The PICTURE PROFESSIONAL, Winter 2015

ISSUE 4/2015

THE

QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PICTURE PROFESSIONALS

PROFESSIONAL The

INSIDE issue

TABLE OF CONTENTS ISSUE 4 / 2015 THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

© MAE RYAN

© *PARDON MY HINDI

© BETH GALTON

COVER: © Beth Galton

5 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 7 EDITOR’S LETTER 8 WHAT’S HANGING 36 HOW WE DECIDE WHAT TO SEE

by April Wolfe 46 THE LAW: COPYRIGHT REVIEW

by Nancy E. Wolff 50 Q/A: BILL CRAMER Wonderful Machine

by Alex Cave 52 PICTURE PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR Michael D. Masterson

by Cathy Sachs

PORTFOLIOS 12 * PARDON MY HINDI Behind the Front Desk

by Shawnté Salabert 18 BETH GALTON Cut Food

by Amanda Meyncke

MAE RYAN 54 CHAPTER CAPTURE 26 Mary the Queen 55 IN MEMORIAM

by Sayzie Koldys Jamie Vuignier 59 BOOKSHELF 63 CONTRIBUTORS 64 LIFE IN FOCUS

by Jessica Murri

American Society of Picture Professionals

Since first forming as a small, dedicated group of picture professionals in 1966, ASPP has grown into a large community of image experts committed to sharing our experience and knowledge throughout the industry. We provide professional networking and educational opportunities for our members and the visual arts industry. If you create, edit, research, license, distribute, manage or publish visual content, ASPP is the place for you. Join us at www.aspp.com.

LIST OF ADVERTISERS age fotostock akg images Art Resource Association Health Programs Bridgeman Images

MASTHEAD

Curt Teich Postcard Archives Danita Delimont Stock Photography Disability Images Everett Collection

Robert Harding World Imagery Sovfoto/Eastfoto The Image Works Travel Stock USA Vir eo/Academy of Natural Sciences

The Picture Professional quarterly magazine of the American Society of Picture Professionals, Inc.

ASPP EXECUTIVE OFFICES 201 East 25th Street #11c New York, NY 10010 Tel: 516-500-3686 director@aspp.com

2014-2015 NATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

2015-2016 CHAPTER PRESIDENTS

PRESIDENT Cecilia de Querol

West Christopher DiNenna Tom Wear

EDITORIAL STAFF

SECRETARY Steve Spelman

Publisher Sam Merrell

TREASURER Mary Fran Loftus

Editor-in-Chief April Wolfe

MEMBERSHIP Robin Sand Anita Duncan

Art Director Mariana Ochs Copy Editor Debra P. Hershkowitz CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Nancy E. Wolff John W. W. Zeiser Josh Steichmann Sayzie Koldys Amanda Meyncke Alex Cave Debra P. Hershkowitz Cathy Sachs Shawnté Salabert

EDUCATION Susan Rosenberg Jones TECHNOLOGY Luan Luu MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS Emily Shornick

The American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) is a non-profit, non-partisan association of image experts committed to sharing their experience and knowledge throughout the industry. The Picture Professional (ISSN 1084-3701) is published spring, summer, fall and winter as a forum for distribution of information about use, purchase and sale of imagery.

ASPP is dedicated to promoting and maintaining high professional standards and ethics, and cooperates with organizations that have similar or allied interests. We welcome the submission of articles and news from all sources, on all aspects of the imagery profession.

Contact editor@aspp.com Advertising is also desired and welcomed. We offer a specific readership of professionals in positions of responsibility for image purchase decision making. For our media kit and rate sheet, contact Sam Merrell, director@aspp.com (or 516-500-3686). Space reservation deadlines: February 10, May 10, August 10, November 10. Subscription rates: Free to mem-

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Fundamental Photographs KOBAL Collection Minden Pictures MPTV images North Wind Picture Archive

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Midwest Christopher K. Sandberg New England Jennifer Riley Debra Lakind New York Darrell Perry Laurie Fink-Green DC/South Cory Lawrence NATIONAL BOARD OF TRUSTEES Cathy Sachs, Chair Andrew Fingerman Michael Masterson Chris Reed Amy Wrynn Helena Zinkham

ADVERTISING & EXECUTIVE OFFICES Sam Merrell Executive Director director@aspp.com EDITORIAL April Wolfe editor@aspp.com NATIONAL PRESIDENT Cecilia de Querol president@aspp.com MEMBERSHIP Robin Sand Anita Duncan membership@aspp.com WEBSITE Sam Merrell director@aspp.com Tel: 516-500-3686 eNEWS BLOG newsletter@aspp.com

bers, $40.00 per year to non-members. Back issues: $20.00 when available. Non-members are invited to consider membership in ASPP. POSTMASTER: Send old and new address changes to ASPP, Inc., Attn: Merrell, 201 East 25th Street #11c, New York, NY 10010. Members can update contact information and mailing addresses in the Member Area of our website at www.aspp.com. © 2014 American Society of Picture Professionals, Inc. Single photocopies of materials protected by this copyright may be made for noncommercial pursuit of scholarship or research. For permission to republish any part of this publication, contact the Editor-inChief. ASPP assumes no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to the Society’s publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official position of ASPP. Acceptance of an advertisement does not imply endorsement by ASPP of any product or service.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE CECILIA DE QUEROL

DEAR MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF ASPP, Happy New Year!

ASPP topped off a busy year with the presentation of the Jane Kinne Picture Professional of the Year award at the New York chapter holiday party. I was thrilled and honored to present the award to Michael Masterson, whose love and dedication to ASPP never wavered throughout his many years of service—as chapter board member, national president, and trustee. He continues to be a mentor, guiding me and the rest of the board as we take on the challenge of moving ASPP into the future and making sure it continues to be a strong, relevant, and valuable organization. He is a perfect example of all that is good about ASPP. Make sure you read Cathy Sach’s article about Michael and his work on page 52 of this issue.

I want to thank everyone who worked for ASPP so hard in 2015. April Wolfe, Mariana Ochs, and Debra Hershkowitz gave their all to produce our beautiful and informative magazine. Local chapter presidents and copresidents all contributed their creativity and time to the national board and worked hard with their local members to create and host informative and fun events around the country—kudos to Chris DiNenna and Tom Wear of the West chapter, Chris Sandberg of the Midwest chapter, Jennifer Riley and Debra Lakind of the New England chapter, Corey Lawrence of DC/South chapter and Darrell Perry of the New York chapter.

Many, many thanks to all who served on our national

board—Mary Fran Loftus, Susan Jones, Anna Fey, Ellen Herbert, Lisa Vasquez Roper, Mayo Van Dyck, and Doug Brooks—for your friendship and support during your tenure.

This year, we also welcomed Steve Spelman, Anita Duncan, Robin Sand, Emily Shornick, and Luan Luu. Thank you for stepping in! Our trustees, Andrew Fingerman, Michael Masterson, Chris Reed, Cathy Sachs, Amy Wrynn, and Helena Zinkman continue to support us with their wise guidance. Sam Merrell, our executive director, makes it all work; he is the glue that holds everything together, and I am so grateful for all he does. Thank you, Sam. Lastly, special thanks to all our members, who make ASPP the best organization in the business. Our 50th anniversary as an association is on the horizon in 2016, and it’s a great opportunity to become more involved. Do you have ideas or time—or both? Check your schedule and try to volunteer a few hours a month. Let your local chapter president know your ideas for a meeting or an event, and/ or how you can help! And stay current: get ASPP News via email. Halfway down the right column on our revamped website home page (where it says “Receive ASPP News…”), type your email address into the field. And finally, please use the login link on the right end of the main website menubar to enter the “Members” portion of the website to check that all your member information (mailing address, phone numbers, second email address) is up to date.

I’m really looking forward to having 2016 be ASPP’s best year yet!

CECILIA DE QUEROL ASPP.COM

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© HIROSHI CLARK, HIROSHI-CLARK.COM

EDITOR’S LETTER APRIL WOLFE

DEAR PICTURE PROS, This Winter issue, we’re continuing with our themes, offering multiple interpretations of what it means to be “Inside.” As picture professionals, being inside the industry—the production, the sale, the process—defines our jobs. But we’d like to take this one step further, looking at how we better hone our crafts by following what’s inside our hearts and heads.

For our portfolios, we have the work of Mae Ryan, who frequently infiltrates secluded communities to tell the inside stories we might not have ever known. We also have *Pardon My Hindi’s Arch Motel Project, which takes an insider’s look at how some Indian families have settled in the US, and specifically how this artist’s family was able to start their own life here. Completing our portfolio section are Beth Galton’s mesmerizing Cut Food photos, a very literal interpretation of our theme that takes simple, everyday objects and changes how we perceive them.

Our feature story this issue comes from the incredible portraiture of Martin Schoeller, who’s continually turned his camera from celebrities to the less fortunate.

In this story, we’ll examine the power of photography and perception, as Schoeller enters the communities we’ve left unseen for so long.

For our Law column, Nancy Wolff is back, taking us inside the Copyright Office to talk about some big

changes. And our Q/A has us catching up with Bill Cramer of Wonderful Machine to talk about evolving business models and photographer portfolios.

