ASPP's The Picture Professional - Issue 4, 2012

ISSUE 4 / 2012

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PICTURE PROFESSIONALS

PROFESSIONAL

J-C Mu単oz / Biosphoto

PORTFOLIO Mapmaker / Trevor Naud

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PORTFOLIO Asterism Derivative Johanna Breiding and Mary Rasmussen

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WONDERFUL WORLD OF WEDDINGS Leon K. Hughes

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PICTURE PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR Wendy Zieger

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THE INVISIBLE ART OF RETOUCHING Martha DiMeo

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Q/A Creative Director Witold Riedel

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CLICK Ben High

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WHAT’S HANGING

BOOK REVIEWS

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Michael Masterson

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EDITOR’S LETTER April Wolfe

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THE LAW Joel L. Hecker, Esq.

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CHAPTER CAPTURE

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CONTRIBUTORS

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LIFE IN FOCUS June Korea

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ISSUE 4 / 2012 THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

COVER IMAGE: © TREVOR NAUD THIS PAGE: © WITOLD RIEDEL

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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 Adobe SendNow age fotostock akg-images Art Resource Association Health Programs Aurora Photos Biosphoto

Bridgeman Art Library Corbis Curt Teich Postcard Archives Custom Medical Stock Photo Dan Suzio Photography Danita Delimont Stock Agency Fundamental Photographs

MASTHEAD

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

ASPP Executive Offices 217 Palos Verdes Blvd., #700 Redondo Beach CA 90277 Tel: 424.247.9944 Fax: 424.247.9844 director@aspp.com Editorial Staff Jain Lemos - Publisher April Wolfe - Editor-in-Chief Ophelia Chong - Art Director Contributing Writers Ben High Josh Steichmann RJ Mintz Joel L. Hecker Wendy Zieger

Global Image Works Levine Roberts Photography Minden Pictures New York Public Library North Wind Picture Archives Robert Harding World Imagery Ron Sherman Photography

2012-2013 National Board of Directors

Science Source/Photo Researchers Sovfoto/Eastfoto The Granger Collection The Image Works The Kobal Collection Travel USA Stock Photo Viesti Associates Stock Photo VIREO/The Academy of Natural Sciences

MidWest Christopher K. Sandberg Wendy Zieger

President Michael Masterson

New England Jennifer Riley Debra LaKind

Vice President Sam Merrell Secretary Sid Hastings Treasurer Mary Fran Loftus Membership Doug Brooks Holly Marshall

New York Jessica Moon Daniella Nilva

Editorial April Wolfe editor@aspp.com

DC/South Lori Epstein Jeff Mauritzen

National President Michael Masterson michaeldmasterson@gmail.com

2012 Sub-Chapter Vice Presidents

Membership Doug Brooks Holly Marshall membership@aspp.com

Technology Cecilia de Querol

Minnesota Julie Caruso

Marketing & Communications Jennifer Davis Heffner

Missouri Sid Hastings Ohio Mandy Groszko

2012 Chapter Presidents

Wisconsin Paul H. Henning

West Mark Ippolito Jason Davis

Advertising & Executive Officers Jain Lemos Executive Director director@aspp.com

Website Daryl Geraci webmanager@aspp.com Tel: 602-561-9535 eNews Blog Jenny Respress newsletter@aspp.com

• The American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) is a community of image experts committed to sharing their experience and knowledge throughout the industry and to promoting the professional and educational advancement of members. This non-profit, non-partisan association provides networking and educational opportunities for those who create, edit, research, license, manage or publish visual media.

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. Send articles and accompanying illustrations with clear captions and credit lines. Contact: editor@aspp.com • Advertising is also desired and welcomed. We offer a specific readership of professionals in positions of responsibility for decision making and purchase. For our media kit and rate sheet, contact Jain Lemos, 424-247-9944. Space reservation deadlines: February 10, May 10, August 10, November 10. Subscription rates: Free to members, $40.00 per year to non-members. Back issues: $10.00 when available. Non-members are invited to consider membership in ASPP. Address changes: Send both old and new addresses to the National Office or update your individual profile in the Member Area on our website at www.aspp.com.

• ©2012 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-in-Chief. 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.

American Society of Picture Professionals

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

© Eric Raptosh0

MICHAEL D. MASTERSON ASPP NATIONAL PRESIDENT

DEAR PICTURE PROS, When the ASPP revised and updated our bylaws last year, we fine-tuned a provision that had been in place for decades but never implemented: the Honorary Trustees of the Society.

The bylaws steering committee saw this as an excellent time to finally create this body of advisors to help steer and guide the organization’s strategic goals. We wanted to include members from many areas in our industry to give us a nuanced approach.

It made sense to have Cathy Sachs, our previous executive director, helm the board itself as well as the search committee for other Trustees. Cathy led the ASPP from 1995–2010 and was given its highest honor, the Jane Kinne Picture Professional of the Year Award, for her long service to the association and its members.

Cathy has 35 years of varied experience in the industry, including managing the Woodfin Camp agency, working for a National Geographic photographer and Time Life Books, speaking and moderating at countless events, acting on the advisory board of the YPA, and conducting portfolio reviews. And she’s been instrumental in helping “curate” the board of trustees.

One of the first individuals who accepted our invitation was Helena Zinkham. For nearly 30 years, Helena has helped shape collections and programs in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, where she is currently Chief of the division. Before joining the Library, Helena worked with picture collections in local historical societies and wrote A Guide to Print, Photograph, Architecture & Ephemera Collections at the New York Historical Society (New York, The Society, 1998) as well as essays on visual literacy relating to archival care and management. In recognition of her contributions to research collection description and access, Helena was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 2008.

We were delighted when Andrew Fingerman, CEO of PhotoShelter, agreed to join us, too. PhotoShelter is a worldwide leader in portfolio websites, online archiving, and business tools for professional photographers. Prior to this role, Andrew led marketing at PhotoShelter, where he pioneered the company’s photographer education programs that provide invaluable guides, tools, and resources to help independent photographers and small agencies grow their business. Andrew also worked as a product manager for American Express and in other marketing

and strategy roles before joining PhotoShelter. Besides holding an MBA from Columbia University, Andrew is an avid shooter himself, something to which his oft-photographed two children will attest!

According to the bylaws, the immediate past national president is invited to become a Trustee with others selected and approved by the National Board. That honor goes to my predecessor Amy Wrynn who provides another perspective through her publishing experience. She’s worked with photography and art for the last 25 years and has just taken a new role as Director of Photo Research and Permissions at Jones & Bartlett Learning.

She was previously the Director of Image Supplier Management at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Although most of her career has been in educational publishing, she was also an ad agency art buyer. Amy served as co-president of the ASPP New England Chapter as well as national president.

We’ve rounded out our board with Christopher S. Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy & Special Projects, Office of the Register of Copyrights, U.S. Copyright Office, a position he was appointed to in January 2012. In his role there, Chris advises the Register of Copyrights on issues relating to copyright law and policy, technology, and the Office’s registration and recordation systems. Before his current job, Chris served as an attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, focusing on the entertainment and media industries. He was actively involved in the proposed Google Book Search Settlement Agreement and helped prepare the government’s two filings in the case. Chris holds a J.D. and LL.M. (intellectual property) from the University of New Hampshire School of Law and brings a sharp legal eye to our team.

