figured out and proper post production. I really have embraced it. But I’m glad I started out shooting 4×5 as that’s when photography really started to click for me. With a 35mm or even a medium format camera it’s so easy to point, shoot and blast through film. With 4×5 sheet film you are usually composing very carefully on a ground glass and then when you do decide to shoot, you are loading one sheet at a time. That discipline really helped me develop my photography.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Favorite photographers before you made the move?

Andy Anderson is a favorite of mine as he is with most art directors. I did a job with him when I was an art director. He was shooting the same cameras and film as me—or I guess I should say I was shooting the same cameras and film as him. Before that point, I was intimidated by commercial photography. On most of the shoots I’d been, most of the photographers were using fancy medium format cameras, strobes, etc. And here I was, shooting 4 x 5 with a 60 year-old Crown Graphic. But when Andy showed up with his Speed Graphics and Portra film, gears started spinning in my head. Andy and I started talking and I showed him my work and he encouraged me to make the switch if that’s where my passion was. Other favorites are Nadav Kander, Alec Soth, Todd Hido, Michael Kenna; I’m sure there’s more as I used to have all kinds of lists of guys I wanted to work with.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: When you were building your portfolio, what subjects were you first drawn to? Landscapes? Lifestyle? Conceptual? How long before you developed your point of view?

I’ve always been drawn to landscapes and conceptual images. My first images with people were usually wide shots where the people were about an inch tall in an 11×14 print. One of my assistants used to tell the fussy talent not to worry about their hair or makeup too much because they were going to be about as big as his fingernail in the shot. I think my point of view is still evolving. I see differences in my work from five years ago and today.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Your style could be described as graphically epic. Were you drawn to work like this as a designer and art director? And did you shoot like this from the beginning?

I like simple and graphic things. In the beginning, I was so graphic that I couldn’t even stand more than one color in my images and mostly shot black and white. As I went through graphic rehabilitation, I was slowly able to introduce color but still keep my work fairly graphic. Most of my favorite images are the simple and graphic ones.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: As a former designer, you have a sophisticated graphic sensibility. How did you develop your ability to relate with and shoot people and lifestyle images?

I think my design sense is visible in my images. I tend to like things simple and graphic and my color also follows along with a near monochromatic pallet. When I shoot people and lifestyle I extend those values into the direction I give the talent and usually try to create simple and beautiful images. It’s all about finding that right moment and making it sing. I pull a lot from what I see in everyday life when I create my images. I try not to over think things and do what comes natural.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

I talk with them in hair and make up and when they first come on set and explain the role to them and most of the time they are pretty good with it. I’m on the sidelines and waiting for those special moments, like with a dad and son interacting, and hoping I catch them. Once in a while, I have stiffer talent and it becomes like a fashion shoot and I direct every little thing. With professional talent, they can usually run with it. Every situation is different though, but maybe I’m lucky to get good talent.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: When did you start building a conceptual portfolio?

The conceptual portfolio kind of just built itself. As I shot more jobs, I soon had enough images to put in their own category. I don’t really approach a conceptual job much different than a lifestyle job. Every job comes with a challenge and I come up with a creative solution. A lot of times the conceptual jobs need a simple and clear solution which is ideal for me.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Who was your first automotive client and how did you start getting transportation work?

My first automotive client was Lexus. Before that Lexus job, we were called in to bid on a lot of car jobs. I had zero car shots in my book. An art buyer or art director can see a photographer’s portfolio and get a good sense of how they would shoot cars. But they also have to convince their client that you can pull it off which wasn’t happening for me. I was lucky that there was a great creative director and art buyer on the Lexus job that obviously had a lot of trust from their client.

Photo by Dana Neibert

At some point, you’ve never shot something before. I’d never shot a cruise ship my first job. They can look at your portfolio and know what colors you choose, how you’ll compose and how you direct and know that if you apply this to their campaign, you’ll get it right. They knew me and knew my work and factoring all of these things, it wasn’t so much of a gamble. There was a high probability it was going to come out pretty decent. After Lexus, I started shooting more cars on my own and started building a car book. From then on it was a little easier to get some of the car work although that category is very competitive.

POP: The Chevy job was shot on the retrofit section of the Bay Bridge. You made a behind the scenes video in which Producit is credited with getting permits to shoot where no commercial projects were permitted. How did you choose this location and how happy were you when they got the permits? It’s an amazing shoot.

The location was actually dictated by the agency. They came to us with ideas for several huge construction projects in North America where they wanted to shoot their heavy duty trucks. They slowly whittled them down to the Bay Bridge project—in fact, it had to be the Bay Bridge and nothing else would do. Producit’s first contact with the Bay Bridge was turned away as Caltrans had a policy in effect that no commercial filming would be allowed during the retrofit. They would only allow documentaries and news crews. Somehow through several meetings, Producit was able to get an exception for our project. To this day I’m not really sure how they did it but Chevy was thrilled.

POP: The shot from above has the same dramatic aesthetic as your more spare, graphic images. How did you come up with the idea for this shot? And how did you get approval to bring a cherry picker to a restricted location?

The shot list was a collaboration between the agency and myself. The 80-foot cherry picker was no big deal to Caltrans as they were using similar equipment themselves. However, a 4-foot step ladder was not permitted on the construction site because it did not have a safety cage around it!

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: With your Interior Landscapes series, you say that your inspiration was seeing ‘landscapes’ in everyday indoor scenes. This perspective seems present whether you’re shooting lifestyle, places, or air shows. Did doing the interior landscape project reveal anything to you about the rest of your work and the way you see?

I’m still exploring that series. I use one hundred year old lenses that are a little softer and have a very shallow depth of field. That combination seems to simplify an already simple scene and give it a whole new dimension. Previously I tried to shoot those “interior landscapes” that I saw with other cameras and I could never really capture the scene as I saw it. This was the first set of images that were really capturing my vision. I think there’s another evolution in there somewhere. When I’m shooting other work, what What I’ve learned from the Interior Landscape working is subconsciously being fed into the new work. Personal work is what helps the commercial work grow and evolve.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: You shoot a lot of personal work. What do you bring back to your commercial work from your personal projects?

The personal work helps you grow as an artist and photographer. It’s where you can experiment and take chances. I can’t count the jobs I’ve gotten from the Del Mar Fair images.

POP: For portfolio shows, how much of your portfolio is campaigns and how much personal work?

I think it’s about 50/50. Art buyers and art directors love to see what you do when you’re not shackled to a creative brief.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: For the Del Mar Fair project, what were your thoughts behind choosing this palette? You said this project got you hired for commercial jobs. What do the art buyers respond to? The graphics? The palette?

The Del Mar Fair was hot and bright. When I was shooting it, I knew I would print the shots overly warm to help convey that feeling. This project is brought up time and time again when we are brought in to bid on jobs. And for many different reasons. Sometimes people like the color palette. Sometimes they like the negative space. Sometimes the graphic quality. It’s been referenced so many times that I don’t recall all the jobs it’s helped land but we definitely keep it in the portfolio even though it’s nearly ten years old.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Having worked as an art director, you know what is needed from a photographer. This must have helped you when you started shooting for bigger commercial clients.