Mostly, we are very excited to introduce our 2015 Picture Professional of the Year, former ASPP President Michael Masterson. For many years, Michael’s been a cementing element of our community, and we’re very happy to honor his achievements in this issue’s pages.

In closing, we’d also like to offer condolences to the friends and family of Jamie Vuignier, who passed away recently. Jamie managed the Kobal Collection, working with long-time ASPP partner Art Resource, and was a valuable member of the ASPP community in New York City. He will be greatly missed.

Thank you all for your continued readership. As we gear up for 2016, we promise some new surprises in store for you. Over the past four years of my editorship, we’ve been continually experimenting with how to improve this magazine. Some ideas are better than others, but we are absolutely dedicated to crafting a beautiful publication, full of useful, interesting tidbits and vital information for our field. We hope you had a wonderful holiday, and you’re refreshed for the new year!

Sincerely,

A WOLFE

editor@aspp.com ASPP.COM

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WHAT’S HANGING

Photo exhibitions near you

© 1977, Hazel Hankin.

Tornado, Ticket Booth

NEW YORK

BOARDWALK RENAISSANCE: HOW THE ARTS SAVED CONEY ISLAND November 5, 2015–March 13, 2016

plummeted by the early ’60s. In recent years, the attraction of a world-class beach and boardwalk, the amusement park rides, the cheap food and tourist traps—even the hotdog eating contest and the Polar Bear Club’s New Year’s swim—all continue to draw a slightly crazy year-round crowd, and it’s all represented at this show. While you’re

For 150 years, the Brooklyn oceanfront area known as Coney Island has seen its ups and downs, but Winter 2016 seems to be its time in the sun with multiple shows worth checking out. The first, Boardwalk Renaissance, documents the work of a group of artists who took on what was a dying seaside neighborhood during the 1980s and transformed it with numerous installations and artifacts including: Madam Lily’s aging World in Wax Museum; the Spookhouse “arthouse” ride; the Mermaid Parade; and the Tribute to the Ancestors. Together, these artists and their work helped restore the Coney Island spirit that thrived throughout the 1940s but had

© 1977, Hazel Hankin. No Leaning

CITY LORE GALLERY 56 East 1st Street Manhattan

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there, make sure to check out ASPP NY chapter member Hazel Hankin’s photographs that are scattered throughout the show. Boardwalk Renaissance was produced in tandem with the Coney Island USA’s exhibit, Sodom by the Sea Salon (1214 Surf Avenue between Stillwell Avenue and West 12th Street), which is also open until February 7, 2016.

For more, head across the bridge to Brooklyn for two additional exhibits. The Coney Island show at Valentine Museum of Art (VMoA, 1655 Flatbush Avenue, through March 11, 2016), includes work from seven photographers and two painters and contains more visual art than the Boardwalk Renaissance show. This exhibit includes a dozen of Hankin’s Coney Island images, and a healthy selection of historical photographs courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection.

In addition, the Brooklyn Museum is showing Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861– 2008. While there’s a bit of ephemera (of Coney’s carousel animals and sideshows) and contemporary pieces, what caught our eye were the photos from Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Weegee, and Bruce Davidson.

(Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, through March 13, 2016.)

SPAIN FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE INSTITUTO DE CULTURA Bárbara de Braganza, 13 Madrid PAZ ERRÁZURIZ December 16, 2015–February 28, 2016 Paz Errázuriz started her photographic career under the Pinochet dictatorship in the first half of the 1970s, during a period of Chilean history laden with political events. Still working, she is one of Chile’s most internationally recognized photographers. Self-taught, her photo projects frequently involve her breaking rules imposed either by the military regime of the day, or by the culture in which she works. Errázuriz photographed at the circus, in a psychiatric hospital, in the brothels of Santiago and Talca, and out on the Chilean streets—anywhere that dared her to be where women were not well received. All this is revealed in her images, frequently showing spaces and environments where exclusion and isolation prevail. Her work portrays an ethic based on mutual respect and, when practical, living among the individuals she portrays.

This exhibit at Fundacion Mapfre brings together more than 170 Errázuriz photographs and videos, along with additional documents that retrospectively cover different sections of her work, which is ordered throughout this important show both chronologically and thematically.

© 1998, Paz Errázuriz. Women for Life, the Protests series

A unique collection of images representing the history of Russia, Soviet Union, and the entire Communist Bloc including Eastern Europe and China. research@sovfoto.com (212) 727-8170

WHAT’S HANGING COLORADO THE CENTER FOR FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY 400 North College Avenue Fort Collins PORTRAITS 2016 WITH JUROR MARTHA SCHNEIDER January 23–February 20, 2016 C4FAP offers ten calls-for-entry each year. This year’s annual Portraits show, curated by Martha Schneider, owner and director of Schneider Gallery, Chicago, brings together forty-seven photographers from around the globe who use all capture types and photographic processes.

Schneider studied at the University of Buenos Aires (Art History – 20th century), came to the US in 1964, worked for five years at the Photo Department of the Art Institute of Chicago, and founded the Schneider Gallery in 1982, where she has been exclusively showing photography since 1989. She has reviewed at FotoFest in Houston, Photolucida in Seattle, SPE in Chicago, and numerous other fairs.

A Colorado nonprofit founded eleven years ago, The Center for Fine Art Photography provides support to photographic artists through exhibition, promotion, education, and connection to a large community of artists, curators, gallery owners, and industry-leading photographic professionals. It also provides complete online galleries of every exhibit, featuring links to the artist’s websites.

There will be a reception for the artists and general public on February 5th from 6–9 pm. ● 10

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Above: © Ashley Costello. My sister looking outward.

Left: © Kirill Ovchinnikov.

Yuri Kozyrev, Russian photojournalist.

BEHIND THE FRONT DESK AN EXPLORATION OF IDENTITY IN *PARDON MY HINDI’S THE ARCH MOTEL PROJECT

WANDER OFF ANY AMERICAN FREEWAY EXIT in search of a place

to rest your weary head, and there’s at least a 50-percent chance your choice establishment will be owned by Indian Americans, an even greater likelihood that your hoteliers come from the state of Gujarat, and an almost certainty that they’ll hail from the same small farming community.

For artist *Pardon My Hindi, these aren’t just statistics— it’s his own story, one he’s been exploring since 2006 in an ongoing multimedia series titled The Arch Motel Project.

BY SHAWNTÉ SALABERT

Above: Motel ’74 / Mix Media Collage / 8.25 x 6.75 x 0.5 in. Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My Hindi Photographer: Mark Hewko / Art Direction: *Pardon My Hindi Right, both images: Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My Hindi 12

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PORTFOLIO: *PARDON MY HINDI

“PEOPLE WERE JUST KIND OF SKEPTICAL AT FIRST… WE DIDN’T WANT A MOTEL ROOM—WE WERE JUST INTERESTED IN THEM.” FAIRLY QUICKLY, THOUGH, THE CHAI AND CONVERSATION FLOWED.

A first-generation American, he spent a memorable chunk of his childhood plying the vending machines at The Arch Motel in Somerville, New Jersey. His family bought and moved into the property in 1974, and due to loosening immigration policy and a system of microloans, they were able to sponsor a rotating cast of relatives who lived with them and learned the business before scattering elsewhere in the States to run their own motels. Says *PMH, “It was almost like an Ellis Island for my family.”

The idea to document not just his personal experience but also the community as a whole, germinated on a road trip with his buddy Rob, when they crashed at a motel in San Luis Obispo, sharing dinner with the Gujarati family who owned it. “Talking about motels (with Rob) and just being in that same environment with him really helped me realize that I wanted to document this, that this needed to be captured,” explains *PMH. That documentation kicked off with a southern road

trip, a collaborative mission with friends and photographers Mark Hewko and Andy Paulus. At first, the trio attempted to plot out their stops in advance, and according to Hewko, “People were just kind of skeptical at first… we didn’t want a motel room—we were just interested in them.” Fairly quickly, though, the chai and conversation flowed. Soon, proprietors were calling ahead to friends and family with motels in other cities, paving the way. For *PMH, the experience veered from the surreal, when he stumbled across distant relatives and family friends, to the personal: “It’s almost like therapy in a way, going to these places and hearing these stories.”

What he’s uncovered along the way speaks volumes.

Says *PMH, “This project has been pretty interesting because it’s not even about Indian culture, it’s an identitybased project…what I’m trying to do is explore a first layer of American culture.” This is most clear in the photographs that focus on the motels’ reception areas, where you might

Above image: Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My HindiPhotographer: Mark Hewko / Art Direction: *Pardon My Hindi.

Left, both images: Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My Hindi ASPP.COM

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PORTFOLIO: *PARDON MY HINDI

notice a small gold crucifix gleaming on the lobby wall, while a colorful Hindu shrine sits hidden just below, beneath the desk counter itself.

“The office is usually set up in three different parts,” *PMH says. “You have their living quarters, where they can be themselves. They can put anything up on the walls that they feel comfortable putting up; they can cook whatever they want—the smells are semi-trapped in that space.