As you can see, we clearly have an incredibly diverse and talented board to help us with long-term goals and strategies. Both Cathy and I are looking forward to joining forces with our Trustees to make the ASPP the best it can be going forward. Thanks to all of them for stepping up, and stay tuned. ✹ MICHAEL michaeldmasterson@gmail.com 5

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EDITOR’S LETTER APRIL WOLFE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

HELLO TO ALL YOU PICTURE PROS. OUR WINTER ISSUE IS ABOUT THE SPACES IN BETWEEN

In fiction writing, the space between paragraphs that denotes a new section (written in a disparate time or place from the section preceding it) is loosely called “the swirling vortex of doom.” Just like the space in between this paragraph and the one above, a skip in time. The name comes from the perceived moments that exist in that white space, where there are no words. It’s a terribly effective tool when used correctly. If you’ve done your work in the last paragraph, before the white space jump, every insinuation of tone, movement, loss, and reward you’ve built into the structure is visible in that gasping breath.

Works the same for film, for song, for speech—the pregnant pause?—when seemingly nothing is happening, everything has already happened. Or, the Polaroid effect.

In this issue, we have two brilliant portfolios that gleam in that arrested space. Asterism Derivative (Mary Rasmussen and Johanna Breiding) deliver their series, Touch Magic Like Smoke and Bone, and artist Trevor Naud launches the first of hopefully many multimedia and illustration portfolios with Mapmaker.

In addition, photographer RJ Mintz interviews renowned creative director and photographer Witold Reidel, TPP gives the rundown of a beautiful new collection of archived photography in Kansas, and Ben High continues our tech series with reviews on instant photography bookmaking services and the new instant website app, Zapd. As always, we have some excellent legal advice from Joel L Hecker, but we add to that this issue a new column about the digital retoucher artists in our lives, beginning with ASPP member Martha DiMeo. And saving the best for last, we have a heartfelt congratulatory piece from our own ASPP Midwest co-president Wendy Zieger, who memorializes our 2012 Jane Kinne Picture Professional of the Year recipient, Edward Whitley. Congratulations, Ed!

© Cecile Anne Inga

My favorite film is Fargo. While the accents are reminiscent of my youth in the Midwest, and the gruesome (and humorous) murders call to mind the numerous slasher films I watched as a kid back in the 80s, my love for Fargo exists somewhere buried deep in the snow. What’s forever been compelling to me is that Fargo, a film so revered for its art direction, is comprised of a long string of very white, very sparse frames, and it leads me to wonder if maybe we are more attracted to what we cannot see than what we can.

Maybe it’s snowing where you live. Maybe you’re in Seattle, and you’re sliding down icy hills. Maybe you’re in New York City or New Jersey, and you’re wondering if the rest of us have forgotten about Sandy already—we haven’t, by the way—but no matter where you are, there will always be a white space in between. And we just want to gently remind you that the Polaroid’s already been snapped. That big, blank spot where you think nothing is happening, well it’s already happened, just remains to be seen. And from where we’re standing, we think the picture came out all right.

Sincerely, A.WOLFE editor@aspp.com.

PS You may have noticed that TPP has been pretty active on the Twitter and Facebook fronts. All of this is courtesy of our new social media manager, Jenny Respress, of Boise, Idaho.

Have you friended/followed us, yet? You should. Jenny’s constantly updating with artist opportunities, job board info, and newsworthy tidbits from the world of images. If you ask nicely, maybe she’ll Instagram some photos of her shihtzu, and in the coming months, Jenny will also be taking on the role of official blogger and newsletter designer for ASPP. National director Jain Lemos is busy revamping our advertising structures and rates, so I’m sure there will be much to write about in the near future…we take our New Year’s resolutions pretty seriously around here. ✹

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WHAT’S HANGING

Photo exhibitions near you.

WASHINGTON Photo Center NW 900 12th Ave. Seattle Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows February 1 – March 28, 2013 Photo Center NW is proud to announce an upcoming exhibition of photographs by Vivian Maier (1926 – 2009) from the Jeffrey Goldstein Collection, featuring silver gelatin prints of images selected from the book, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams of City Files Press. The exhibition puts Maier’s work in the context of her life during her highly creative period from the 1950s through the 1970s.

pastures of rural France to the streets of downtown Chicago, “Snapshots,” “America,” “Day,” “Maxwell,” “Beach,” “1968,” “Downtown,” “Walks,” and “Night.”

Maier’s work was discovered in Chicago in 2007 when boxes of abandoned prints, negatives and undeveloped film were sold at auction. Born in New York, Maier spent much of her youth in France. Starting in the late 1940s, she shot an average of a roll of film a day. She moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s, and spent the next 40 years working as a nanny to support her passion for photography. Maier died at the age of 83 before her work was ever publicly recognized or exhibited.

In addition to her known street photography, this exhibit will feature a prolific selection of images that show an artist with relentless curiosity that worked in a vast range of subjects and styles. Maier’s unique ability to brilliantly capture the zeitgeist is particularly apparent in shots of Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street and in protest scenes shot during the social unrest of 1968.

Echoing the chapters in the upcoming book, the exhibition is organized to reflect nine of Maier’s personal journeys from the American Society of Picture Professionals

© Vivian Maier / Courtesy of Jeffrey Goldestein Collection & Photo Center NW

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Corcoran Gallery of Art 500 17th St. NW Washington, DC Taryn Simon A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I – XVIII November 10, 2012 – February 24, 2013 This fall, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design presents the first complete East Coast exhibition of Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII, a photographic project by the artist Taryn Simon (American, b. 1975). Simon produced the work over a four-year period (2008–11), during which she traveled around the world researching and recording the living ascendants and descendants of a single individual, or “bloodlines,” and their related stories. “In each of the 18 chapters,” the artist has explained, “you see the external forces of territory, governance, power, and religion, colliding with the internal forces of psychological and physical inheritance.” The subjects Simon documents include feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia, the body double of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, and the so-called living dead in India.

The exhibition is organized by Philip Brookman, chief curator and head of research at the Corcoran. “Taryn’s work represents a new kind of documentary photography,” says Brookman. “By creating this conceptual framework—an archive, both scientific and chaotic in its order—she is developing new methods with which to talk about ideas in contemporary culture. She is seeking to peel back the layers of myth and colonial thinking that form the foundation of how we understand different cultures. Her innovative style, coupled with the Corcoran’s longstanding interest in all forms of photography, makes this project incredibly compelling to our program.” © Taryn Simon, Excerpt from Chapter XVII, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII, Wilson Centre for Photography.

(Name withheld), 16 Mar. 1993. Student. Undisclosed location, Ukraine.

(Name withheld), 25 Nov. 1993. Student. Undisclosed location, Ukraine.

(Name withheld), 17 Jan. 1994. Student. Undisclosed location, Ukraine.