I think having been on the agency side of the table has helped me as I understand what the agency’s challenges are. Many photographers may not be aware of how agency politics work, how timelines develop, etc. I know that when files are handed off to an agency, the job is not done. I keep these things in mind and try to deflect any stress from the art buyer, art director and studio manager by talking up front with them so that I can make their life easier on the back end.

POP: What inspires your palette?

My palette is a combination of simplicity and how I see things. I like things simple and graphic and when I remember a scene I think I must subconsciously simplify the color which is the basis for my images when I print.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Early inspiration and influences? Favorite designers?

My inspiration is rather cliché as I love the simplicity of Edward Hopper’s and Norman Rockwell’s work. Also, Ansel Adams and his printing is a huge influence on me. I also love the work of painters Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. El Lissitzky and anything Bauhaus.

POP: Job that you’ve had that’s allowed you to integrate your interests?

I can’t think of any jobs that have allowed me to integrate my personal interests other than my love of image making. But the personal work that I shoot definitely leads me to commercial work.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: Job(s) for which you think your perspective has been especially successful or a great match for the product?

I used to be a big tennis player so when I shot a job for the United States Tennis Association that was really about the obscure fanatical details of the sport, I was able to bring a lot of great shots to the table. I was given a huge amount of creative freedom on that job and we had a blast shooting it.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: You have a lot of really beautiful detail and environmental shots in the Dodge portfolio. Were those in the brief?

They had some specifics. The truck pulling a trailer in front of a barn. A cowboy walking his horse with a truck in the background. We also had to get some details shots like the truck bed with a saddle in it. The others were extra shots that I took when I had a few minutes of free time. Sometimes I do this for a client if there’s time. They can use them in the corner of an ad or a catalog. It’s always appreciated even when they don’t use all of them.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

Photo by Dana Neibert

The Four Seasons portrait below was one of these shots. It was not on our shot list, but while I was waiting on talent and wardrobe, one talent was already ready and waiting on her horse. I just started shooting her as she waited and got one of those beautiful, unplanned reactions from her. The shot went on to be one of the hero shots of the campaign which went on to be a Kelly Award finalist.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: You’ve shot a lot of motion. What clients have you shot motion for and are you getting more requests for motion in your bids? Where have you looked for inspiration for your motion work?

I’ve only shot a couple of motion picture jobs. We get more and more requests for motion. Some have been to bid on broadcast commercial jobs where there is no still photo aspect of the shoot which in my wildest dreams I never really imagined. I always expected all my motion picture requests to be tagged on to a still job. Inspiration is everywhere. What I really like about motion picture is sometimes you can’t tell your story with one still image.

POP: How did you develop your ability to tell a story and what was your process for developing the technical skills?

The ability to tell a story is different for every job. When you shoot a job you have so much knowledge on the subject from all your research and collaboration with the creatives. So sometimes you need to take a step back and look at the subject as an outsider who is not privy to all that information and then figure out what it would take to convey the story. Mostly practice and working with great creatives develops those skills. There is also a certain amount of natural intuition that I have that helps bring out a story in a photograph.

POP: You’ve developed a diverse and successful portfolio of lifestyle, conceptual, landscape and portrait and transportation work. What’s next?

I’m not really sure. I never set out and said, “Okay, I need a lifestyle, landscape, portrait portfolio, etc.” to show people. As the number of images grew, I just kind of curated them into categories on my web site so art directors and art buyers can find the type of images they are looking for. Such as the conceptual category was kind of consumer request as more and more we were asked for sample images that fit that category. As I gathered them up to send to people, I realized I had enough that could warrant it’s own section on my site.

Photo by Dana Neibert

POP: You have a stock site. How do you market your stock images? With separate targeted campaigns? Who are your stock clients, existing or new? And do stock clients ever turn into full commercial clients?

The stock site is still in its infancy stage mostly because there’s only about a thousand or so images on there. I won’t start to market the site until I have 5,000 or so images. I think it could be detrimental to the site to send a large amount of people there only to disappoint them with a very little selection of images. Once I reach the 5,000 mark, I’ll market it with it’s own campaign. Right now it gets a fair amount of traffic and I’ve licensed images to existing as well as new clients. I know of lot of the images get used in comps by art directors for pitches so it also serves a purpose of just having a larger selection of my work available for creatives to present to their clients.

POP: Dream job/client?

An Army, Navy, Marines or Air Force shoot. I love shooting real people in real environments. I love to become a fly on a wall and capture real moments. With some commercial shoots I can do that if I have good talent where I can give them some up front direction and then they bring the rest to the table. Sometimes I can’t and I have to constantly direct the talent like a fashion shoot—move your arm, higher, little higher, now look past me, a little more, no, past me… It’s so much more gratifying when that stuff just happens and I can capture it. Shooting members of our armed forces and showing them as the heroes they are would just be ideal. I’m not proposing to embed myself in a platoon in Iraq but rather in a training type facility here in the states with an air conditioned motor home waiting for me after each shot.

Photo by Dana Neibert

Known for bringing a strong point of view and a deeply engaged and fresh approach to their work, Redeye’s artists shoot for a client list that includes editorial brands Vanity Fair, Travel + Leisure, Esquire, ESPN, Time, Newsweek, Monocle, Dwell, GOOD, Fast Company, Flaunt, Black Book, Paper, Complex and Maxim and commercial clients Target, Nike, Steelcase, Best Buy, Capital One, GE, Columbia Outdoor, VH1, Arrowhead Water, Memorex, Converse, Adobe, HP, and Jet Blue.

Photo by Corey Arnold

I was interested to know what an artist with a fine art perspective uniquely brings to commercial projects, what it takes for an artist to straddle the two worlds and be successful in both, and of course to feature the work of her artists on POP.

Thank you to Maren for the thoughtfulness brought to her interview and for sharing her unique perspective and insights with us and so much of the amazing work of the artists she represents.

Photo by JUCO

Illustration by Amy Martin

POP: When you left Dwell, how did you make your way to being a photo rep?

I tried almost everything the world of photography had to offer for a bit. I interned at a gallery, I freelanced as an art buyer. I wanted to see where I might fit best in the one arena I knew and loved. Redeye was actually supposed to be a gallery at the beginning—one for international, contemporary photography.  My cousin, Katie Baum, and I were going to start it together and she actually came up with the name. At the same time we took a small business course to give our gallery idea some shape, and we found out it was a pretty horrible way to support two adults in San Francisco!  She became a fine art photographer and I eventually turned Redeye into an agency.

I was still in touch with the photographers I had hired at the various magazines where I worked, and I would suggest places for them to visit when they went to New York, which editors they should meet, etc. And they were getting jobs, while I still didn’t have one. Few photographers seemed happy with their options for agents. Noah Webb and Olivier Laude were instrumental in urging me to really commit to this agency idea and had great confidence in me from the get go which I am still grateful for. I was worried, because I’m not a natural sales person, but I realized it’s not about sales if you believe in what you are talking about. This is one of the reasons why I have to be so selective in regards to who I choose to represent. I am a naturally enthusiastic person, so if I can work with artists I respect, repping them is as natural as recommending a restaurant I sincerely love to a good friend (which I do often).

Photo by Noah Webb

Photo by Noah Kalina

POP: When did you launch Redeye?