Then you have the lobby, which is catered more towards the customer, with a soda machine, or credit card information, or flyers for things around town. Then you have the front desk, which is the transition area—it’s the most interesting. It really depends on how comfortable the person is with their identity, as well as what kind of environment they live in. Are they in a liberal city compared to more conservative? You can see that conversation through that environment, which is pretty fascinating.”

Even though The Arch Motel Project is ongoing, it’s

already found an audience, with pieces featured at the Aicon Gallery in New York, The Gateway Project in New Jersey, and as part of the Smithsonian’s Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape The Nation exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History.

“It’s my first home, it’s my parents’ first entrepreneurial step in America, there are postcards of the property that were part of this exhibition,” says *PMH. “It was great to celebrate our story in an institution like that.”

While it certainly stands on its own, The Arch Motel Project is but one facet of *PMH’s continual exploration of cultural history and identity in America. He just launched a new project, I Want This Only, where you might purchase an array of contextualized items including an oxidized tin labeled Ann Page Pure Curry Powder, a #WhitePeopleDoingYoga t-shirt, or possibly even lunch with his family in New Jersey—whether or not that would occur at The Arch Motel itself is left untold. ●

Above: …Is Where the Heart Is / Postcard / 4 x 6 in / Front and Back / writing by the artist.

Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My Hindi. Photographer: Mark Hewko / Art Direction: *Pardon My Hindi Right, both images: Part of The Arch Motel Project by *Pardon My Hindi 16

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The Surprising Inner World of Western Snacks: Beth Galton’s

cuT food

BY AMANDA MEYNCKE

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19 © BETH GALTON

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21 © BETH GALTON

© BETH GALTON

A SPLASH OF COLD WHITE MILK curls deeply into dark

coffee. Ice cream cones and corn dogs alike reveal their true inner nature, sliced lengthwise and unexpectedly put on display. A Thanksgiving turkey gleams in harsh light and displays a wealth of colorful stuffing buried deep inside. In a world where food photography usually means carefully arranged, well-lit images of mouthwatering dishes, food photographer Beth Galton presents a very different view with her Cut Food series.

Inspired by an assignment in which she was hired to photograph cut-up burritos, Galton soon found herself wondering how to push the boundaries of food photography. “There is much focus on how food is styled on a plate,” she says. “But little attention is paid to what the dish actually looks like inside, once opened.”

While it would have been easy enough to slice open an apple and call it a day, Galton and food stylist Charlotte

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Omnès were interested in exploring the extraordinary that could be found in commonplace foods.

“We chose foods which we felt were iconic symbols within our western food culture—classic items that many of us grew up eating. As we chose subjects, it became apparent that some images needed to live in pairs such as the donut and coffee, and the pints of ice cream.” Galton felt that pairing iconic food items made a stronger statement about their connection. Suddenly, everyday foods took on new meaning when placed in high-contrast settings and presented in unfamiliar, even impossible, ways.

Though bisecting dishes has been done before, Galton, in collaboration with Omnès and digital retouchers Daniel Hurlburt and Ashlee Gray, worked tirelessly to create images that would delight and amaze.

For Galton, visual interest took precedence over the

© BETH GALTON

PORTFOLIO: BETH GALTON

everyday and expected. “We’ve been asked to cut other foods in half, like a cake, which is not surprising. It was important that the subject was interesting and surprising in some visual way.” The team’s attention to detail paid off in visually remarkable ways.

Every food item had unique challenges that had to be solved, whether it was liquid or solid. “Some items could be cut in half simply, like the donuts,” said Galton, “others, like the coffee, required multiple images captured and put together in Photoshop. The soup required gelatin added to the liquid.” A few images came together as if by magic, including the cereal box. “We put this together with just a few photos of the pouring milk. Charlotte’s first pour was almost perfect and required just a few more captures of various elements to complete the image.” Some images required a bit more muscle than initially expected, including the iconic turkey dinner.

“Charlotte had a leftover turkey from a job, which she froze for our shoot. She thought it would be easiest to cut it in half while frozen and we both tried diligently to cut it in half with a hacksaw. We finally gave up and Charlotte went to her boyfriend’s studio to have it cut on a band saw.”

The working relationship between Omnès and Galton was important, but a bulk of work remained for Hurlburt and Gray. “When our ideas could not be created realistically, then they would help guide us with creating enough images to assemble the [final] image we wanted.”

Whether it was creating the cup of coffee cut in half, or building the chicken bucket and gravy shot, Galton said, “They both added their creativity as well as their technical expertise to the process.” ● You can find out more about Beth Galton on her website bethgalton.com.

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25 © BETH GALTON

Sisters attend a wake for Sister Patricia on March 4, 2010. The Sisters of Charity established the Convent of Mary the Queen in 1958 as a residence for senior sisters who could no longer take care of themselves.

MARY THE QUEEN THE WORK OF MAE RYAN

BY SAYZIE KOLDYS

© MAE RYAN

© MAE RYAN

PORTFOLIO: MAE RYAN

The residence housed approximately 80 women, including ( from left) Sisters Jude, Mary, and Helen. Sister Jude knew she wanted to be a nun from a young age. “As a teenager, you think you would rather do that or go out on dates or have a binding engagement or something like that. There wasn’t any attraction there for me. God will draw you to where he wants you, unless you step in his way.”

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Š MAE RYAN

Sister Marilda Joseph Aeillo sits in front of a portrait of Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded the Sisters of Charity in 1817. According to other sisters in Mary the Queen, Sister Marilda got sick many years ago and vowed never to take the habit off if she recovered. She died at Mary the Queen on August 26, 2014.

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IT BEGAN WITH A FUNERAL. On her first visit to the

Convent of Mary the Queen, a nursing home for the Sisters of Charity in Yonkers, NY, Brooklyn-based photographer Mae Ryan found herself taking pictures at a mass for one of the nuns. She quickly recognized that a number of the women inhabiting the convent were close to death, and that Mary the Queen was the place they came to live out their last days, to reflect, and to contemplate what they might find on the other side. Ryan, who is driven by narrative, knew that this was a story she wanted to tell.

Ryan studied architectural design at Stanford, and photojournalism and documentary photography at The International Center of Photography. She’s now senior video producer at The Guardian US and uses film and photography to explore people and places she wouldn’t have access to without a camera.

“I’m drawn to getting in deep with people to understand their motivations for living the life they live,” she says. “I work on projects where I can connect with my subjects.”

In the past five years, Ryan has connected with a Pentecostal rehabilitation group in Russia, parole officers and parolees in California’s prison realignment program,

and women who are pregnant in prison and caring for their babies behind bars. The stories she chooses to tell are often provocative; Ryan offers a nuanced view. Although she was initially drawn to Mary the Queen because she had a sense that it was “from a different era,” Ryan came to see the nuns not as throwbacks to another time but as leaders in their communities.

“Many had lived very full, professional lives,” Ryan says.

“In fact, some of them seem like the original career women of the 20th century, since they didn’t have families and could devote themselves to helping others, teaching, and running hospitals.” Now, at the end of their lives, they’re questioning whether their devotion to God will transfer to the afterlife.

Ryan captures both their uncertainty and their devotion by photographing everyday moments. She spent months forming relationships with the sisters— at the hair salon, in the chapel, and in their living spaces—becoming a regular presence in their world “without always taking photos,” she says. The pictures are intimate, and Ryan’s occasional technique of shooting through windowpanes and glass doors reveals more than it obscures. The women—

SHE SPENT MONTHS FORMING RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE SISTERS—AT THE HAIR SALON, IN THE CHAPEL, AND IN THEIR LIVING SPACES—BECOMING A REGULAR PRESENCE IN THEIR WORLD “WITHOUT ALWAYS TAKING PHOTOS,” SHE SAYS.

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© MAE RYAN © MAE RYAN

Sister Helen Callahan was a dedicated teacher and entered the order when she was 19 years old. “I sat in the chapel the other day and I just looked up in front of me and there were seven sisters sitting in their places,” said Sister Helen Callahan. “I looked and I counted each one, and each one is afflicted with this Alzheimer's... but then you thank God and you say, ‘Why? Why, God, are you sparing me?’” She died on July 22, 2015.

Like many of the residents at the home, Sister Mary J Walsh suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Once sisters entered Mary the Queen, they rarely left the premises except for doctors appointments.

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Š MAE RYAN

PORTFOLIO: MAE RYAN

Nuns who came to Mary the Queen knew that it would be their final resting place. Since these photos were taken in 2010, Mary the Queen closed and all of the sisters moved to other nursing homes.

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© MAE RYAN

Sister Anne Golden, who broke her hip days earlier, screams out in pain for nearby nurses to assist her. Golden said she admired nuns since kindergarten. “I always looked up to the sisters, and I used to say to my mother, ‘I’m going to be a sister.’”

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PORTFOLIO: MAE RYAN

bedridden, wheelchair-bound, or bent over walkers—are found behind reflections in the glass. The reflections evoke the ethereal, and at times suggest the world outside from which some of the subjects are withdrawing.