ARIZONA Center for Creative Photography 1030 Olive Road Tucson The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith, 1957-1965 December 14, 2012 – March 10, 2013

From 1957 to 1965, famed photographer W. Eugene Smith documented the late-night soirees inside a dilapidated New York City loft, where some of the jazz world’s greatest legends (Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk to name a few) casually performed and mingled with the likes of Norman Mailer, Salvador Dali, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and crowds full of colorful underground characters. He photographed the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourthfloor window. Smith also wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio, audiotaping more than 300 musicians.

While researching a W. Eugene Smith project in the archives at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography, writer Sam Stephenson came across Smith’s jazz loft photographs and tapes. He spent seven years cataloging, archiving, selecting, and editing the jazz loft materials for a book and, along with other partners, a radio series, an exhibition, and a website.

©The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith, Thelonious Monk and Town Hall Band in rehearsal, c 1957-1964. W. Eugene Smith Archive, Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona.

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ILLINOIS Museum of Contemporary Photography 600 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago Victoria Sambunaris: Taxonomy of a Landscape January 11 – March 31, 2013 For more than a decade, Victoria Sambunaris has traversed the United States equipped with a five-by-seven wooden field camera and sheets of color negative film. Covering nearly every road and highway, she has captured the vast American landscape and terrain, and its intersection with civilization. Sambunaris has said that she has “an unrelenting curiosity of wanting to understand the American landscape and our place in it.” While humans are in awe of the power of nature, we are also energetic and domineering diggers, builders, and settlers. Sambunaris’s photographs thus strikingly record our ongoing, uneasy relationship with the natural world.

Through straight-on focus, detail, and uniform lighting, Sambunaris shifts her diverse subject matter—from trains in Nebraska and Texas and trucks in New Jersey and Wisconsin to the oil pipeline in Alaska, uranium tailings in Utah, and steam vents in Yellowstone National Park—into crisp, clear images of forms in neutral space. Her photographs convey at once the grandeur of the American landscape and the subtle, yet sometimes overwhelming, cues to the country’s capitalist mentality. And since October 2009, Sambunaris has embarked on a body of work along the nearly 2,000 miles of territory that make up the border between Mexico and the United States. She injects a political drama into the photographs through either conceptual references, as in her photograph of the Rio Grande River in Big Bend National Park, where the river physically divides the two counties as it carves the deep canyon walls, or through tangible evidence, such as the contentious border fence that separates what should be a seamless landscape. The exhibition includes the artist’s collected ephemera—the essential, and incidental, elements of her work as a photographer and researcher. Books on geology and history, maps, and artifacts collected on her journeys, such as mineral specimens, journals, road logs, and personal gifts, as well as over 1,500 of her small photographic sketches together form an intimate view of the artist’s life on the road.

© Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (Alaskan pipeline at Atigun Pass, Books Range, Alaska), 2003. Courtesy of the Lannan Foundation.

© Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (Wendover, Utah), 2007.

Courtesy of the Lannan Foundation.

© Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (Distant steam vents, Yellowstone), 2008.

Courtesy of the Lannan Foundation.

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WHAT’S HANGING

INTERNATIONAL

National Portrait Gallery King Edwards Terrace Parks ACT 2600 Canberra, Australia

Ingvar Kenne Citizen November 2, 2012 – January 27, 2013 Swedish-born Australian photographer Ingvar Kenne captures both individuality and shared human experience in his ongoing portrait project, Citizen. This collection of striking portraits was taken between 1997–2011 across Australia, USA, China, Laos, and Papua New Guinea. In Citizen, we meet a nun, prostitute, factory worker, famous actors, tribal members, and more. By applying the same photographic parameters and treating each of his sitters as equal, Kenne creates an intimate collective of what he refers to as “fellow man.” It is this notion that reminds us that our unique experience of life is something that we all share.

Ingvar Kenne, born in 1965, currently lives between Sydney and New York. He studied photography at the University of Gothenburg and exhibits internationally. Kenne was the winner of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 and a finalist in the 2007, 2010, and 2012 Prizes. The Citizen portraits were photographed on medium format color negative film using a Mamiya 6 camera.

They have been printed as Type C digital prints.

The photographs, on loan from the artist and three from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, are accompanied by Kenne’s descriptive captions.

Angus Young Musician, Sydney, Australia 2003 © Ingvar Kenne

Anneliese Seubert Model, Sydney, Australia 1997 © Ingvar Kenne

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I’VE TRIED TO WRITE THIS INTRO nine times already. Ten’s the charm. (For the record, the scrapped stuff talked about Luigi Serafini, Ridleygrams, my dad, Detroit, and time capsules—a few of the influences on the Mapmaker project.) I realize the bigger issue here is my uncertainty as a writer, and how that’s a major hurdle when you’re trying to make a graphic novel. More on that in a second.

Mapmaker started as an illustrated short story that I submitted to the Xeric Foundation for a publishing grant. I didn’t get the grant. But it was still a great victory for me, as I had committed to a date, a deadline, and I had finished something. That was version 1.0. Writing a story without anyone saying “no” or “that doesn’t make sense” created this weird pressure. I avoided feedback, even though it’s what I needed the most. Figuratively, I was on a deserted island talking to myself. Doubt set in. So after the grant business passed, I reread Mapmaker and came to the conclusion that the imagery is what I loved most. So, for now, the text is in the lobby waiting for another exam. One of these days…

The cityscape, called “Silver Alley Always” in the story, is definitely influenced by Detroit. I think Detroit looks imagined. Nature is taking over again. Wild—like overgrown, dense foliage overcoming old homes and sidewalks. There are pheasants and deers and snakes. Even though so much of it is dilapidated, it’s beautiful and mysterious. There’s peacefulness like an old graveyard. Most of the actual cityscapes of Silver Alley Always were created from imagination, but one image of a towering, symmetrically constructed building is based on a photograph I took of apartments near 6 Mile and Woodward. My suspicion is that Albert Kahn was the architect. In the story, it’s far bigger and menacing than the original.

To portray that surreal quality of Detroit, I used a few different techniques aside from just drawing with ink, paint, whiteout, and pencil. I also built miniature sets, photographed those sets, ran the photos through a copy machine, then drew over the degraded prints. I’d go to the hobby shop and buy smallscale train set pieces—buildings and whatnot. I cut up blue construction paper and arranged it to be water on sand. For characters, I made costumes and photographed myself in poses—or asked friends to photograph me in poses. The narrator’s name is Phineas, an explorer, and he wears this shemagh head scarf to protect himself from the sun and desert winds. I made his out of a ripped t-shirt, an ascot, and beaded necklaces. Mapmaker’s getup was simpler: a dark veil, press-on nails, slim black pants. I shot him barefoot, and illustrated mummy-like leg wrappings. I spent about six months on it. I was inspired

by Ralph Bakshi, who in the 70s and 80s was doing a lot of Rotoscoping with his animated films. He’d film live action scenes and then animate over each frame of the film. What you get is this eerily lifelike cartoon. He wasn’t the first to do it, but as a kid I really appreciated it. I still do.