Redeye began in San Francisco in 2005. As an editor, I had loved the work and rosters of Deborah Schwartz in Los Angeles and Julian Richards in New York. They were my go-to agencies for interesting and humorous work. I felt that San Francisco needed an agency in this vein, and both Deb and Julian were very supportive of me from the beginning. I eventually moved to Los Angeles by a twist of fate, but I never would have started the agency unless I felt there was this marked need in San Francisco.

Photo by Meiko Arquillos

POP: What was/is your philosophy for building your roster and what do you look for in the artists you take on?

There’s an alchemy to developing a roster.  And what I consider now are not necessarily the same things I considered at the beginning.  First and foremost, I need to respond to the work and think it’s terrific, but that is a basic assumption.  What I consider more now is what I think the artists ability is to maintain current, to constantly produce and reinvent and engage in the creative community.  There is a definite x-factor that agents can get a sense for. Does this person take pleasure in what they do? Will they continue to do it with the ebb and flow of the market? How do people respond to them? How do I respond to them?

Photo by Noah Kalina

Photo by Corey Arnold

For me, I also have to like my artists as people. I talk to each of them almost every day. If we don’t like working with each other or don’t get each other’s humor, then our jobs are no fun. I truly admire each and every person on my roster. Noah Kalina has a sharp sense of humor and makes brilliant personal work. Julia and Cody (Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud are team JUCO) crack me up constantly and have an infectious enthusiasm.  Corey is just plain joyful, smart, and skilled at what he does. I know that if this is my experience of my artists, then my clients will have the same experience. Everyone’s jobs are stressful, so we need to find a way for the process to be fun or why do it? And I need to believe we are making something worth producing, or I would not be able to spend the bulk of my time in this way.

My aim is always for a long-term relationship with my artists. I am looking for people who won’t let short term frustrations affect long-term relationships. I always tell people that an artist/rep relationship is like a marriage, so you have to choose to work with people you trust and respect. I know my most successful artists would be successful without me. I have no delusions that I am the key to anyone’s success. But I do believe that they choose to work with me because we have a chemistry and mutual trust and respect. Communication needs to be fairly easy and effortless. We have to speak the same language and be generous and graceful when a situation requires it.

Photo by Zen Sekizawa

Photo by Zen Sekizawa

This information tends to be difficult to gather upon first meeting, so there is a bit of a wooing process with most artists where I get to know them, I follow their careers a little bit, we talk, maybe we’ll even work on a few projects together before committing to each other.  I don’t sleep with anyone on the first date! We just signed Zen Sekizawa, and she recently reminded me that it has been a year since we first started talking.

POP: All your photographers are also fine art photographers. Are they fine artists first?

I am pretty simplistic in how I define artists. They need to be making work. Good artists make work that makes people see things differently. I am not interested in representing anyone without a voice and a vision. What excites me about good work is when it is fresh and I don’t feel like I have seen it a million times before. People look at Meiko Arquillos’ work and they constantly will say, it’s so “fresh.” No one sees things the way she does. It’s always a little off, a little skewed by her particular lens. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with after a shoot, because it’s never what I would expect or prescribe.

Photo by Meiko Arquillos

Photo by Meiko Arquillos

In the traditional sense, yes, I started the agency with the idea that there shouldn’t be this dirty line regarding fine artists doing commercial work. Most people forget that Diane Arbus was a commercial photographer as was Avedon, etc. I actually think some of the best photographers out there do both, and that strong personal work is what actually gets photographers hired commercially while commercial work sometimes leads to personal projects and certainly facilitates the making of that work in one way or another.

Photo by JUCO

Photo by JUCO

Corey Arnold is known for his fishing work and gets hired for things fishing and sport related most often. The publicity his monograph got him attracted more commercial work, which brought him to places where he could make more personal work. Amy Martin did commissioned work for McSweeney’s and they eventually published her children’s book. The idea is that the work in that book will then attract further commercial clients, which will allow her to work on more books in the future.

Photo by Corey Arnold

Photo by Corey Arnold

Photo by Corey Arnold

People want to know that they are working with someone who brings a point of view or perspective to what they do. Nowadays, almost everyone can make a pretty good picture with a Canon point and shoot (I can!). Unless you can bring something to the table that no one else can offer, you will get lost in the shuffle.

Illustration for McSweeney's by Amy Martin

Illustration by Amy Martin

Illustration by Amy Martin

Now more than ever, an artist needs to have something distinct to say and that needs to come across on every page of their portfolios and website. When I edit work with an artist, I make them ask ‘is that an image only you can make?’ Even if it’s an oversimplification, you want people to be able to say, that’s the guy who _____ Or that’s the woman who does  _____.  Then it’s your prerogative to introduce new work that adds to or changes that sentence, but your message needs to be clear and your work consistent or you are diluting your message.

POP: What does it take to be able to do both fine art and commercial work?

Not everybody can do both. There are some commercial photographers who do amazingly skilled work but don’t feel the need to add anything further to the conversation. At the same time, there are some fine artists who do not like people and cannot collaborate at all, as their vision is so singular. It is a rare and amazing creature who can do both well; there’s definitely a tricky balance to strike.

Some of the skills can be antithetical to one another. A commercial artist has to be really good with people. They have to listen to various people’s comments and input and integrate all of that into what they to. Commercial work is creative work by committee. Being a fine artist is about being your own art director and client and trusting and sticking to your vision.  I truly admire my artists who can reconcile these two impulses and let these proclivities play off of each other.

Photo by JUCO

Photo by Zen Sekizawa

Commercial artists need to be able to make complicated things easy.  They need to be able to delegate.  On a commercial shoot, a good photographer is almost a director. It’s a big job. With editorial work, it can be more simple, as there are not large crews and art directors and clients on set, so there are some editorial photographers and fine art photographers who do not make sense as advertising photographers. Some people are not meant to host 15 people on set and be able to deftly navigate large corporations.

At a certain point, an artist needs to ask themselves what they should be doing. There’s no point in swimming upstream. They need to recognize their skills and desires and read what those signs are telling them to be.  If you don’t like traveling, commercial photography is going to be an endlessly frustrating life for you with all the last-minute bookings. If you get stymied by group decision-making, deadlines, and evolving briefs, you need to recognize that about yourself and identify what area of your field gets the best work out of you.

Photo by Noah Webb

Photo by Zen Sekizawa

POP: How do your artists balance both fine art and commercial?

When the photographers are doing really well commercially, it’s exciting and it’s fun. You go through peaks and valleys. Corey is happy to turn down work when he is in Alaska fishing and I am happy for him to do so.  What he does and makes during this time is what makes him who he is. Sometimes an artist will come to me and say they need time to rejuvenate and get back to what inspires them. JUCO likes to make fashion pictures in the desert, and suddenly their portfolio is benefiting from dazzling new additions.  I’m all for it.

Photo by JUCO

Photo by JUCO

Noah Webb made a feat of a music video because he wanted to exercise that muscle and build a reel. I’ve worked with him for years, and I was even amazed by the complexity of the work. I’m thrilled whenever my artists go off and add to their portfolios and to their body of work as a whole.

I was recently so proud of the videos Noah Kalina contributed to an art show. I had nothing to do with any of those personal projects, but they are all at the essence of who the artists are and why people want to collaborate with him.