In one image, a sister with a walker stands in a stairway landing and looks up at a flight of stairs bathed in hazy light. Soon after the photo was taken, the woman had a stroke and later died. For Ryan, the image “is about her contemplating death.” In a complementary photo, a sister faces away from the viewer, and the focus is on a pair of glasses draped across her back. She’s “looking backward at the life that she lived,” Ryan says.

Ryan’s juxtaposition of the black habits and iconic Catholic statuary that have changed little over centuries with modern magazines and St. Patrick’s Day decorations encourages us, too, to contend with the lives of these women as much as with their deaths. They are women who adapted to change, both in the secular world and in the church, whose stories are a living history.

But Ryan learned that not all of them had family nearby or regular visitors with whom to share those memories,

so she listened as well as photographed. Some of her favorite stories came from a nun named Jude, who was in her mid-nineties and was from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where Ryan was living at the time.

“She would tell me about her childhood there and all the trolleys that used to run in the streets,” Ryan says. “It gave me perspective on the history that surrounds me.”

And as it turns out, Ryan’s photographs captured a piece of history for the nuns. Unbeknownst to anyone when she embarked on this project, she was documenting a final chapter of the nursing home. Traditionally, the Sisters of Charity have cared for each other as they aged, but no one in the US has joined the order in the past twenty years, and according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, there are now more nuns over age 90 than under age 60. The old model isn’t working anymore. In 2014, the diocese announced the impending closure of the Convent of Mary the Queen, and in 2015, the nuns were relocated. The Sisters of Charity now reside in the Jewish Home Lifecare facility in the Bronx and are once again adapting and ministering to a broader community. ●

THE REFLECTIONS EVOKE THE ETHEREAL, AND AT TIMES SUGGEST THE WORLD OUTSIDE FROM WHICH SOME OF THE SUBJECTS ARE WITHDRAWING.

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© MAE RYAN © MAE RYAN

Sister Kevin Marie MacDonald worked as an elementary school teacher throughout her 46 years of active ministry. She died on January 26, 2015.

Sister Rita Moon leaves the craft room in the basement of Mary the Queen.

“I used to be frightened at the thought of death, and then all of a sudden one day, I didn’t have that fear…the end is when God calls you home,” Rita said.

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HOW WE DECIDE

WHAT TO SEE Martin Schoeller’s Portraits of the Homeless

BY APRIL WOLFE

W

e are reminded often that Martin Schoeller is a famed German photographer who’s shot celebrities, including Barack Obama, for magazines like Rolling Stone, National Geographic, Time, and The New Yorker (at which Schoeller is a staff photographer). His signature portrait style puts us face-to-face with the deep details of his subjects, revealed in all their gorgeous or flawed beauty.

While his celebrity portraiture is quite famous, some of Schoeller’s greatest work has come from not only non-famous subjects, but those who are homeless.

This year, in partnership with the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition (GWHFC)—a volunteer organization that serves hot meals to those in need, seven nights a week—Schoeller took a series of portraits of Los Angeles’ homeless population. He uploaded them to Instagram, getting around 50,000 followers almost instantly. Schoeller, who had gained acclaim before the digital age, had started an account specifically for these images and included snippets of stories or dialogue he had with his subjects. He had no idea what he would start.

“The pictures are fairly straightforward portraits,” he said. “I’m trying to give a sense of the slice of life. What they’re going through, why they’re on the streets, just little anecdotes really.”

Ted Landreth, a veteran investigative journalist and producer, started the GWHFC with his wife Penny twenty-eight years ago. The two were introduced to Schoeller

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through their daughter Audrey, a photo editor and agent, and bonded over a shared interest in generosity and doing good. Growing up in Germany when the country was still mandating its citizens to either serve in the military or do civic work, Schoeller had been ingrained with a culture of volunteering. He opted for civic work after a particular religion teacher in high school inspired him to find a cause.

“I ended up at a little kids group around the corner. I went and took some weekend trips with a friend of mine.

It influenced me a lot. I always had this inclination to do socially relevant things.”

Since then, in between celebrity and magazine clients, he’s photographed foster and homeless kids, documenting their stories with his signature portraits. His intent was to democratize the medium and humanize the subject. When Kim Kardashian selfies dominate the Instagram space, it’s even more amazing that Schoeller’s portraits of the homeless have become so popular in a matter of weeks. It speaks to our growing awareness of our biases and what we’re really representing with photography.

Earlier in 2015, a Canon photo project calling out these biases circulated around the internet. Six different photographers were asked to photograph the same man; each was told the man was something different—convict, millionaire, alcoholic, etc. When the resulting images were reviewed, it became clear that the photographers’ mental lenses had vastly informed their cameras’ lenses. Everything from the lighting to the props reinforced preconceived notions of

© MARTIN SCHOELLER

CASSIUS Martin: “You from around here?” Cassius: “Cleveland, East Cleveland.” M: “Ohio in the winter outside is tough.” C: “Yeah, I don’t like that. Why do you think I’m here?” M: “Sit up a little more straight up, like a king on a throne.” C: “Oh…I feel like I’m at the dentist.”

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© MARTIN SCHOELLER

PORTRAITS OF THE HOMELESS

CARMELL Martin: “How do you get by on the streets?” Carmell: “With the soup lines. I know some soup lines and soup kitchens and churches that help me out like that with food and clothes. And I survive like that. And products and showers and…?” M: “Staying out of trouble?” C: “Yeah, staying out of trouble, staying out of trouble.”

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© MARTIN SCHOELLER

MARTIN SCHOELLER

CYNTHIA Martin: “Are you in a program now?” Cynthia: “Right now, yeah.” M: “So you got your own bed, same bed every night?” C: “It’s like day to day, the shelter. But I don’t know… I end up always leaving every time I check in ’cause shelters are just not really… I tried it, it’s a program, they said work the program to help you in the way you want it to help you, but the shelter is not just for everybody.”

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© MARTIN SCHOELLER

PORTRAITS OF THE HOMELESS

ALEJANDRO Martin: “You were in foster care?” Alejandro: “From like second grade all the way until I graduated from high school, long term foster home with three African American women from Texas. They were elderly.”

M: “They were okay moms?” A: “Well, there was a lot of kids there so you didn’t get like the attention that a normal… M: “That a normal kid would get?” A: “Yeah, there was always a dozen at a time.”

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“WHETHER IT’S BARACK OBAMA OR JACK NICHOLSON, IT’S A VERY DEMOCRATIC APPROACH—THE SAME LENS, THE SAME LIGHTING. I TAKE THESE PICTURES ON FILM, TO KEEP THE SAME CONSISTENCY. IT’S A NICE WAY TO INVITE COMPARISON, TO TRY TO SEE WHAT HUMANS ARE REALLY MADE UP OF.”

what we think a convict or millionaire or alcoholic might look like. Following this line of logic, if anyone other than Schoeller had taken these portraits, would they instead have reinforced our stereotypes of homeless people?

“Whether it’s Barack Obama or Jack Nicholson, it’s a very democratic approach—the same lens, the same lighting. I take these pictures on film, to keep the same consistency. It’s a nice way to invite comparison, to try to see what humans are really made up of.”

Landreth thinks Schoeller was the obvious match for the project, not just because of the democratization of his images but because of his personality. He says Schoeller teamed up with a formerly homeless assistant who was able to make the subjects feel comfortable and that Schoeller himself conversed freely and easily with them, which is where the text tags on the Instagram photos came from. Sadly, these often heart-wrenching bits seemed to draw many comments from those who chose to disregard the meaning of the project to preach their own antithetical agendas.

“In the beginning, I fell into the trap,” Schoeller says. “I started reading the comments. It left me unhappy. There’s a broad range. But there are many ignorant people. I think it’s best to stay out of the comments now.” It took merely a week on social media for Schoeller to learn what many of us already knew. Still, Landreth and Schoeller feel their project is reconceptualizing how we see the homeless.

“Most people who think of the homeless think of a stereotyped character who is probably a bum, maybe drug addict, maybe crazy, maybe dangerous; but we know better,” Landreth says. “We know every person who’s homeless has a different story. They look different, they have different stories, and it’s wrong for the wider public to think the word ‘homeless’ covers everybody.”

Many who happen upon Schoeller’s new images don’t

realize the subjects are homeless. Instead, the words “interesting” or “fascinating” often pop up to describe their faces.

Schoeller even recently hung some of these new portraits besides his more famous celebrity ones for an exhibition in Sweden. People were more taken by the image of the homeless person than they were by Barack Obama’s portrait right beside it. In fact, the juxtaposition led to its popularity.

“That is sort of the ultimate point from Martin’s point of view,” Landreth says. “The people he has met through us are no less interesting, no less deserving of attention, than the president of the United States.”

While the images have grown in popularity and Schoeller is adding new ones every week, the social media buzz hasn’t quite translated into donations, although a British gentleman contacted them after seeing a particular portrait and donated $40 directly to the man, while an Indian exchange student in West Virginia has been donating $5 a week. There have been little bits here and there, and the hope is that more donations will come in as people begin to see the human side of this population. And with a newly launched fundraiser, so GWHFC can buy a parking lot to accommodate everyone who shows up, the images might galvanize action in the same way it’s suddenly attracted so many new volunteers: UCLA’s business school has just partnered with the coalition, offering their management skills to make better use of the volunteers’ time.