So what is Mapmaker currently? Version 2.0 is something like a deck of cards. Twenty-eight art panels, printed on 285-gram watercolor paper, in a handcrafted box made from solid walnut, copper and curly maple. My friend Matthew Tait designed the boxes. I wanted the whole package to feel special, like a souvenir from Silver Alley Always. ✹

IMPERCEPTIBLE DIRECTIONS American Society of Picture Professionals

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© Trevor Naud

TREVOR NAUD’S MAPMAKER

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ASTERISM DERIVATIVE’S JOHANNA BRIEDIGN AND MARY RASMUSSEN

ISLAND OF MAKE BELIEVE

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© Johanna Breiding and Mary Rasmussen

us like we were out of place, some poor LA folk stuck in the middle of sky country. She was very amused when we told her we needed to get a cab and make it to the west entrance by 6AM the following morning. It was there we were meeting a special egg mobile to take us into the park. She told us exasperated— clearly we weren’t the only people to have done this—that the entrance to the park was not outside the airport’s exit doors, but instead a five-hour drive on a snow-covered highway. As usual, we had planned ruthlessly for each and every one of our wardrobe changes, every single prop, including an intricate crystal headgear, but we had neglected to figure out the details of where/how. Needless to say, a friendly Montanan man was awoken from slumber and called early to his morning cab shift.

I DIDN’T HAVE ANY LONG UNDERWEAR. Johanna, being from the

coldest place I could imagine, the Swiss Alps, had them in every color and also knew that good socks were integral to conquering the cold. In fact, I was often under-prepared for the cold, having arrived years before in Iceland in November in a t-shirt and skirt. We set off on this adventure, to visit Yellowstone at its extremity, in the middle of Winter. Johanna leant what she had, and we paired that with trips to various Los Angeles thrift stores (it’s rather strange, but LA is a great place to get winter gear. I imagine some Pasadena socialite getting her family a new spread for a family trip to Aspen, only to return declaring that was enough “nature” for the time being). I bought a ski jumpsuit, with bright large giant florescent puzzle pieces on the front, practically identical to the one I wore as a child in the early nineties; the trip my mother called our last family ski trip.

Johanna bought one, too, so we set off matching like two doeeyed twins in their Sunday best.

Into the dark night we rode, passing beautiful Montana landscape, completely unbeknownst to us as it flew by in darkness. The cab driver told us stories about mining for quartz and the insane drop that was supposedly just on our right-hand side. I imagined a life of working out there in the unknown, collecting rocks, living closer to the land.

We flew into Bozeman in the dead of night. The airport stirred like a cat awoken from slumber. After unsuccessfully hailing a cab freeform style, we searched the airport until we plopped our five huge “gear” bags on the counter of a visitor’s welcoming desk. The lady was a fiery woman. She looked at American Society of Picture Professionals

We arrived at the West entrance to an old hotel with a few cars and a welcoming light. The light was faint in the expanse of 22

darkness, a lighthouse calling a ship to shore. Inside, the past was flirtatious. It reeked of its glamorous days, a mix of putrid perfume and overdone dry cleaning, like your favorite t-shirt, once nice, but wear and tear exposing its age, ill fitting to the body. At night, a ghost patrolled the halls: a favorite walking path of a woman from the days of Eisenhower. We took turns using the old phone booth, locking each other in and turning off the lights.

Johanna and I laid out the costumes and equipment, as if to revel at our treasures. The next week would be intense, traveling the next day at the crack of dawn in our egg mobile, arriving to our cabin site, making fires, cooking cans of soup that we had brought with us, but most importantly, heading out into the wilderness to do a series of photographs.

Arriving at our destination the next day was an incredible ordeal.

We had signed up accidentally for the “long” animated version of the egg ride. There are two types, one that gets you there speedily and one that does not, and you can guess which we had signed up for. A woman from a nearby town who worked in the park as a seasonally (tour guide and dramatic recounter of facts and park history) led us and a family through the park, pointing out every tree and possible animal sighting along the way. I learned the biggest cause of deforestation there was because of lightening, and the snow that falls on a bison’s back does not melt because the fur is insulation thick. At one point during our organized viewing stops, Johanna and I sneaked off to snap a picture next to a vat of steaming liquid, and our tour guide came screaming; flailing her arms in the air, telling us never to go that close to anything that was bubbling. From them on, she performed to the Iowan family that was with us only. The photo turned out nicely.

The cabins surrounded the Old Faithful Lodge, the only hotel open during the winter months. The roads into the hotel were calm, as no cars were allowed in. There was an incredible stillness, white on white, reflecting an infinite horizon. You really got the sense that the park was run by the nature that it contained.

Humans were escorts, users, passersby. The life around was so alive. A large graphic of a cartoon man being lodged into the air by a trampling bison (similar to the ones found by the geysers of a child running into the scolding liquid) beautified the front desk.

More people in Yellowstone get killed by bison than any other natural predator, we were told. The winter months in Yellowstone felt like the abandoned Matterhorn ride at Disneyland. A small staff of avid skiers and nature enthusiasts ran the place. We had

arrived into an insular community; it was winter camp. The waitress was seeing the cook, the front desk girl; the ski shop owner, and so forth.

We were a sight for sore eyes; bright neon specks in a white field doing acrobatic formations, laughing, and getting a little too close to bubbling vats. Everyday we got into our skis after wrapping the camera and equipment in plastic, and placing them into a makeshift hauling rig. We tied rope around our waists, hauling a chain of sleds behind us containing tripods, 4x5 cameras, props, and costumes. One afternoon, while I was stripping out of my long underwear and into a costume, a French family was skiing on the path towards us. They stopped 30 meters away and started to observe. We continued preparing, and eventually got into position and began photographing. The family stayed around for 30 minutes, laughing and taking their own photos. I imagine them coming home from their holiday vacation, showing friends the photos they took of us. I’d like to get a hold of some of those, the photos of us taking photos.

The bison we were warned about at the front desk? They were for real. After the warning we’d received from the front desk, we avoided them like the plague, and each time we saw one up ahead on our path, we’d turn off and head in a different direction. This was fine even though we often found ourselves covered in snow up to our chins or caught on fragile ice. One afternoon, we were heading back, when we noticed a whole herd in the path. We kept inching forward, but after a tough, mean looking one made sure we knew the baby next to him would not be messed with, we decided to turn around, heading back into the forest.

About ten minutes later, a group of three sixty-plus-yearold women came trotting by. We warned them of the bison, but they continued on, after one woman explained, “I’m not scared of them.” We felt a little silly for having turned around, especially if these women weren’t afraid. But neither of us discussed the idea of going back. Instead we ended up taking a five-hour detour, getting lost but eventually finding a new way back to the lodge. I didn’t admit it to Johanna, but for the next couple days I would pass by the front desk to check if there was a new warning advisory of recent deaths in the park. I imagined it to say, “Three women found dead by Bison.” ✹

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Š Johanna Breiding and Mary Rasmussen

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Š Johanna Breiding and Mary Rasmussen

only have students and photo editors and researchers benefited (with the apparent ease we have in searching for high-quality images), but so, too, have minority groups seeking a visual “voice” in our nation’s historical chapters. In the short time that we’ve been digitizing, hundreds—probably more like thousands—of African American archives that would only have been available to remote communities have been made widely accessible by some wonderful libraries and historical institutions. The newest digitized African American archive is that of Leon K. Hughes, from the University of Kansas.