POP: Fine artists work from the place of deep personal inspiration that the best commercial artists bring to their ad and editorial work. Do you find that your artists bring a deeper level of inspiration to their commercial work?

Absolutely.  That is why I work with them, and I believe why people hire them.  They are all smart, thoughtful and innovative people. The hope is that they will take a brief and raise it to the next level. JUCO makes mood boards and gathers inspiration for almost all of their projects/assignments. They work with a crew of stylists and hair and makeup artists they trust and present the whole creative package to their clients. They really think about what they do and never merely execute. Meiko actually draws things out and sketches her photographs before making them. Corey is always trying to bring the authenticity of his artwork to his commercial jobs. Noah Webb thinks a great deal about location and compositional considerations beforehand. Amy Martin is a conceptual thinker and brings that to the table with everything she does.  I could go on and on…

Illustration by Amy Martin

Photo by Noah Webb

POP: What changed when you moved to LA?

I couldn’t have loved San Francisco any more, but when I moved to LA I did notice I was more connected to the rest of the world in a very seamless way. People are always passing through and there’s an easy exchange between New York and LA. People hire my artists from LA and Portland to work in the Bay Area all the time. I couldn’t understand that when I lived in San Francisco, but there’s such volume and choice available outside, and it’s very little expense to have access to a much larger pool of artists.

The funny thing is that many of my artists lived in San Francisco for good and formative stretches of time: Meiko, Corey, Noah Webb, Julia and Cody. We’re all SF refugees and we all greatly valued our time there. It’s such a nurturing and supportive place to cultivate your voice and grow as an artist. There are amazing teachers and schools there. The community is tight and inspiring. There’s no doubt I would not have started Redeye anywhere other than the Bay Area. But at some point I was looking for a larger market and to be closer to a bulk of my artists (and warmer weather, of course!).

The ironic thing is that while a good number of my artists were and are down here, few of our clients are. Most of our ad work is in SF or New York, actually. There are great groundbreaking agencies in the Bay Area, like Goodby and Butler Shine and Stern and exciting design firms like Tolleson and AKQA. But they don’t necessarily hire SF photographers all the time because there’s a lot of volume and choices elsewhere.

Photo by Noah Kalina

Photo by Noah Webb

Photo by Noah Kalina

POP: How has having been a Photo Editor helped you as a rep?

I understand that people have tight budgets and that they really want to do something great with what they have and I try to help them with that. I understand how I liked to be approached and not by photographers and reps. I understand that it’s not personal when people don’t get back to you, that they have a lot on their plate, tons of meetings to attend, and crazy deadlines. I know and remember what promos were effective and what stood out and why. When we design promos, I tell my artists I received close to 60 a week and though it might be tempting to put a poetic, subdued image on the promo, it’s more important to find a way to jump out of a pile of 60, and you need to consider that every time you send something out the door. How will I rise above the noise? Often it’s by being personal and custom in what you make, how you address it and to whom you send it. Design and production quality are important. You are sending materials to visual people. You have to speak in a language they respect and understand.

POP: Your agency site is very well organized and easy to navigate with portfolios, tearsheets, website and bio.

I’ll actually be working on a redesign very soon, but yes, quick loadtime, not having too many categories, being able to easily find the most recognizable work of the artists are all things I consider. I’m converting my site from flash to HTML so it’s readable on iPads and iPhones as well, and I like it when you can drag and drop photos. It’s a constantly evolving learning process for me to be better and more accessible online. I learn from my artists and colleagues constantly.

In terms of editing the portfolios, I do keep in mind that people are in a rush, that they’ll click fast through the first 5 pictures and they won’t bother if those first five pictures don’t wow them.

I sometimes put the high energy work up front, as if you’re almost inviting the viewer to your virtual party. When people are having a good time looking at work, when you brighten their day, or make them laugh, it’s a good thing. If you answer the door tentatively or down, your guest will likely walk away.  Unless your brand of down is amusing or interesting, which could be a good thing if you do it right and with great commitment.

Photo by Noah Kalina

POP: How involved in social media are your artists?

All of my newest artists are very active online. Corey Arnold and Noah Kalina are something of internet celebrities. JUCO is also very active in the internet photo community. They all have blogs that tell you more about who they are. Noah Webb uses his blog to show his looser, less formal work. Amy Martin is a mad genius tweeter. The internet just provides a more accessible way of getting to know who these people are and what inspires them, what interests them, what they are playing with and considering. There’s a back story supplied, a fuller picture and extension of who they are.

Everything you put out in the world is an opportunity to say more about who you are and is another avenue for a client or editor or art director to connect with who you are and what you make. Just more reasons to find you compelling and hire you.

Photo by JUCO

Photo by JUCO

POP: You mentioned that you’re doing more treatments when you bid for a job. Is this becoming a standard request or are you doing it even when it’s not specified?

Yes, people are pretty reliant on websites these days and don’t want to pay or have time for the shipping of books very often.  And there’s so much work out there and so much specialization, that sometimes we want to custom edit applicable work for a client, and bring a horse to water, if you will. We used to just do it when asked, but at this point we preemptively send a custom PDF, tailored to the campaign or project at hand, because it helps if a client can visualize your work in their context. I can’t tell you how effective it has been!

Photo by Meiko Arquillos

Before that conversation gets under way though, his answer to the question “How did you get your start?” is a long and harrowing tale of a road punctuated with magazine launches, magazine closings, repeated strokes of good luck, microwave nachos and what he learned from assisting a photographer whose big trick was using the Hose Master to light law book catalog photos.

The story ends happily with our source landing a job as an in-house editorial photographer for one of the leading mid-sized publishers. Remaining anonymous, he shares the good, the bad and the ugly of running an in-house photo studio at a company with multiple internal clients. There are no photos in this one since the source is anonymous, but plenty of great stories, insider info and insights into where editorial photography is headed and the opportunities for both photographers and publishers.

A big thank you to our anonymous contributor for so much time and work on this without any gain for him beyond the sharing of information and the hope that it might inspire or inform others and add to the conversation. The beginning is a long read, but some of it was so funny I couldn’t bring myself to edit it down. Enjoy and please share or comment – although anonymous, he is happy to answer questions.

POP: Where did you get your start and how did you decide to go in-house rather than freelance?

I was going to community college and didn’t know what I wanted to do. Thought I’d do two years and transfer to UC, but also wanted to do something creative. I was always a visual person and a couple friends of mine were doing photography. One as a hobby shooting skateboarders. The other, who would later become my wife, was going to art school.

I decided to pick up a camera and try it myself. I started taking classes and after a year I ran into someone from the skate scene I’d known from high school who worked for the biggest skate magazine in the country at the time. They needed a guy to work in the darkroom and I became the darkroom tech. I also started shooting music for their music section. I was going to local shows and big shows like Lallapooza and also shot product for them – skateboards, trucks, wheels. I did that for four years. But I didn’t feel I would become the kind of photographer I wanted to become if I stayed there.

At the time, I was primarily interested in photojournalism and knew this wasn’t the place to do this. But I was also worried about how to make a living. I didn’t have family money or anything to fall back on and knew I had to pull it off or not and this influenced a lot of my decisions. It was difficult to see journalism as a way to make a living and I wanted to explore all of photography. I knew the first thing to do was to start assisting.