With all of this good will going around, it’s nice to remember that this started with one photographer taking unusual images. In this case, what’s so unusual is that Schoeller imagined his subjects differently, eliminating their original context in order to combat stereotype. No matter what fancy new camera comes on the market, the power of photography lies directly in the minds of photographers and how they want us to share their perception of the world. ●

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© MARTIN SCHOELLER

PORTRAITS OF THE HOMELESS

REBEKKA

Martin: “How long have you been together [with your boyfriend]?” Rebekka: “A little over two years.”

M: “What happened to your baby?” R: "The state has her. Because [my boyfriend] went to jail. And I have seizures that are stress-related. And the only way for me to keep the stress down was to smoke weed. Um … ’cause I didn’t want to go into a seizure with a baby again. And, um … so the state took her because she had a little bit of pot in her system.”

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MARTIN SCHOELLER

KEN Martin: “Tell me your name?” Ken: “My name is Ken. They call me Grace though.” M: “Because you’re so graceful?”

K: “No, because I used to do Grace Jones with The Cosmetics. I’m a female impersonator with The Cosmetics, a group.

And I used to be called graceful anyway ’cause I ice skate.”

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PORTRAITS OF THE HOMELESS

Notes from a Guest Photo Editor

BY DEBRA P. HERSHKOWITZ

P

RIOR TO CHOOSING these particular portraits,

I thought about Schoeller’s goal, his intention to give back. He has accomplished that, doing what he does best: These subjects have seen better times, yet Schoeller has photographed them beautifully, without a hint of judgment. The details— eyes, skin, hair—are presented respectfully, just like any others Schoeller has shot, devoid of information or comment on circumstance.

My typical editing process would be to select images that illustrate words, concepts, a campaign, a lesson, or, that furthered an agenda. In this specific task, I had to first consider what the criteria should be.

I could choose images based on one of two directions: knowing that the subjects are homeless (reading their short interviews and relating their words to their photos), or ignoring it for the sake of aesthetic. I chose a combination of both.

Knowing circumstances as told in their briefly expressed stories on Instagram:

CARMELL

CYNTHIA

I’m attracted to this lovely, peaceful face without knowing exactly why, other than that his eyes definitely pulled me in. He seems acclimated to living on the street.

There seems a sense of irony in this face.

And sweet dignity.

Ignoring those circumstances and analyzing aesthetics:

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CASSIUS

ALEJANDRO

KEN

REBEKKA

Sweet, open, and inviting face, showing just a hint of a smile.

Open, enquiring face with lots of “active” hair.

Great lines and creases, offering built-in shadows and highlights.

Slightly asymmetrical, with an offset jaw.

Of all the faces, I wanted to know her story. The freshscrubbed, freckled face seemed too Middle America to be homeless. And in many ways, that’s the whole point of this series—dispelling stereotypes.

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THE LAW

Copyright Review: The Latest Developments from Washington

BY NANCY E. WOLFF

I

N 2012, MARIA A. PALLANTE, Register of Copyrights

of the United States, delivered the Horace S. Manges lecture at Columbia Law School where she discussed her reflections on the current status of US copyright law and her vision for “The Next Great Copyright Act.”1 This lecture started a conversation that continued with her 2013 address to Congress as to whether certain aspects of the copyright laws were outdated and in need of review in the upcoming years.

Congressional Hearings As she noted, the last major overhaul of the Copyright Act took place in 1976, and the drafting process took more than twenty years. Although some reforms were put in place in the late 1990s, including the enactment of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1996 and Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, technology and the public’s relationship with copyrightable works have vastly outpaced the law’s and the Copyright Office’s ability to adapt.

Following this address, Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee announced a “comprehensive series” of hearings on US copyright law. Since that time, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet has conducted a series of hearings, which concluded with Register Pallante’s testimony on April 29, 1. http://copyright.gov/docs/next_great_copyright_act.pdf 46

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2015.2 The Committee heard from a broad spectrum of interested parties—authors and authors’ representatives, copyright industry representatives, academics, and representatives of ISPs. In total, about 200 people testified before the Committee. 3 Following these hearings, the Subcommittee has conducted several follow-up meetings to discuss specific proposals and legislative priorities.

Among the proposals were issues involving the takedown procedure under the DMCA, potential orphan works legislation, a pilot program for extended collective licensing, the fair use doctrine, copyright registration policies and the online registration system, a specialized Copyright Small Claims Court, and the increasingly acute need for more funding and greater autonomy for the Copyright Office.

The Copyright Office Response The Copyright Office has been conducting hearings and soliciting feedback on a variety of issues via several “Notices of Inquiry.” The community—trade associations involved in graphic arts, photography, and image licensing—filed responses to these inquiries on behalf of their members.

The Copyright Office initiated studies and prepared reports on pressing issues.

2. http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2015/4/hearing-the-register-s-perspective-on-copyright-review 3. http://copyright.gov/laws/hearings/

1. Copyright Small Claims Court One of the principal problems for artists in the digital age is that many create high-volume/low-value works that are easily infringed with little recourse.

The cost of bringing a lawsuit in federal court often exceeds any likely recovery. If a work was registered before the infringement, the artist has a possibility of greater recovery in the form of statutory damages and attorneys’ fees, but many artists don’t register their works because of time and expense. In a report issued in September 2013, the Copyright Office proposed a new, less expensive form of adjudication for small copyright claims, i.e., those seeking less than $30,000 in damages. It would be a voluntary process in which claims are submitted online and the copyright holder would not need an attorney.4 2. Orphan Works Orphan Works are works in copyright where the owner cannot be identified or located, even after a goodfaith search. About ten years ago, the Copyright Office found that this issue was inhibiting the use of works that would be valuable to society. For example: museums have collections of works they want to share with the public in a virtual gallery; writers want to use letters or portions of letters in a biography; and documentarians want to use images, newspaper articles, and motion clips about a subject of public interest.

The fear in using these “orphan works”—even after a thorough good-faith effort to find the owner—is that a rights holder might later come forward later, seeking damages or an injunction. After a new study, the Copyright Office suggested proposed legislation that would limit remedies a copyright owner could claim 4. http://copyright.gov/docs/smallclaims/

THE LAW

“…TECHNOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC’S RELATIONSHIP WITH COPYRIGHTABLE WORKS HAVE VASTLY OUTPACED THE LAW’S AND THE COPYRIGHT OFFICE’S ABILITY TO ADAPT.”

under circumstances where there is evidence that a diligent search was made.5 3. Mass Digitization and Extended Collective Licensing Pilot Program The report on orphan works also covered mass digitization, in which a user wants to make use of hundreds or even millions of works but the cost of seeking individual permissions is prohibitive. Because some of these uses have considerable informational or educational value, the Office is seeking to establish an efficient means of licensing. They hope to set up Extended Collective Licensing (ECLs) organizations to grant licenses to these users on behalf of all similarly situated right holders, even if all of the right holders haven’t joined the ECL. The ECL would then distribute the proceeds to all the right holders, and would have specific responsibilities with respect to license proceeds owed to the unidentified rights holders of orphan works.

A New Budget?

All of these proposals would require a modern, 21stcentury Copyright Office capable of serving both authors and the public. The Office and the position of Register were created as a department of the Library of Congress in 1897, at a time when the priority was securing deposit copies of works—primarily books—for the Library’s archives. The Copyright Office now has a breadth of functions that go beyond mere registration and acquiring deposit copies. Registration is optional, many works are digital, and not all types of work are of interest to the Library.

Nonetheless, the Copyright Office has never had autonomy or control over its budget and technology systems.

The fact that the Copyright Office is severely underfunded is nothing new, yet recent events have thrust the issue back into the spotlight. For example, this past September widespread network failures at the Library of Congress com5. http://copyright.gov/orphan/reports/orphan-works2015.pdf

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pletely disrupted the Copyright Office’s online registration system for more than a week.

In May, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report revealing that the Library of Congress has serious information technology management weaknesses and is in need of a substantial overhaul.6 In June, House Representatives Judy Chu and Tom Marino released a discussion draft of the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act or CODE Act.7 If passed into law, it would establish the Copyright Office as an independent agency, no longer under the purview of the Library of Congress, with its director appointed by the President.

It’s difficult to predict what, if any, legislation reform will happen, or how quickly. Currently, there is no legislation pending to make the Copyright Office an independent agency, or to revise any part of the current Copyright Act. The act of passing legislation is a slow process, as witnessed by attempts to pass orphan works legislation nearly a decade ago.

There does, however, seem to be support and momentum for reforming the Copyright Act. Top priorities may be the CODE Act and establishing a specialized small claims court.