“The Leon K. Hughes Photography Collection, acquired by the University of Kansas in 2009 from Mrs. Rosie Hughes, wife of Mr. Leon K. Hughes, consists of more than 2,700 images. 1100 of these photos have been digitized and are now available to viewers around the world. The collection is a chronicle of African American family and community life in Wichita, KS, from the late 1940s through the 1970s. Hughes (1913-1978) was the leading photographer of this community’s family, church, and civic events. A self-taught photographer, he established a home-based photography business in 1946 with the assistance of his wife, Mrs. Rosie Knight Hughes. After capturing the community’s fond memories for three decades, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes retired their enterprise in 1976.”

As Hughes was a documentarian of family and community celebrations, the collection includes a vast array of wedding portraiture in both color and black & white, complete with blushing brides and grooms and very serious in-laws. In a subset of the collection, you’ll find several photos marked Women with Children, depicting happy holidays and birthdays with mother and child. Some of my favorite photos, though, are those that capture large groups of women gussied up in heels and debutante hats—these photographs in particular feature mostly unidentified women, but the library is hoping that some helpful citizens may recognize someone from the photographs and fill in the blanks.

Searching and downloading images was a breeze through the Luna site, and all necessary data was located beside each photo in an easy-to-use scroll menu. While the collection is only comprised of 1,100 digital images, we highly recommend taking a stroll through the photos. We guarantee that in addition to finding some great images, you’ll also find enough genuine smiles in there that you’ll be in a happy mood for at least a day.

The Leon K. Hughes Collection was acquired by the Kansas Collection in the Spencer Research Library at KU and is one of the African American Experience Collections. The entire digital Hughes Collection is part of KU’s image repository and can be found at http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/ kuluna01kui~16~16.

All images: © Leon K. Hughes Photography Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

American Society of Picture Professionals

The Wonderful World of Weddings from

Leon K. Hughes

The roller coaster from Casino Pier sits in the ocean in Seaside Heights, NJ, the day after Hurricane Sandy. ©The Star-Ledger / David Gard / The Image Works

IN THE PAST DECADE or so of digital archiving, not

The roller coaster from Casino Pier sits in the ocean in Seaside Heights, NJ, the day after Hurricane Sandy. ŠThe Star-Ledger / David Gard / The Image Works

editorial specialists for over 25 years historical

natural history

science & technology

religion

performing arts

illustration

documentary & photojournalism

fine art

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PO Box 443 Woodstock NY 12498 800.475.8801 845.679.8500 info@theimageworks.com

2012 JANE KINNE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR

EDWARD WHITLEY

BY WENDY ZIEGER “A lot of time in any business is often spent on the more mundane,” Whitley says, “but working with images, working with the wonderful folks in this industry, meeting with museums, going in to their vaults to view and select works of art that have never been viewed by the public—that has proved one of the greatest parts of this role.” And while working with revered works of art is a perk, Whitley is protective of his art with the digital manipulation trends threatening to uproot the industry.

“Clients have altered the Mona Lisa in far too many ways, but making her walk has not yet been one of them (although I might stand corrected on that!). These are very exciting times for us at Bridgeman—a year ago we opened our fifth office in Los Angeles and opened up the opportunities of the west coast in general and the TV and film industries in particular. With that foundation, last month we launched our incredible and ever-expanding collection of art, cultural and historical footage. The content is incredible and mesmerizing and a large part of it has never been made available for licensing until now.”

Ed juggles a busy career, a long daily commute, and a young family, which includes his wife Suzie, and his two children, William (4), and Chloe (3). Congratulations, Ed Whitley!

ED WHITLEY an ASPP member since 2000, is well known,

especially to the New York Chapter members. Ed has supported ASPP through event sponsorships and consistent advertising in The Picture Professional; however, he is probably best known as the gracious and generous host of the very popular ASPP Summer Party held for the last decade in the garden of the Bridgeman Art Library’s offices on the upper east side of Manhattan. That event (which often went into the wee hours of the morning), benefited from Ed’s donation of time and resources and was always a success, despite occasional rain or inclement weather.

With Bridgeman’s move this past summer to the Midtown area, sadly those garden parties are in the past, but good memories of those fun summer nights remain.

Indeed, it was at one of the aforementioned garden parties that I was not only introduced to ASPP for the first time, but as a relatively new employee of Bridgeman, got to see Ed totally in his element. This is where he made people feel welcome, where he seemed to know everyone’s name and was unfazed by heat, humidity, rain or even a stove malfunctioning and ruining several trays of canapés. It was not about the stuff of the party (at least as long as the wine held out), but rather, it was about getting to see and talk to the people that attended. He has a genuine interest in people and as they do in him. It doesn’t hurt that Americans seem to have a fascination with British accents, but even if Ed didn’t sound like Prince William, I’m sure people would seek him out anyway.

Ed is great example of integrity and hard work. Having obtained an MA in Art History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, he was immediately confronted with a career decision that was going to have a major impact on the path ahead—take an unpaid three-month posting at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice or start a paid position in a company he knew little about and even less about what they actually did. Ed ventured into the unknown and went with Bridgeman. For the next five years, Ed worked in the London office, rising to deputy manager of picture research, in charge of special projects. After flirting with the idea of moving into the art auction world, he was offered the position of running Bridgeman’s fledgling New York office, overseeing North and South American business. So in January of 2000 with just a suitcase and sense of adventure, he headed west and has never looked back.

Since Ed took over, the Bridgeman Art Library’s New York office has gone from strength to strength, in its success, its outreach to new museum and artists, and in its US brand development. Ed says, “It was very clear how much we needed to focus our efforts on the US. In one of my first meetings with a major US publisher, they announced to me that they knew Bridgeman but we were primarily only a source for European Old Master paintings. Right there was one of the many and immediate challenges that I faced and one of the principle reasons I have so enjoyed being in this industry and remained in it.” Thanks to Ed’s guiding hand, the Bridgeman Art Library now represents more US museums, galleries, and contemporary artists than any other photo agency, anywhere in the world, but not all of Ed’s work is glamorous.

American Society of Picture Professionals

“From the bosses point of view, Ed has always been 100% conscientious, hardworking, loyal, thoughtful - all those things, but increasingly insightful over the years too, with a growing sense of entrepreneurship.”

—Harriet Bridgeman, founder and CEO of The Bridgeman Art Library “From the outset, I sensed something different and distinguishing about him…I can think of no one more deserving of the PPOY award.” — Greg Ogden, former ASPP Advertising Manager “Ed’s creative, flexible and decidedly sensible approach to the business of photography and the industry in general is a beacon for me and I’m thrilled that he was awarded the Picture Professional of the Year.” — Jessica Moon, ASPP New York Chapter co-president, Senior Visual Content Editor at Scholastic “He was always so friendly and professional. I was incredibly grateful for all the support and generosity he showed to ASPP in general, and the New York Chapter in particular.”