I then had another random run-in with an old high school friend who was assisting a photographer. He talked him up as if he was doing a lot of big work when in the end he was doing a lot of actor’s head shots. He was the best at it at the time, but it was head shots. He also had one commercial client, a publisher that produced law books. We did these really meticulous product shots of textbooks. Sometimes they were environmental—a book on a desk with a blotter and a fancy pen. And sometimes a product shot of books and their spines. It was all shot on 4×5 transparency.

The fanciest he got with it was when he decided to use a Hose Master. The guy who invented it was kind of genius. It’s basically painting with light. It’s a box with a fiber optic hose and a nozzle that takes different attachments that give their own quality of light. You use different filters in front of your lens with extremely long exposures. We would do multiple long exposures on one sheet of film. Sometimes the exposures took 20 minutes. You’d light each part with a different filter or light nozzle. It was really tedious.

But despite the fact that it was head shots and law books, he was extremely meticulous and it taught me a lot. We retouched and spot toned all the head shots. So as mind numbing as it was, it was a good lesson in being extremely patient and getting something right the first time. The complete opposite of the way I shoot now digitally where you can shoot one rough sketch after another very quickly. But even when shooting digital, I bring the same attention to detail I learned early on. It can be a real joy to slave over a tiny highlight on the most mundane subject. It’s kind of meditative, almost a Zen practice.

I was with him for a year after which one of the guys who was an art director at the skate magazine had gone on to found a custom publishing project for a large computer company. The idea was to do a digital lifestyle magazine for young people and package it with their sound cards. It was very vague and ahead of its time. We knew there was this convergence of video games, music and this new thing called the internet and that all those appealed to young people. And we wanted to be there for that lifestyle that wasn’t really defined yet. We were trying to define it because it was their target market.

The offer was that I would be the photo editor/staff photographer. I got to shoot what I wanted and had a lot of fun. I shot every day and worked with editorial to concept the photography. And the stuff that I couldn’t shoot, I found and hired the photographers. The one shoot I couldn’t do which I wish I could have done was Cameron Diaz right after she finished The Mask. She wasn’t huge yet and they were handling her to be in underground publications so she wouldn’t blow up too fast, to make her more serious instead of the bubbly blonde ex model. We only did three issues of that magazine. The owner who was from Singapore got nervous about how edgy it was even though it wasn’t really at all. The publisher kept us on board to do a ‘web portal,’ and pitched it to VC’s who didn’t understand the value of a youth culture site at the time.

This project ended and I found myself unemployed and not quite ready to be a freelance photographer. I decided to find a job and took a job cooking in a comedy club while I looked for assisting work. Their ovens were two toaster ovens and two microwaves. I made nachos every night. I tried to get jobs with Ed Kashi, RJ Muna, and a few others and couldn’t get hired because it was really competitive and I didn’t know many people because I’d been on staff. I hadn’t been out there.

POP: Were you working on your portfolio at the time?

I’d always been fairly busy since I started, so my portfolio was all assignment work. I didn’t have time to pursue personal projects when I was working on staff. I was working during the day and shooting shows at night.

I was scrambling for clients and I started to get busy again. I did a lot of mailers and had nice black & white reportage, music, product and location portraits in my book. If anything tied the style together, it was movement. I was becoming aware of my style.

And then I got a call from a model I’d shot for the computer magazine. He was now an editor at the Bay Guardian. He talked to the AD about me and I got a call for the next day and after that point I shot for them for three years. I didn’t make a lot of money, but shot a lot of covers which made it all worth it.

Around the same time, I’d gotten in touch with this guy from a photo class I’d taken to brush up on lighting skills. He was moving out of the country and wanted to give me his client, for a major national department store shooting their window displays for the portfolios of the stylists who designed them. I got paid $125/month per store including expenses. I was shooting color transparencies and each store would take 3 – 5 hours. At the end, I netted about $85/store. At first it was one to two stores and soon was all the stores in the Bay Area, which led to a connection at another department store. So basically I was shooting for Nordstrom’s and this guy left and went to Macy’s and got hired to shoot White Flower Day at Macy’s. The guy from the floral company asked me for my card and hired me to shoot events for him. So I started shooting corporate events for what was to become the biggest event company on the West Coast.

I had the Bay Guardian, Hartman and a mixed bag of editorial which all led to becoming a freelance photographer. We’re in the late 90’s and things are starting to boom. I was taking every job that came my way—corporate, investment bankers, law firms, start ups—it was raining. I was working so much I didn’t have time to shoot personal work or promote myself, but I didn’t need to. I was getting calls from people I didn’t know and it seemed like at the time everyone was so busy that art buyers were having a hard time finding photographers.

I was trying so hard to make a living that I didn’t have the luxury of really developing a personal style or going to photo school. Some people follow a direct line of vision with little or no means at all, but I had a lot of opportunities come to me in really predictable ways. It’s who you know and staying in touch with people and saying ‘yes’ to everything. This was my mantra for a long time and for me, I got to be a photographer and not have to have a night job making nachos.

It was a great time and people were taking chances and having fun. During the boom, everyone was shooting technology as lifestyle. For one magazine we shot the head of AMD as James Bond with a model with a decommissioned 45 Automatic and a fake bomb. We were on location running around in the street and were worried the police would come. I think he was also Pakistani.

Then I got a call from the people I had worked with before at the computer magazine. They had landed at a big publishing company in the Bay Area and I started getting assignments from them.

POP: You then spent a year out of the country at this point right when your career was taking off and the Bay Area boom was in full swing.

It was at this time that my wife really wanted to move back to London where she was from. I’d always wanted to live there, but the timing felt off because there was no boom in the UK compared to what was happening here in the Valley and the West Coast. But it also felt like now or never and so I found myself in a city ten times bigger than SF trying to find my way.

After a lot of hard work, I started to get work shooting music and film publicity. Photographers were paid a fraction of what they were paid here. I also got the occasional freelance job from the US. We stayed for a year and moved back to the US because my wife’s father was ill.

The boom was starting to fizzle, but I hit the ground running and got a lot of freelance work. But the party was starting to die—there were rumors that the pyramid was collapsing. At this point I was hired as the photo editor for a new music magazine. It was the ideal fit, but the publishing company owner didn’t get the memo that the bubble was bursting and spent us all out of our jobs. Within a few months, the title had been closed and I was again out of a job. Then 9-11 happened and my bread and butter work, the corporate and corporate event work, vanished.

It was then that I got a phone call from an AAD at the same publishing company asking me to train the magazine art directors to do their own photography so they wouldn’t have to hire photographers any more. At this point, I realized I was screwed. I thought I could move to LA which has a bigger photo market and survive on credit cards for a few months. He called me back within a few days and said they’d decided it made more sense to just hire me and would I be interested in coming in-house. It had been ages since I’d had a full-time job and the thought of being fully employed felt suffocating to me. And I was afraid of what it would do to my photography.

I weighed the pros and cons, but by this time I had become a solid editorial shooter and needed to work. I took the job and built an in-house photo studio from the ground up. I was shooting for tech and videogame titles and also the photography for the corporate communications and marketing departments. It turned out I had the perfect background for the job.

POP: What are the pros to being in-house?

Top of the list is paid vacation. I could never go on vacation before. As soon as you pull the trigger on buying the plane ticket, you’re hoping and praying that no one important calls you.