Making the Copyright Office autonomous, as a separate agency with its own budget, would be a good first start to bringing it into the 21st century. Once established as an independent agency, the Copyright Office would be better equipped to manage an alternative tribunal for settling small claim disputes. In addition, anyone who registers works online should support improvements to its budget and technology systems. The registration system should be designed to accommodate both those who register works and those searching for information about pre-existing works. For copyright law to work, it needs to meet the needs of many stakeholders, including individual authors and users, who are in many instances one in the same. ● 6. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-315 7. http://marino.house.gov/sites/marino.house.gov/files/Final%20 Marino%20Chu%20Discussion%20Draft%20on%20CODE%20 Act.pdf

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Q&A

Bill Cramer, Wonderful Machine

BY ALEX CAVE

W

ONDERFUL MACHINE BEGAN just over a de-

cade ago as a modest agency co-op when Bill Cramer, Chris Crisman, and Ryan Donnell began sharing equipment and staff to operate with lower overhead than other photo agencies. While most agencies have high administrative costs, WM reduced theirs by connecting clients directly with photographers, leaving the billing process to the photographers. Originally envisioned as an agency with around 100 photographers, today Wonderful Machine boasts more than 700 photographers in 50 different countries.

We recently had the chance to do a Q&A email exchange with founder and CEO Bill Cramer, in which we discussed the current state of photo agencies, what he looks for in photographers, and the future of Wonderful Machine.

Since you launched Wonderful Machine in 2004, have you noticed a shift in the photo rep and agency industry to compete with your product?

Yes, I have, although it’s hard to know whether we’ve had any influence on that shift or whether it was starting to happen anyway. A lot of reps are now offering à la carte marketing, estimating, and production services for photographers outside of their stable. And some, like Frank Meo, have even created photographer directories (The Photo Closer). Before we adopted our current business model, Wonderful Machine started as a cooperative at a time when that was pretty unusual. Since then, dozens of cooperatives have sprung up.

I’ve read somewhere that part of Wonderful Machine’s success is due to lower administration costs than editorial picture agencies. As WM has grown over the past few years, has it been more difficult to keep these costs down?

Yes. Part of my original plan was to streamline the conventional picture agency business model (which is some50

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what different from an advertising rep business model).

In an editorial picture agency, the administrative costs of handling assignment logistics and billing eat up a big part of a relatively small creative fee. So connecting the client directly to the photographer leaves a lot more money in the photographer’s pocket.

There are many great photographers today who haven’t considered writing a marketing plan or business model. How does Wonderful Machine help in this regard?

Business plans are overrated. The most important thing is to have a simple, compelling idea that you can work toward. But a marketing plan is a different story. Since most photographers have such a limited amount of time, energy, and money to spend on marketing, having an actual plan will allow you to get the most bang for your buck.

Over the years, we’ve learned how to help photographers reconcile their interests and skills with the opportunities in the marketplace and then create a plan to research and connect with clients who are appropriate for them.

Stock photography seems to be a new addition to Wonderful Machine’s recently launched website. How does WM’s stock side differ from some of the larger stock photo agencies?

We actually don’t maintain a library of images at all. When clients send us stock requests, we send them out to our photographers, and they respond directly to the clients with images that meet their needs. Clients love the fact that they get unique pictures that don’t show up on the stock sites. And our photographers love the opportunity to connect with those clients.

You spend a lot of time looking at other photographers’ websites, so I’m curious: What stands out to you on a photographer’s website and what are your pet peeves?

Yes! I have some definite opinions about how photogra-

© WONDERFUL MACHINE

Team Wonderful Machine in their office. If you look closely to the left, you can see their team mascot.

phers should present themselves in general, and what their websites should look like in particular. We get 25–30 inquiries a week from photographers interested in joining, so we’ve scrutinized thousands of websites over the years.

Here are the things that I think are essential for an effective photographer website: 1. Edit. Many photographers treat their portfolio website like a scrapbook of their favorite pictures rather than the strategic marketing tool it is. A good edit looks forward to assignments you want to get, not backward to assignments you’ve shot. Before you select pictures for your website, you have to decide what your “brand” is. For most photographers, your brand answers the questions, “What kinds of pictures do I make and for what kinds of clients?”

With that settled, you can organize, categorize, edit, and sequence your photos in a way that will convey a specific message to specific types of clients. If your favorite picture doesn’t support your brand, you have to leave it out. (This is not a job for amateur picture editors.)

2. Functionality. There are so many good website templates out there, and they’re so inexpensive and easy to use (we like Squarespace, APhotoFolio, and PhotoShelter), that there’s no reason not to have an attractive, functional website. It needs to show big pictures. They should load fast, and it should be intuitive to advance from one picture to the next. You shouldn’t have too many or too few pictures in each section. You should be able to easily navigate to anywhere from anywhere (in other words, keep as many things in your main menu as possible). You should have a contact page with your actual contact information on it, including your location. You should have an “about” page that talks about your professional experience and creative process (and a picture of you), and you should have a blog.

3. Style. You should have an actual logo that helps create a graphic identity for you, and you should use color and type in an attractive, professional way. (This is not a job for amateur designers.) Your website should present the best version of you. ● ASPP.COM

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© 2013 KRISTOFER DAN-BERGMAN

JANE KINNE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR:

Michael D. Masterson

BY CATHY SACHS

L

ET’S BE FRANK. Michael Masterson would

have been given the Jane Kinne Picture Professional of the Year award a long time ago if it were not for the provision that a member not be on any board for at least one year before being nominated. And, bless Michael, he had been serving on either the local West Coast board or as national board president for six years—until the end of 2013. Michael currently heads Masterson Consulting, working on projects ranging from business development to talent sourcing and events promotion and marketing. So, it is with the utmost pleasure to see this final “crowning” of someone who is without a doubt a most perfect candidate, not just for his service to ASPP, but to the industry in general.

It has been remarkably easy to garner accolades about Michael. The one inescapable notion about him is that he knows everyone. “Michael Masterson is one of the most all-inclusive and congenial professionals in the industry on all levels,” Danita Delimont said. No matter what city— or continent—Michael inevitably knows someone at that meeting, conference, or social gathering, and his presence and easy laugh will infect the room.

“One of the best things about Michael is his ability to light up a room and make instant connections,” said former ASPP Executive Director Jain Lemos. If one were to do an ABC of his qualities, one could easily jump to the letter C: congenial, committed, communicator, cheerleader, connected, common sense, charming, charismatic, colleague, cocktails. Recognize him? So let’s delve a little deeper into Michael’s background to see the origins of his success.

Michael has a broad range of experience in marketing, business development, strategic planning, contract negotiations, and recruiting in the photography, graphic design, and publishing industries. His interest in photography dates from his early years and was influenced by his 52

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dad (an Air Force pilot who flew to Japan regularly) who had a large collection of cameras and lenses. Michael himself became the “guy with the camera” at parties and family gatherings, and thus began his passion for photography.

In the early ’80s, he started his career at Workbook; this expanded to stock when he began Stock Workbook in 1987. A longtime colleague of Michael’s from Workbook, Lorena Arnold said, “Michael’s best trait is that he is a great mediator. He never loses his cool, and works through problems to find solutions.” Since his early days, Michael has been a speaker or panelist at industry events and national conferences like Seybold, PhotoPlus Expo, Visual Connections, and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA).

As executive director of PACA, Cathy Aron has worked alongside Michael for many years. “He has always put the association first and brings out the best in everyone he knows,” she said.

ASPP was incredibly lucky when Jane Kinne suggested that Michael would be a great candidate to head up the West Coast chapter. When a couple of years later (as then–executive director) I persuaded him to run for

national president, he brought his considerable talents to bear at the national level. During the course of two terms, he initiated and instituted many improvements to the association. He added a raft of member benefits, including discounts from Apple and Adobe, group and business insurance plans, and job links. For a while, he worked with Niki Barrie, longtime editor of The Picture Professional who remarked, “Michael was a dream to work with. He was then and continues to be engaging, supportive, and protective of ASPP and the magazine.” He went on to spearhead the magazine’s tremendous revamp process.

But even the incredibly tedious but necessary tasks didn’t escape him. He updated the bylaws of the association, implemented the creation of the board of trustees, rolled out a new website, and expanded ASPP’s presence on social media. Jain Lemos, who had partnered with him on the effort, said, “He really lifted us up on so many levels.” All this while he kept the association moving forward with his great leadership skills.

Wendy Zeiger who co-chaired the Midwest chapter at this time noted, “He was the great communicator. He made sure everyone was informed and had a chance to weigh in. He was a good cheerleader for all of us at the chapter level, and was available to talk and give support and suggestions.” Mary Fran Loftus echoed this, saying, “He knows how to keep the peace, allowing people the freedom to talk and not belittle them. He has always been very generous with his time and ability and knows how to get things done.” And Sam Merrell, our current executive director, said, “Michael knows how to help a group deliver. He brings his vision and tremendous personal energy to the table.” I, for one, am delighted he continues to bring his wisdom to bear as a member of the ASPP board of trustees.

Executive Director of ASMP Eugene Mopsik, who worked with Michael in his early days, said, “Michael was interested in the betterment of the trade and was willing to compromise to make good things happen.”

People are quick to use the word “joy” when talking about him, like Ed Whitley, who said, “He is without doubt the most enjoyable person I have had the privilege of doing business with these past fifteen years.”