—Cathy Sachs, former ASPP Director “A few years back…I was working with Edward…and I needed invoices…I just thought he was another account rep and it wasn’t until I happened to notice his email salutation…the President of the Bridgeman Art Library. I asked if wanted me to contact someone else for image research and invoices, and he told me no, because he loves working with customers.”

—Dawn Adams, Design Manager at Sourcebooks

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At an ASPP-NY Summer Party in the garden at Bridgeman’s office-- Ed is speaking with Katina Houvouras. In the foreground are Jessica Moon and Daniella Nilva, NY Chapter Co-presidents.

(Photo ©Cecilia de Querol).

Edward and Mike Fisher of Custom Medical Stock Photo at the ASPP Midwest’s Annual Education Day in Chicago, April 2012. (photo ©REP3)

Edward with Lindsey Nicholson (Universal Images Group), Janice Ackerman (freelancer) and Laurie Fink-Green (McGraw-Hill) at a Bridgeman Art Library party at the Museum of Sex, New York, in 2008 (photo ©Wendy Zieger)

Ed chatting with clients while staffing the Bridgeman Art Library table at Visual Connections, Chicago, April 2012 (photo ©REP3)

Edward Whitley, Wendy Zieger and Thomas Haggerty of the Bridgeman Art Library in 2008. (photo ©Wendy Zieger) 31

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before Rhythms & Radiance, Oil Painting by Melody Phaneuf]

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COLOR CORRECTION SPECIALIST

The Invisibles: Retouching is the Undetectable Art MARTHA DI MEO CERTAINLY YOU’VE SEEN THE controversial before-and-after airbrushing photos of young Hollywood ingénues in magazines, and perhaps as a picture professional you’ve thought to yourself, “The self-esteem issues we’re giving to women are terrible, but holy wow that is some artful digital retouching!” Don’t be ashamed; we all appreciate good work, especially when the job was clearly difficult. For instance, a very talented friend of mine was once hired to digitally remove the back fat from Sylvester Stallone’s fight scenes in Rocky Balboa (2006), and that was a six-month gig of epic ups and downs, much like the story of Rocky. But seeing as the retoucher’s job is often to keep their art as invisible as possible, we decided it might be time to shed some light on this growing art form in a new series where we ask the professionals to give us the scoop on their not-so-secret arts. First up is ASPP member, Martha DiMeo, or ChromaQueen to those who know and love her, who gives us the rundown of three of many professional hats she wears on a daily basis.

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PROBLEM SOLVER

Problem Solver Wedding Style Cover

COLLABORATOR composition that serves the page design. In this example, the art director wanted the layout for this double-page spread to consist of just two large photographs using full-bleed on all sides. The right-hand photo needed to extend across the gutter and onto the left-hand side of the spread. My task was to extend the décor of the runway stage to make it appear that it existed that way in reality. Along with creating the extension of the runway backdrop, careful attention was given to the lighting and resultant shadows cast on the floor. When done skillfully, the hand of the retoucher is never detected.

It was about ten days before the presses were scheduled to roll.

The art director and editor were reviewing hundreds of images from a fashion shoot in search of a perfect cover photo when they discovered one grossly under-exposed frame among the outtakes.

This was the image they wanted to turn into the magazine’s cover.

If the image could be saved, we would avoid the expense, effort, time, and stress of pulling together another photo shoot just days before all materials were due on press. The task was three-fold.

First, major tonal corrections and “re-lighting” of the subject were needed to correct for the gross under-exposure. Next, the file was converted to a four-color, black & white interpretation. Lastly, the background was removed and standard beauty retouching completed the image. The result was a photograph that met the technical requirements of print reproduction and the artistic vision of the art director and publisher.

Color Correction Specialist Improving color, lighting, and contrast Art reproduction is a specialty unto itself. It differs from color correction of photographs in that the goal is not simply pleasing color but rather, exact color. The desired result is to emulate the color and tonality of the original painting as closely as possibly within the given printing process. In this example the reproduction would be viewed in the same environment as the original painting. When the buyers of the art print viewed the reproduction next to the painting, we wanted them to see they were receiving a quality piece and a true representation of the artist’s vision. ✹

Collaborator Photo extension Rarely, if ever, do the proportions of a photograph correspond perfectly to the dimensions of the page layout. The role of the Photoshop Specialist is to work collaboratively with the design team to find a solution that transforms the photograph to a 33

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR WITOLD RIEDEL / OGILVY INTERVIEW BY RJ MINTZ

QA You’re a creative director for Ogilvy. What types of campaigns are you working on, and what type of photography do you find yourself consistently on the lookout for in your work?

creative sources, and also align them with what is right for the client and their brand. So I see photographers I work with as true partners. When we go on shoots together, we really try to get the best photography possible.

How do I select photographers I work with? I look at a lot of work, almost all the time. When a new campaign is being developed, or if there is a shift in a current campaign, then even more photography arrives on my virtual and physical desk. And I do like physical books. I obviously have photographers I already trust and love to work with. But I always have conversations with new photographers; long conversations about ideas and approach are important. Very good photographers are rather creative people, with a very defined view of the world. Some of the best ones I know are just amazing people. To take certain kinds of photographs, a certain personality behind the camera is necessary. Brilliant pictures don’t take themselves.

Stock photography is its own very special environment.

And if you start with a stock photograph and then turn it into something new, it can allow for highly creative work.

But if the art director is tasked with finding that one exact photograph that will fit a particular concept that was developed somewhere without visual aids, the task can be very tough. It is like hoping that someone out there had the same idea as the team, without knowing that they actually had that idea. It is possible, of course. In many cases, it can be more efficient to shoot something specifically and create work that moves the project beyond the expected. But I do not want to say that stock photography is bad. It just needs to be used creatively.

I am a Worldwide Creative Director for Siemens at Ogilvy. I have worked in and around advertising for over twenty years.

And photography has always been an essential part of the work.

But the kind of photography I would find myself on the lookout for would vary as much as the clients I have worked with and the projects I have worked on. A campaign that’s supposed to help increase the attendance in an amusement park calls for a different kind of photography than a campaign that is supposed to help understand that certain technology could immensely improve our chance of survival on this planet. A piece of chocolate will likely be surrounded by a visual universe that is different from the visual universe for a skin care product. Both will differ from the world seen through the eyes of a software, or infrastructure company.

Photography can be so much. Maybe that’s why it makes so much sense when used the right way. It can be an entry point into a larger story, a fantasy, a thought or the philosophy of an object. High quality photography can do that. But high quality is probably more of a journey, not a destination? There might be no perfect anything, but we can try to get as close to it as possible. Being on that quest is one of the most enjoyable and challenging parts of the job.

What’s your process for selecting photographers for assignment work, and how much do you rely on stock images?

What’s your best piece of advice for a recent photography graduate entering the professional world?