For example, as a freelancer, I had been on vacation in Hawaii and got a call from this same company to go to Paris for a job. I left my wife in Hawaii and they flew me to Paris for two days to shoot a feature. Not only was I exhausted, but it couldn’t have been good for my marriage.

In a sense it’s been like a kid working in a candy store. I built the studio to my specs and it’s my place. I have an annual equipment budget, an expendables budget, and I’m my own boss. I’m expected to work full-time, but within that I’m in charge of my own schedule. The company also absorbs all the overhead costs: medical benefits, equipment insurance, etc.

At the same time it includes all the best elements of working with magazines. There is a lot of teamwork, there are deadlines, and I collaborate closely and comfortably with editorial and art—I work with the same art directors over and over again and know exactly what to expect from them and know how to handle them and their personalities. At times there’s a lot of variety. And the proximity to AD and EIC’s can be really good. We can fine-tune details of a shot without them hanging over my shoulder since they’re just down the hall and I can send them FPO’s over the server. On good days, it can really boost the creative process and take some pressure off.

And I also get to express my opinion about editorial direction. I’m in more art meetings than I would be as a freelancer, even compared to my freelance ad clients. The last meeting I was in for an ad job, I couldn’t suggest a direction for the campaign. Of course this depends on who you are and why you are hired. But when I freelanced for this publishing company, I never got called in for art meetings. Now, I’m brought in immediately after article generation and expected to come up with ideas. This is something I’d miss if I went freelance.

I would also miss having a say in the company itself. For my ad clients, I don’t have an investment in the company and can’t make suggestions regarding the brand. Here, my opinions are listened to (for the most part) and sometimes taken to heart and actually implemented.

POP: Cons?

The first day I started this job I had a panic attack in the parking lot because I realized that I would be sitting in this same parking lot at the same time on any given Monday until I finally quit. I couldn’t imagine how I’d cope with that kind of repetition. And even though there’s a certain amount of comfort in having a regular structure, it can be numbing, and it can be difficult to find creative inspiration.

People also take you for granted in a number of ways, particularly in regards to deadlines and preparation. As a freelancer, you get paid extra if the client needs to add a day due to their own lack of readiness, and clients usually come to creative meetings fully prepared. In contrast here, AD’s have the luxury of gatecrashing the studio for “emergency” projects and putting off pre-production until the day of the shoot. Obviously, that doesn’t always lend itself to great photos.

POP: Aside from being adept at shooting product, lifestyle, editorial and corporate and marketing images, it must require a unique skill set to run an in-house vs. a commercial or editorial studio?

Less skill. I don’t have to clean the coffee machine, restock the toilet paper, worry about marketing or rent the place out to other shooters when things get slow!

More seriously, scheduling is probably a little different since I have to try to accommodate everyone, but at the same time, they’re more understanding and flexible when I have conflicts. And because we all work under the same roof, I can be less diplomatic, or let’s say, “coddling.” But I probably have a unique experience in that I’m trusted. Other in-house photogs have to punch a clock and fill a quota. Likewise, as a freelancer you can’t usually delay a shoot an hour before it starts or announce at the end of the day “we don’t have this, I need to revisit it in the morning”. That’s a big luxury. But I also have to be careful that it doesn’t interfere with another project, which can lead to jealousies and resentment, aka politics, something which is par for the course at most or maybe all companies.

POP: Do you do your own retouching or do you give Raw images to the Art Directors?

That really depends on the AD, the project, the deadline, and our respective workloads on that given day. It also comes down to our respective skill sets with regards to the art direction. I’m one of those people who loves to get the shot in-camera, because I enjoy pushing lights around more than I enjoy pushing a mouse. But sometimes it makes more sense to use software.

POP: Did you have more time for personal work?

The forty-hour week is a grind. When you get home and you’re tired and hungry, sometimes the last thing you want to do is another photo shoot. The schedule can drain your energy and inspiration.

But I have done a lot of personal projects that I’ve managed to put out while I’ve been here. You really only have the weekends. And I have been able to take clients on the side that I’m interested in shooting for. It allows me to be selective.

POP: How do you keep it fun and interesting and inspired?

You pay attention to the details and the challenge of light. A grey box can be a new and different challenge on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday. Product photography especially commands your full attention to detail. You have to help it express itself.

There’s a lot of variety and it’s always different. It’s not the same kind of variety that you get with shooting freelance. But you never know when they’re going to call again. There are no guarantees on the horizon. I can relax more or less and just enjoy being a photographer.

POP: In an in-house job, you could easily get creatively complacent. Where do you look for inspiration?

I look at everything. We get a subscription budget and I get a ton of magazines and CA and Archive. With Archive, it’s advertising photographers and there are so many great concepts. I take ideas from unrelated sources. For example, I take inspiration for product shots from fashion.

It also helps having a young assistant. They’re always hungry and get bored really quickly. So I keep things interesting for them. They demand it and I have to either let them create it on their own or facilitate it.

The other day, we got a beautifully made leather bag. The art direction was to shoot it on white and cross the gutter. You can either bang it out or belabor every detail in every lighting situation. Like where the light hits the chrome and choosing your light source based on the material you’re shooting.

So I told him to shoot it however he wanted, that this shot was for him to have fun with. And he came up with some interesting stuff.

POP: Does your company hire outside photographers and are you a part of those decisions?

Some of the magazines do, but it generally depends on logistics. When we do, I’m sometimes asked to help them find a photographer in another city or state. When we shoot celebrities, they get to select the photographer and they hire either a celebrity photographer or a photography who is a celebrity. So those jobs sometimes go to outside photographers.

POP: Would you recommend working in-house to a photographer just starting out?

I think there are always the rare few who come out of school with a market-ready portfolio and clear vision and start shooting right away. The assistants I work with are fresh out of school and see a rapidly changing industry and don’t know what their place will be.

I do see a trend towards in-house photographers who can help build a brand from within. There’s always going to be a place for hiring people with completely original vision. But for the companies that don’t have a brand that requires reinvention each quarter or season, or who built their brand on the talent they hired, like David LaChapelle’s work for Diesel.

To bring their costs down when they can’t afford expensive freelance photographers, they bring in really talented people and offer them security in exchange for helping the company build their identity.

It’s a good stepping stone, but it can also be golden handcuffs.

POP: Are you shooting motion?

Yes, I’ve done two shorts. They happen to be product shoots, but my next project will be action oriented involving people.

I think I’m right there with all the other photographers who want to shoot motion and think it’s the next thing. But there’s easily as much opportunity online for still images as there is motion. Because people have the entire web at their fingertips, there’s even more opportunity and demand for beautiful, striking, page-stopping imagery to keep people on a site and not hyperlink off to another site.

But we also have to be careful not to simply port print to online. It’s a whole new medium and we can combine still with motion and sound. And we can zoom in on texture.

The iPad gets this of course. I’m not talking about GQ, Esquire and Wired on the iPad though. I’m talking about all the other magazines that are either moving to online exclusively or cutting their photo budgets because of the perceived lack of quality necessary for online images. There’s a tendency for people to say ‘it’s just for online.’ But it needs to be at least as good as it is in print because it has more to compete with.