There are many other words that spring to mind when talking of Michael, but Ed boiled it down to the following: “professional, genuine, generous, energetic, entertaining, insightful, trustworthy, friend, and leader.”

All translate into the perfect ASPP Picture Professional of the Year. Congratulations, Michael! ●

CALLING ALL PICTURE PROS!

COMMUNITY ADVOCACY EDUCATION If you create, edit, research, license, distribute, manage or publish visual content, ASPP is the place for you!

JOIN OR RENEW TODAY! www.aspp.com

American Society of Picture Professionals

CHAPTER CAPTURE ©2015 CORY LAWRENCE

DC/SOUTH NEW ENGLAND NEW YORK

©2015 CORY LAWRENCE

Above: Lucian Perkins shows a portion of his archive of images to DC/ South members during FotoWeekDC. Right: Lucian Perkins discusses his Pulitzer Prize–winning documentary style.

DC/SOUTH DAILY LIFE AND WILD DOGS

by Cory Lawrence (Chapter President) On On November 9th, forty-six DC/South Chapter members gathered in Grosvenor Auditorium at National Geographic’s Washington, DC, headquarters for an intimate evening of presentations by two award-winning photographers. The event, one of many held during FotoWeekDC, featured Lucian Perkins and Karine Aigner.

Perkins, a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning independent photographer and filmmaker, worked as a staff photographer at The Washington Post for more than twenty years. His work, which documents daily life, crises, and social issues here in the United States and abroad, has earned him the National Press Photographers Association’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year, and a World Press Photo of the Year. Perkins spoke about the evolution and challenges of shooting only still images versus shooting stills and video at the same time, showing many images from his archive, including the early DC punk music scene, Big Apple Circus, a film about the Syrian refugees, and a very poignant piece on Joseph’s House, a local AIDS hospice.

Karine Aigner, also an award-winning photographer, served as senior photo editor for National Geographic 54

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KiDS magazines and books for nearly a decade. She spoke about her grandfather’s influence and her love for animals as the beginning of her journey into photography, and presented images from her many travels around the world, including a series of wild dogs, bats, and cobras. A seasoned photography workshop leader, Aigner has led groups through Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the Galapagos Islands. While photographing wild dogs in Africa, she said she gained a renewed sense for storytelling, and turned an unexpected moment into a passion project.

At the end of the presentations, DC/South President Cory Lawrence thanked everyone for coming to the event, and spoke about the importance of ASPP membership and the value of face-to-face networking.

© TANA VUIGNIER

NEW ENGLAND HERB RITTS: A PRIVATE TOUR

by Jennifer Riley and Debra LaKind (Chapter CoPresidents)

©2015 JENNIFER C. RILEY

A group of ASPP members and friends gathered on the evening of November 4th at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for a private tour and presentation of the Herb Ritts exhibition. James Leighton, the museum’s Curatorial Research Associate, Photography, helped organize and lead the tour, which revisited Ritts’ breadth of work.

Ritts began working in the late 1970s, and his 1996 retrospective at the MFA—Herb Ritts: WORK—remains one of the most highly attended exhibitions in the museum’s history. Nearly twenty years later, the MFA is taking a second look at his career, which was cut short in 2002 with his death from AIDS-related complications. Along with a selection of music videos and commercials, the exhibition features fifty-two black-and-white photographs that celebrate the sculpted body and the variable beauty of the human face. Ritts’ expert use of natural light results in dramatic images full of high-contrast lights and darks.

Our guide James regaled the group with behind-thescenes stories about Ritts and his work, as well as details of the friendships Ritts formed with many of the actors and models who posed for him. The tour brought insight and a fresh look at what were, for many in attendance, familiar images. After the private talk, ASPP New England members mingled and networked over wine and refreshments at the museum’s Café Taste.

James Leighton speaking to ASPP New England members during their November 4, 2015 private tour of the Herb Ritts show at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

IN MEMORIAM

Jamie Vuignier

I

T IS WITH PROFOUND SADNESS that we announce

the untimely passing of our esteemed colleague and dear friend, Jamie Vuignier, Manager of The Kobal Collection and Associate Director of Development at Art Resource. Jamie was a generous, genuine, and multi-talented individual, whose wit and wisdom will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

Jamie leaves behind his wife Tana, two young daughters, Madeline and Maisy, his sister Samantha, and his mother and father. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that a donation be made to his daughters’ college fund. Checks can be made payable to “New York 529 College Savings Program Direct Plan” and mailed to: Mrs. Tana Vuignier 2 Hawthorne Place, # 2 Montclair, NJ 07042 Very truly yours, Mr. Martin and Mrs. Lauretta Dives and the entire staff of The Picture Desk and The Kobal Collection, London, England.

Dr. Theodore Feder and the entire staff of Art Resource and Artist Rights Society, NY.

CHAPTER CAPTURE © 2015 SAM MERRELL

© 2015 SAM MERRELL

DC/SOUTH NEW ENGLAND NEW YORK

Tony Gale, November 3, 2015, explains his method of using a combination of multiple websites and a very active social media profile to promote his brand and get new work.

Jill Waterman speaking on October 6, 2015, to NY chapter members about the steps she takes en route to getting known, marketing one’s brand, and publishing a book.

NEW YORK FOUR MONTHS, SIX EVENTS

by Dayna Bealy, Anita Dickhuth, and Darrell Perry This autumn was quite a busy period for the New York chapter, as we wanted to increase our education activities and, in particular, emphasize photo history. So on September 29th, we hosted Laurie Platt Winfrey of Carousel Research Inc., who discussed working with the Edward Steichen estate. Using a slide show to good effect, Winfrey projected some of Steichen’s more pivotal historic images, and discussed relationships between the works, commerce, the art scene, and the photographer’s family history. In addition, Winfrey spoke about her successes and some of the problems handling Steichen’s works. PhotoShelter’s third floor conference room was packed with Carousel colleagues, friends, and family alongside a solid turnout of ASPP NY members.

On October 6th and November 3rd, the NY chapter also hosted events to raise our collective knowledge of social media and self-promotion. In October, Jill Waterman discussed the various ways she uses Facebook, YouTube, and conventional media to broadcast to the world about her imagery, her book—Night & Low-Light Photography— 56

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and her travels. In November, Tony Gale described the innovative ways he gets photo editors and designers to remember his work, take his phone calls, recognize him in person, and share his selfies on Facebook.

The next evening, November 4th, ASPP NY held another spirited talk at a #Peer2Peer, where we discussed the news and issues of the day. Perhaps the crowd was smaller than usual because we had just finished a month filled with photo-related events. Regardless of size, the attendees were just as enthusiastic and engaged as always.

Finally, on November 12th, we hosted an exciting and timely event led by Michael Shulman of Magnum Photos. He spoke about co-editing a new book, Cuba 1959, by the late photographer Burt Glinn. Measuring more than one-inch thick, this wonderful book features hundreds of rare, unpublished images of Cuba during and immediately after the Castro revolution. At the end of the evening, copies of the book were available to attendees at a special discount.

After such a busy autumn, ASPP NY members were more than happy to raise our glasses at our annual Holiday Party on December 3rd in the Empire State Building, hosted by Shutterstock. Watch for the write-up in the next issue! ●

BOOKSHELF

Best new books on photography

Left: Chapelle’s favorite photo of herself at work, taken in Milwaukee in 1958

by Master Sergeant Lew Lowery, USMC. Lowery also photographed the first US flag raised on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. © MSgt Lew Lowery. Wisconsin Historical Society Image Collection.

Below: One of Chapelle’s most reproduced images, initially released as The Dying Marine, was taken on board the hospital ship USS SAMARITAN off the coast of Iwo Jima in 1945. The Marine in the photo survived his wounds, and Dickey visited him in the hospital ten months later. © Dickey Chapelle. Wisconsin Historical Society Image Collection.

DICKEY CHAPELLE UNDER FIRE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE FIRST AMERICAN FEMALE WAR CORRESPONDENT KILLED IN ACTION John Garofolo Wisconsin Historical Society Press Hardcover, 136 pages $25.00 In 1965, American marines occupied the Dominican Republic.

President Johnson, nervous about a second Cuban Revolution, sent a force of 42,000—Operation Power

Pack—to support strongman Joaquin Balaguer, ending a nascent civil war.

While the concurrent Vietnam War overshadowed the occupation, National Geographic sent photojournalist Dickey Chapelle to document the action. She had cut her teeth covering World War II and, following post-war work documenting aid projects, had promoted herself as the “Bayonet Border Reporter,“ covering revolutions and insurgencies around the world. In 1959, she shot—photographically—more than thirty fighting forces, including those in Algeria, Cuba, and Lebanon.

Chapelle had covered Vietnam three times already by the time she was assigned to the Dominican Republic, and would return one more time to shoot, and die, there. In 1962, she was the first to document—with a photo of a US Marine “advisor” pointing an M3 submachine gun out of a helicopter—that American forces were directly engaging in combat. The photo won her the 1963 Photograph of the Year from the National Press Photographers Association.