That selection process is an important part of that quest to create the best possible visual universe for a brand. For me, working with a photographer means also completely trusting them. I am not one of the creative directors who sees himself at that shining hot center of the creative process. I know that if I want the best work possible, I need to be able to connect many

When I look at photographers’ portfolios, I sometimes come across work that is not bad, but it feels like it had been created under the dictate of a bad creative director or following some bad advice in general. It happens all the time. Even great photographers sometimes end up working on projects where somebody forces them to create something they really do not 34

© Witold Riedel

like that much. But because some of the work cost them so much of their blood and sweat, it might still end up in the book. That potentially bad project could easily lead to more potentially bad projects. So I think honest and brutal editing is vital, and that personal work is incredibly important.

I like to discuss personal work with photographers. This is the work they are hopefully most passionate about. And if I can find a project that will help them develop their personal vision further, I know that we will end up with some very powerful work.

So my advice would be to make sure to never let that personal and private work die.

Make it a parallel track if necessary, but work on it. Keep developing it. Coming fresh out of college, one is not very likely to shoot that next big campaign for that big client. But this exactly is the time to just see how far that personal project can go. So please work on that. And then give yourself a certain discipline with that. Try to shoot as much as you can. Don’t just think about what you want to do. Do it. Then bring it to a point where the project becomes somehow tangible. It could be a book, but it could also be just three or five frames. Do not postpone it. And make sure something is ready when you have that accidental conversation with an agent, a creative director, a gallery, or a photo editor.

Most of your personal work is shot on a Leica. What’s your favorite camera to shoot on, and how did your relationship with Leica begin?

Haha, some of your readers will now probably just roll their eyes.

Yes, my personal work is mostly shot with Leica rangefinders. I shoot with film, and I shoot digital. I have been taking pictures since I was maybe four years old. And the first camera I shot on was a 1954 Praktina FX. It is a beautiful camera. I still have the original body and lens. It was my father’s camera. My first Leica was a Minilux. I bought it in 1998 or so. It was a not very easy to operate brick with one of the tiniest viewfinders around. But the lens really surprised me in a very good way. I eventually managed to buy a Leica M rangefinder, and I fell

in love with the precision, directness, and the size of it. The cameras are very precise, and they are not very automated. So I really need to focus and understand why I am doing what I am doing. The camera makes few mistakes. The mistakes are mostly mine. This is very good. It is a constant opportunity to learn something.

I travel quite a bit as part of my work, and I often participate in shoots. In that context, I just can’t imagine showing up with a large and loud SLR. The Leica I carry around is sometimes less than half or third the size of the equipment used to capture the actual client work. This makes very clear who has what role. When the shoot is over, I tend to explore the surroundings. It is easier to do that with a smaller camera that is reliable and somehow pure and discreet. I know that conversations about Leica often turn into something a bit metaphysical. That’s okay. These cameras are not for everyone. I carry one on me pretty much every day. I somehow shoot all the time. My Leicas have become a bit of a continuity object for me.

What issues have you come across while photographing people, specifically strangers, and how did you troubleshoot those issues to get such a large and diverse body of photo-documentary work?

Shooting all the time means also shooting everywhere. So yes, I shoot in the street as well. I shoot on the subway. I shoot in places where I am not completely sure if photography is even welcome. “Street Photography” has become a term recently used and overused by some skilled and some not very skilled people. I do not think I am a street photographer. I am more of an everywhere and all the time photographer. Most of the pictures I shoot are taken very discreetly. I basically steal what I can get. And so yes, it happened a few times that someone was not exactly happy about me taking their picture. One time in Frankfurt a man came running from across the street and tried to tear the camera off my neck. That was probably the most extreme. There was also this very friendly man on the F-Train in Brooklyn a few months ago. I did not even know I had taken pictures of him. He was not happy that I might have 35

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taken pictures of what turned out to be gang tattoos around his eyes. He was pretty reasonable. We looked at the frames I had taken. I deleted the ones he was in. It was okay.

I guess the key is to be honest about and pretty pragmatic about it. Most people seem to be fairly reasonable. And in some cultures the reaction to me taking pictures is incredibly positive.

I was shooting in the port at Dubai Creek, for example, and the crew on one of the ships invited me to take a portrait of them on board. Everyone enjoyed this. Several families in Mumbai wanted to have their picture taken. Beijing is a wonderful place to shoot.

How does being a photographer affect your job as a creative director? Are there any photographic sensibilities you’ve had to abandon to finish a project for a client? How much can your personal preference shine through on campaigns?

I feel that the best work happens when there is collaboration of experts and when everybody is allowed to do what they can do best. There obviously needs to be a bit of a tension and desire to move things forward. If we only did what we feel good about all the time and nobody ever left their comfort zone, no progress could be possible. I enjoy hiring the right people and then giving them the freedom to do something amazing. On the other hand, I have never enjoyed getting the wrong people and then spending a huge amount of energy and time trying to squeeze some sort of useable results out of the relationship. Working with someone who loves and knows what they do can be inspiring. Perhaps this is pretty obvious.

But we often forget this.

I also try to work only on campaigns that I can morally feel good about. The nature of what I do makes me spend more time with the work than with my family. So it better be something I can be honestly passionate about. I love what I currently do. The work is not exactly easy at times, but it is very often very satisfying and inspiring. What does this have to do with photography? A large part of my job is to create connections between people and ideas. I need to have the ability to be reflective and understand why certain things happen in order to be able to either develop them further or to protect the state they are in. I need to constantly think about what the next elevation point could be for the brand, the visual universe. This includes photography. When the camera is in my hands, photography allows me to be more precise about and aware of moments and places. Photography, when the camera is in a photographer’s hands, is often a reminder how tough and yet rewarding making some amazing pictures can be. It is a bit like running through a foggy park in the morning compared to being part of a team in a triathlon.

Both situations can be great learning opportunities if experienced the right way.

myself. And I make mistakes, of course. But I have certainly discovered that there are many and many fascinating paths to happiness and progress. Visually but also in the larger context of life and culture.

Exotic and foreign is a very relative terms. Much of what you will intuitively do today could probably be described as exotic or foreign to most people living on this planet. It is fascinating to discover how we have evolved in so many interesting directions. And it is very fascinating to discover what connects us as human beings. The core of things. Many ideas and emotions are still quite uniquely local, despite modernity and global connectedness having created an artificial surface closeness. These local habits must be some very resilient ideas and emotions in many ways, otherwise they would not have a chance to survive. I hope they do.

I am not sure if I am expressing it right. The differences and the similarities in the beauty of this world are probably one of the favorite things for me to discover. And working with brilliant people. No matter where they are. Photography is sometimes about aligning elements that seem separate, and it is about showing layers that could appear to be just one if glanced over too briefly.

It seems you’re a fairly avid Instagram user. Is Instagram changing the world of professional photography, or is it merely a hobby to pass the time?

More and more pictures could lead to more and more good pictures. Instagram and similar social apps that encourage frequent and shared photography do a lot on a large scale but also a lot for the individual photographer; casual or professional.

Social apps are a good reminder that there are thousands and millions of people taking pictures. And the challenge is to be able to see the frames coming into the stream as little points of inspiration and learning, not as discouragement. Photography as a shared experience.