To me, one of the most interesting parts of my job right now is that I have a front row seat to the middle shelf of the print industry and I see it getting crushed. I see it as an opportunity, not only for people who love print, but also photographers. There is immense visual opportunity online. You can zoom in to a photo on the iPad or your computer and see incredible detail.

Just like the middle class is dying, the middle class of magazines is dying. And just like the top photographers will always have work, the ones in the middle might not have a place. The ones coming out of photo schools today are rightly scared they won’t be among the top 50 and have a place. But like I said, I think there are going to be more and more companies hiring in-house photographers who understand branding and can contribute to the visual side of this. And I believe the changes happening in media are going to force photographers like myself to break out of this visual “middle class” and discover their own unique vision. That was always a requirement for big success, and I think now it’s going to be a requirement for mere survival, and I’m looking forward to that. Whether or not I can exercise that vision while being in-house though, remains to be seen.

But I’m excited about the possibility of going freelance again as well at some point. If only for the variety and the excitement of the unknown.

Ashley Klinger is the owner of the New York photo agency JMI Reps. Purchased in 2009 from Judith Miller, Ashley has spent the past two years building on Judith’s tradition of providing personal service while growing the agency to represent 18 photographers shooting in a wide range of categories from still life, conceptual, beauty, food, kids, and landscape, among others. She has added international talent and signed new photographers she couldn’t let walk out the door even when her roster was full, all while reinventing the agency and assuring that the reputation the agency was built on is the foundation that takes it to the next level.

Driven and passionate about the business and her photographers, Ashley was at the same time open, flexible, engaging and very fun and easy to work with. I imagine this equanimity contributes greatly to her success and to her ability to strike the fine balance necessary to steer a highly-respected agency brand into the future.

Photo by FRANK HERHOLDT

Photo by MARCUS NILSSON

Ashley spoke with POP about the vision for her agency, building her roster and what she looks for in new talent, and what she loves about her job and how she stays inspired. And of course about her roster of incredibly talented photographers. Thank you Ashley for all your time and for sharing so many insights into your business and so much great work with POP!

POP: What was your path to becoming a rep?
I studied photography in college at the University of Michigan. The Art Department specialized in fine art, so I never knew this whole world existed. I never wanted to be a photographer, but I fell in love with it at school! But I didn’t think it was possible for me to do what I loved while still working in the business world. I met Judy Miller after I graduated, and applied for the job. We clicked right away and as soon as I started, I realized that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It married my passions of photography with business perfectly!

Judy Miller had run Judith Miller Inc. for about 15 years after she had gotten her start with B&A Reps. (Bernstein and Andruilli). After working for Judy for 6 years, (since 2003) I bought the company in 2009. I re-branded and became JMI. It is the same business, but with my new personal spin on it! We have a lot of the same photographers, but a lot of exciting new enhancements.

We are still in the process of re-branding.

Photo by FRANK HERHOLDT

Photo by JESSICA TODD HARPER

Photo by JAMES MERRELL

POP: What does the re-branding encompass?
I think that we are trying to get people to see the new JMI. Judith Miller, Inc. was always known as a small company with a focus on “Pretty Lifestyle.” Everyone knew that if you called Judith Miller, Inc. you were going to get a personal experience. That is one of the things I always loved about this company. Judy had been in the business a long time and always was well respected.

In re-branding, I’m trying to show that we are no longer a small company, only offering one type of photography. We have a large range of photographers, and shoot everything from Very conceptual work, portraits, still life, landscape, etc. We still have lifestyle shooters, but it is important to note that we have the range.

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

Photo by DAVID SYKES

As we have moved into new areas, we are building the same deep relationships with new art buyers and have brought the same level of personal service to working with them.

I also am trying to update the company and bring it into 2011. We are a young company, so are quite modern in our approach. We are up to date—launching a brand new website, have a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, etc.

Photo by DAVID SYKES

POP: How are you using social media to reach art buyers and build the brand?
I encourage them to do their own, but we do a lot of it out of this office.  Because we are posting our work on the social media sites—Its not mandatory that each photographer have their own social media outlet.   We are constantly building our social media audience. At the beginning we reached out to our clients and continually add people we work with.

Photo by TOM WATSON

POP: What legacy are you maintaining?
I really learned the ins and outs of the business from Judy. Even though I represent 18 photographers now, I try to maintain that “small agency” feeling. Our clients will have a personal experience with us. We always keep the mentality that everyone we deal with is our most important client! There is no job too small—we treat everyone and everything with the utmost respect.

Photo by ERICKA MCCONNELL

POP: What is your philosophy behind your roster?
I am always trying to have a solid roster of amazing talent and skill. I like to have the whole range of work—so there is no niche left unfulfilled. I do have some overlap with subject matter, but each photographer’s style and approach is very different. It is important to me that I also have a personal connection with each and every one of my photographers. I like to work with people who are willing to collaborate. I also really like my photographers on a personal level—everyone is easy going and wonderful. We don’t have any divas here!

Photo by SUE PARKHILL

Photo by MIKKEL VANG

POP: You’ve launched a Kid’s division. What was behind this decision?
A lot of our photographers shoot kids in addition to their other portfolios. We loved the idea to create a group because our photographers are shooting kids in interesting ways. They all bring a unique perspective to their work and shoot the different sub-categories: fashion, food and lifestyle. To my knowledge, we are the only agency with an exclusive and comprehensive kid’s division.

Photo by DREW SACKHEIM

Photo by LEE CLOWER

POP: Do you nurture new talent or do you look for and work with photographers who have a strong, developed point of view?
I really like to do both. I think it is really exciting when a new photographer walks in the door with a portfolio that is raw, but contains something special. Seeing a talent in someone, and then helping them along the path to their goals is one of the best things about this job!

It is also nice to work with photographers who have a developed point of view, but who are willing to evolve, and re-establish themselves in the business. Every photographer has to re-invent themselves as their careers go, and it is nice to be a part of that as well.

Amy Postle came to us with work that was very film noir, voyeuristic, and sexy. It was gorgeous work, and I responded right away.  However, we needed a little more of a commercial appeal. We’ve had her merge her lifestyle work with the “sexy women” and it’s been very successful. She recently shot for Fitness and Prevention magazines. She is very talented and personable and great at getting real women to be comfortable in front of the camera. We’re showing her work to our Pharma clients because she can capture a real woman at any age and make her look beautiful.

Photo by AMY POSTLE

Photo by AMY POSTLE

Photo by AMY POSTLE

Photo by AMY POSTLE

POP: You represent stylist Christine Rudolph. Are you planning to take on more stylists? What are you looking for in the stylists that you work with?
We took on Christine Rudolph because she is so special and does such amazing work. We are still growing and eventually this will be a separate division when I find someone to head that up.

Styling by CHRISTINE RUDOLPH

Styling by CHRISTINE RUDOLPH

POP: What sourcebooks are you using and do you encourage your photographers to submit to the photo annuals?
The one sourcebook we do every year is LeBook. We love Connections and it’s a huge part of our marketing. We see a lot of clients and get a lot of work from those. We don’t enforce anything with our photographers, but they are always applying for awards and are always strongly encouraged to enter into everything to get their work recognized.

POP: Who have you added and how did you find them? What do you look for in a photographer you are considering representing?
I find photographers in many different ways. By always looking at promo cards/emails that come in. Looking in PDN. And just keeping my ears and eyes open. Most photographers come to me looking for representation.