She was forty-three years old when covering the American occupation and Dominican Civil War, and scrambling for assignments. Despite her record, she could often only find work by agreeing to less pay than her male counterparts, and the auASPP.COM

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thoritarian fallout from the Cuban Revolution had soured her on covering leftist revolutions, which comprised the majority of assignments at that time. She’d always been patriotic, too, and her quotidian shots largely adopted the perspective of the troops she was embedded with— which was out of step with the growing unpopularity of the American war in Vietnam.

On November 4, 1965, Chapelle was walking behind a marine who triggered a booby trap; a piece of shrapnel severed her carotid artery.

Her last words were reportedly, “I knew this was bound to happen.”

Henri Huet, who would later also die covering the Vietnam War, photographed her receiving last rites.

Chapelle was, as the subtitle makes clear, the first female American war correspondent killed in action. But before that, she was a pioneering young woman who gave herself the nickname “Dickey” after her hero, Admiral Richard (Dickey) Byrd. She was a journalist who narrowly escaped execution by the Hungarian secret police as a spy; she was a reporter who covered revolutions around the globe in harlequin glasses and pearl earrings; she was a woman who had to work harder and braver than her male peers in order to shoot world-changing photos.

Dickey Chapelle Under Fire succeeds largely by highlighting the extraordinary career and life of one of America’s pioneering photojournalists, delving into exhaustive archives from the Wisconsin Historical Society. As an overdue celebration of Chapelle”s work, Dickey Chapelle Under Fire stands on its own.

—JOSH STEICHMANN 60

Black-headed Nightingale-thrush Catharus mexicanus. © Todd R. Forsgren, from the book Ornithological Photographs published by Daylight Books

ORNITHOLOGICAL PHOTOGRAPHS Todd R. Forsgren Daylight Books Hardback, 168 pages $50.00 The poet Anne Carson wrote of John James Audubon that he “lit himself/ a noble rustic American/ wired in the cloudless poses of the Great Naturalist.” Look at the full-color prints of his Birds of America and

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PICTURE PROFESSIONALS

you see the measure of Audubon’s artifice that Carson hints at caustically. Audubon’s birds—most of which he killed as any good nineteenth century naturalist would— are contorted into unnatural poses, held together by ingenious wiring, and given often malapropos backdrops to deceive the viewer about what were natural settings.

In supplanting seventeenth-century still lifes and their tables of game and fowl with Naturalism, Audubon’s

work has come to be the defining inreflect on the tension between species. fluence of avian artistic depiction.

Importantly, he presents us with inIt is also the jumping off point for dividual birds that cease to be repreTodd Forsgren’s fascinating project sentatives of a species as they are in Ornithological Photographs. The book Birds of America or in the Roger Tory comprises a collection of images with Peterson Field Guides. We are not enthree engaging short stories about the couraged to identify defining traits project itself. so as to spot them in the wild later.

Shot over an eight-year span, Rather we are asked to view them as Forsgren’s images go down a different portraits, each with unique movepath in the art of ornithology. Each ments and expressions, like the look of image is of a single bird caught in a grim defeat on the Blue Mockingbird mist net photographed in front of a (Melanotis caerulescens). stark white backdrop. Stripped of the The nets themselves are almost ornate, “natural” backgrounds used by as central as the birds (two of the inAudubon, Forsgren’s technique is decluded essays discuss this at length). ceivingly simple, relying on the few acThey convey a dimensionality not alcoutrements needed by the bird bandways apparent in photography or in ers he followed for this project.

Audubon’s engravings. Some birds Mist nets, the only thing that instinctively go limp when in danger could be called a setting in these phowhile others struggle mightily, contographs, are a central tool for bird torting the nets. banders—amateur or professional ornithologists who take field notes on birds before attaching a small numbered metal band around one leg and releasing them.

Bird banding has been crucial for scientific insights about the lives of birds— their migration patterns, life cycles, mortality, and now, the profound impacts of human-bird interactions, such as climate change and habitat loss.

Though unspoken, the human-bird relationship pervades the photographs— the act of netting itself, a form of human interference.

Though no literal human presence exists in the images, Swallow-tailed Manakin Chiroxiphia caudate. © Todd Forsgren’s photographs con- R. Forsgren, from the book Ornithological Photographs published by Daylight Books stantly provoke the viewer to

Tangled in knots, the Rufouswinged Woodpecker (Piculus simplex) has an expression of deep contemplation at its predicament, while the Boatbilled Flycatcher’s (Megarynchus pitangua) open beak grasps the net, seeming to say, “Hey, I’ve been here long enough.” Others, like the Yellowthroated Vireo (Vireo flavifrons) or the Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora cyanoptera), are so delicately snared they seem as if they are still in flight, merely photographed at the moment they arrow through the nets.

Forsgren’s portraits allow us to read emotion into creatures we still know little about. Yet they are an undeniable part of life and the human vernacular; think of how robins, bald eagles, and doves are metonyms for spring, America, and peace, respectively. Birds are also complex, intelligent, social creatures—not so different from humans after all.

It is therefore impossible not to read our own humanity into Forsgren’s portraits, closing the gap between ourselves and the Natural we believe to have transcended.

— JOHN W. W. ZEISER

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CONTRIBUTORS / WRITING FOR THIS ISSUE ISSUE 4/2015

John W. W. Zeiser is a critic, poet, and occasional coffee roaster’s apprentice in Los Angeles. His earliest memory of writing was a poor imitation of Blake’s “The Tyger” that accompanied a finger painting assignment in elementary school. You can follow him @jwwz.

Nancy E. Wolff is a partner at Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP in New York. She practices copyright, trademark, and digital media law and offers full legal support to a wide range of clients. Ms. Wolff is the treasurer of the Copyright Society of the United States of America, a member of the Media Law Resource Center, chair of the ABA Intellectual Property Law Section on Copyright Legislation, and member of the Task Force on Piracy and Copyright Reform.

The first time Josh Steichmann got paid for photography was when he turned a snack shack at a summer camp into a 12’x12’ pinhole camera. Since then, he’s had a love for alternative processes, creative risk taking, and mural prints. Working as a writer, he’s covered everything from Elvis festivals to US Code 2257, and plenty in between.

As a photographer, he’s shown across Michigan, and can usually be found jumping Los Angeles fences with a homehacked Holga.

Alex Cave is a photographer hailing from the _____ (adjective) streets of _____ (place). He started photographing after his ____ (relative) gave him a ____ (object) at the age of 13. Although he studied ____ (subject) while attending ____ (school), Alex continued to photograph the Sierra Nevada mountain range in his spare time. When he’s not ___-ing (verb) through ____ (location), Alex can be found amongst one of the many ____ (plural noun) throughout Southern California.

Shawnté Salabert lives in Los Angeles, but spends most of her time trying to escape the city. She serves as senior writer for Modern Hiker, and is currently penning, photographing, and literally/figuratively sweating over a Pacific Crest Trail guidebook for Mountaineers Books. No, she has not thrown any boots off of any mountains. She is a reformed music journalist and keeps company with a feline named Eddie Cat Halen. shawntesalabert.com Cathy Sachs was executive director of the American Society of Picture Professionals from 1995 to 2010. In 2011, she was named Picture Professional of the Year for her long service to this association and its members.

She continues her involvement in ASPP as chair of the National Board of Trustees. During her thirty-five-year career in the photography industry, she has worked closely with many associations to foster communication and common best practices.

Sayzie Koldys profiled her first subject (Snoopy) at age seven, for which she interviewed Charles Shultz, although it’s unclear from his letters whether he knew he was being interviewed. Sayzie is a writer, editor, and tall-ship sailor whose work has appeared in the North American Review, the Mid-American Review, the New England Review, the Manifest-Station, and [wherever] magazine, among others. Her interests in food and all things ocean currently intersect in the South Pacific. There’s more at opercula.net.

She tweets and posts to Instagram @SayzieJane.

Amanda Meyncke is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. More of her work at amandameyncke.com.

Debra P. Hershkowitz is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based, NYC-loving street photographer, photo editor, copy editor, writer, and martial arts practitioner and instructor.

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LIFE IN FOCUS

A few Cooper Court residents set up a makeshift barricade to keep police out.

I

TOOK THIS PHOTO ON FRIDAY, December 4th, the

day the city of Boise and the Boise Police Department started to clear out a tent city called Cooper Court. I spent the morning walking around the alleyway that had been home to 140 homeless men and women, covering the police sweep for the Boise Weekly. In order to stop the police, several people in Cooper Court constructed a barricade of overturned old furniture, wood pallets, and trash. “Cops got barricades,” said Kai Evans, who helped to build the makeshift wall. “Why shouldn’t we?”

I thought taking this picture represented the larger 64

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struggle between the city of Boise’s immense resources to removing these people, and the alley residents’ desperate attempts to stay in a place they call home—no matter how fruitless. As a staff writer for the Boise Weekly, I take hundreds of pictures of all sorts of things happening around the city. I aim to bring our readers to a place they wouldn’t normally experience. Taking this photo from inside the controversial tent city—which is gone now, thanks to the police department and several garbage trucks—once again allowed our readers an inside view into the larger issue of homelessness. ●

© JESSICA MURRI

© ROGER STEFFENS

JESSICA MURRI

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