The work has to be there—first and foremost. I have to really respond right away when I ask myself “can I sell this?” Most of the time, I’m looking to fill that gap in the roster—but sometimes someone walks in the door who I just can’t let out because everything is on—the work is there, the connection between us works, etc.

When Morten Smidt sent me an email, our roster was full. I looked at the work and saw something special. His portraits and his landscapes were really beautiful and like something I had not seen. He came in and we clicked right away.  We talked for 3 hours at that first meeting and we decided to work together immediately after.  We signed him very recently.. in June.

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

POP: Are you still looking to add new photographers and/or stylists?
At the moment my roster is pretty full. But I’m always looking. You never know when something will hit you and you HAVE to take them on. It is a gut feeling that one gets when you see the work and have to represent someone. I also always look as I love to know what is out there!

POP: How do you approach submitting multiple photographers for the same job?
We have a lot of photographers who shoot the same genre and we’ve always had the mentality that it is helpful to have the range. A lot of photographers shy away from this, but it is really in their best interest.  The trick is to never have two photographers whose work is exactly the same!  I always opt for people who differ in their point of view, palette, composition, etc.  The business is ever evolving, and trends in photography come and go for each brand and client.  When I have two food shooters, for example, if we get a call for food photography, even if it may not be perfect for the call, we are able to send along both books, and that way the client gets to see the photography so maybe if not for this time, for another time.

Photo by DREW SACKHEIM

Photo by LUCY SCHAEFFER

If one client were to hire Marcus Nilsson, they wouldn’t be interested in Lucy Schaeffer, as her food is completely different than Marcus’.  But it is nice that the client is able to see both!  If we are ever in a situation where we have to bid two of our photographers, we bid them the same so it becomes about the photography and style—which is always the main goal.

Photo by MARCUS NILSSON

Photo by LUCY SCHAEFFER

POP: In the Bay Area social media is a big subject for photographers, stylists and reps. Are you encouraging your talent to build a social media presence?
We try to encourage them to maintain their own presence, but it’s our job as agents to get the work out there as well!  It’s stronger if we can work as a team, and do it together.  As my photographers know, it is always more successful when we brainstorm and come up with a “plan of attack” together. But as long as we are on top of it, the work is in one place.  It only benefits everyone if it is in two or three places!

POP: Many art buyers I talk with say they spend half their time looking for new, fresh work. How do you work with your photographers to keep them shooting and pushing and experimenting?
I think it is so important (as I have said) that photographers are constantly being inspired and taking the time to shoot new things.  There are a lot of great photographers out there, so you have to stay on your game and always produce work that inspires you.  I try to encourage my photographers to do this in many ways, depending on each photographer.  Whether it is coming up to the office to brainstorm on where the work can go, pulling tears as to what they want to be shooting, or just sharing inspirational photography, quotes, movies, etc.  In a creative industry it is so important to be thinking ahead and constantly evolving!

Photo by LAJOS GEENEN

Photo by HUGH STEWART

POP: What has changed with regards to requests for printed books?
As a true lover of a printed portfolio, I really don’t think they will ever be obsolete.  I think in this business, people still love the experience of looking at a portfolio that is printed beautifully, art directed and clean! I will always be inspired by printed portfolios.
However, we really don’t send them out quite as often as we once did.  I think that the Art Buyers will call in portfolios when it is down to the final 3-5 photographers, and use the books as the deciding factors creatively.  That is why it is always important to keep your books up to date and ready to send out.

POP: You don’t feature your photographer’s personal work on your site. Do you encourage them to have this work on their individual sites and blogs? Do you find that clients want to see this in their portfolios?
Some photographers have a personal section on our site, but for the most part, our clients come to our site to look at work that may be applicable to a certain project. We have to make our site a bit more commercial. This is also my point of view and how I’m directing each photographer and the roster as a whole. My job is to make each photographer look their best, while still selling to the particular clients they are going after. We do link to the photographers personal site on their page on our site. I think it is important that the photographers’ site reflect their point of view—so the clients can see something different than what is on our site.

Photo by JAMES MERRELL

Photo by MORTEN SMIDT

I think it’s nice to have a supplemental book of personal work. But when we send portfolios, we gear the work towards the job. Things are so literal these days. If they ask for a pile of apples and we send a pile of oranges, it won’t translate. I do encourage my photographers, if they have a great project they’ve been working on, to create small side books.

At portfolio shows, the goal is that when the buyer closes the book, they have a strong sense of who that photographer is. If your work is  all over the place or the style doesn’t hold together, the opportunity is lost.

POP: You represent a lot of internationally based photographers. Where do they live and how do you sell them to your US clients?

Our photographers are all over the world. Denmark, Australia, London and Paris, LA, and SF, and of course NYC. Some of them have agents in those countries, but we represent them solely in the US.

International photographers have a different point of view. Our London photographers bring a quirky sensibility to their work that I love. Our Australian photographers have gorgeous light in their images, even when they are shooting here. There are different points of view across the globe and art buyers respond to this.

Photo by JAMES MERRELL

Photo by SUE PARKHILL

We also never let it be a barrier.  Our photographers are more than willing to come to NYC or the States to shoot!  That is part of the job.  For some it’s harder than others, but for the most part, we try to base all of our talent as if they are NYC based.  They will pay for airfares to get here etc.  Mikkel Vang for example, lives in Copenhagen, and will come over for 2-3 editorial shoots, and fly back that same week.  He of course will come in for an ad job—most of the time we can make it work and be as competitive as anyone else.

Photo by MIKE NEWLING

Photo by MIKE NEWLING

POP: Recent commercial project that one of your photographers was particularly inspired to land?
Hugh Hartshorne shoots portraits. He does a lot of pharmaceutical jobs, which he really does love. They are always great jobs and great clients. But he was up for a job for LensCrafters, and this was really exciting for him, as it was something different, a bit more fashiony than we were used to for him. His work was perfect for them, and when we got the job, we were all thrilled! We have worked with them on three jobs now, and hope to continue for a LOT more!

Photo by HUGH HARTSHORNE

Photo by HUGH HARTSHORNE

POP: I always ask photographers and stylists how they stay inspired. You also studied art. Where do you find inspiration? Do you find that this is as important for you as a rep as it is for your photographers and stylists?
I live in NYC. It is one of the most inspiring cities in the world! When you walk out the door, you are inspired by the buildings, the people, the fashion, even the hustle and bustle on the subways. Of course there are amazing photography exhibits, museums, plays, films, etc. that always keep one inspired. But my favorite thing to do is sit at a café outside, and watch people walk by. Not one person is the same! It is amazing.

I think because we’re in a creative business, it’s important to always be thinking of the new. I’m inspired by something different than my photographers. I stay inspired by new commercial photography and thinking of what’s coming next. I love it and have fun with people in the business because we’re always talking about creative things. I’m so glad I don’t have to talk about numbers and politics all day.

POP: Last painting, artist, movie or book that inspired you?

Two things;
Theater: “Say No More” here in NYC—it was absolutely incredible. The sets were amazing.

Movie: Bill Cunningham’s New York. So wonderful and incredibly inspiring to follow Bill around Manhattan at that age—still doing what he loves. Amazing movie.