I try to think of Instagram as a virtual photo walk. We are all out there somehow looking at the world. We might be separated by time zones and large distances. But then we can also be right there, together on that tiny screen. On a larger scale, if the side effect is an increased visual literacy for more people, great. This could improve things for all. ✹

© Witold Riedel

What’s your favorite part of your job?

I am very thankful that my work has allowed me to see so much of the world. And there is a big difference between visiting a country or region and actually working in it. I like collaborating with local teams. As you might have noticed, a lot of what I do is about a discovery process, a journey of ideas. My job in some ways is to find bridges between cultures or to be one

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ZAPD & POD

BY BEN HIGH

ZAPD is a fancy little picture sharing app, the likes of which we’ve not really seen before, but it’s about time we did. Instead of a photostream (like Instagram) or posting single images to other services (Facebook or Flickr), Zapd allows you to take a group of images and post it to a fancy little gallery. So what? How is that really different from just about any other photo sharing app? This is the fun part. When you create a photoset, you’re not just creating a set to be viewed on just a mobile device. You’re actually setting it up within a template to be viewed on the web OR via the Zapd app on a phone or tablet. I haven’t explored all the templates yet, but the ones I’ve played with so far are all slick and clean and look great across devices. For those of you who just can’t post an image unless you put it through some fancy phone filters, Zapd has that, too. If a pre-made filter isn’t your jam, it’s also got easy controls for tweaking brightness, contrast, saturation, and even sharpness as well as quick setting for cropping, color exposure balancing, night and backlit shooting. Not bad at all, right? The only thing I can think of that might stop me from fully adopting Zapd is that I don’t have any friends using it. Yet. A few friends putting together even semi-thoughtful galleries and this could be my goto photo sharing app. Regardless, it is absolutely perfect for that situation every photographer finds themselves in when you’ve got folks saying, “Oh, send me those pictures!”

When it’s as easy as selecting the necessary photos, a layout and (optionally) typing up a few captions, sharing galleries of photos just became (even more) painless.

Everyone is using Instagram these days, right? Well, they’re either using it or they’re making fun of it. After American Society of Picture Professionals

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running across enough dudes complaining about how “it’s just filters” or whining because they didn’t get enough likes on their cat photos, one Instagram complaint finally stuck in my brain: “What are you gonna do with your Instagram photos in 10 years?” I’m an unabashed fan of Instagram (it’s like Twitter, but with pictures, I love it), but it’s a bit much to expect that in ten years these images will still be around and easily accessible to me. I finally tried two Instagram bookmaking services to see how easy (and pretty) it was to turn those tiny filtered (only sometimes!) digital images into real-life objects. I tried two different printers, the first, Printstagr.am, a service based entirely on printing your Instagram images in not just books, but also stickers, posters, and all kinds of fun stuff. I opted to try two little books, each with prints about the size of your Instagram image on an iPhone. For $12, they randomly arranged 50 of my images in little spiral-bound books. The randomness of the images makes for some interesting juxtapositions, but there were also a lot of pairings that just sat there. The second book I tried was from self-publishing powerhouse Blurb.com. I’m a little bit in love with my Blurb book. It’s bigger, the print quality is higher, and, most importantly, I got to choose the order and layout of all my images. Blurb cost a bit more at just over $20, but was definitely worth it for me due to the added size and creative control. Ultimately, I’m super happy with the results of both services and can’t wait to go back and look at them again in ten years (and probably tomorrow, too). ✹

Helping creative people illustrate their ideas for over sixty-five years

www.akg-images.com

Kenn Duncan

Collection Now Available digitalgallery.nypl.org

PHONE

212.930.0091 E MA IL

permissions@nypl.org

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THE LAW: THE WHYS AND WHEREFORES OF SETTLEMENT DEMAND LETTERS

@ Heather-Lynn Aquino (heatherlynnaquino.com)

JOEL L. HECKER, ESQ.

and unless there was a valid license or some other reason why the use is valid, that such use would be an infringing use. Stating your case as such shifts the burden to the user to prove that the use is authorized or otherwise valid.

YOU MAY HAVE RECEIVED a “demand letter” claiming that you have violated someone’s right or owed someone money.

You may also have sent or have had your attorney send such a letter. Although demand letters are sometimes abused and may be a scam, they can also be a legitimate method of addressing actual claims, but what are your options as the recipient or as the sender?

The settlement portion of the demand letter may also state what your settlement requirements would be, such as a cease and desist of all use, an offer to retroactively license for the current and any proposed future use, a monetary amount, or any combination of the above. The demand letter is intended to open up a dialogue and achieve a prompt resolution, but the underlying threat behind the letter is that, absent a prompt settlement, you would seek resolution in the courts.

Sending a Settlement Demand Letter for: • Rights Violation – In the photography industry, a demand letter is most appropriate when the recipient is using copyrighted material beyond the scope or duration of a license previously granted without your consent, or when there is outright theft of copyright. In either situation, an attorney representing you would send a letter to the infringing parties stating that the copyright owner or licensee has no record of authorizing the use, American Society of Picture Professionals

• Non-Copyright Monetary Claims – A settlement demand letter may also be sent in situations where only money is due under a contract or otherwise. It should state the relationship between the 46

parties, the amount due and the reason for the debt. It should also demand either payment in full by a certain date, offer to settle for a percentage of the debt, or waive certain additional rights such as interest, in return for a prompt settlement.

Receiving a Settlement Demand Letter: If you are in the unfortunate position of receiving a demand letter sent by someone who alleges that you are violating a right or owing money, and your records say you’re at fault, it’s in your best interest to negotiate a reasonable settlement. But if the demand letter’s claims come as a surprise to you, the first step would be to investigate the matter by all appropriate means.

You may wish to consult with an attorney, but here’s a quick guide to help you along the way.

•Rights Violation – If the claim alleges that you have infringed or otherwise violated someone’s copyright, determine whether the underlying copyrighted material has been registered with the Copyright Office and whether the alleged owner or licensee of the material in fact is the proper owner. Often, the party making the claim, in fact, does not have the right to pursue any remedy. Next, you need to analyze the nature of your use and whether you have a valid license or other authorization to use the material. If you don’t have authority, you should determine whether your use falls under any of the “fair use” provisions of the United States Copyright Act. If there is a clear fair use defense, then that may be enough to force a retraction of the claim. However, fair use is rarely so cut and dry—the copyright owner likely will continue to assert its claims.

Perhaps you have used material inadvertently without consent.

In that instance, my experience is that often the copyright owner would be more than willing to enter into negotiations to allow you to continue using the copyrighted material, since it would, in effect, provide a new client to the copyright owner.

Of course, there are situations where the owner will simply demand that you cease and desist all such use, and depending upon the facts and whether you have a defensible position,

you may be forced to comply with their demands or move into litigation. In some situations where both sides are adamant, then litigation may be the only course.

• Monetary Claims – If you receive a demand letter stating that you owe money as a result of your failure to pay a bill, a breach of contract, or otherwise, you should investigate all the facts.

Regardless of whether the claim is a surprise to you, whether you are aware of the claim but dispute some of the facts involved, or whether part or all of the money claimed is in fact due, you will need to marshal the facts and your argument.

For example, you may contest the fact that performance in full has been made under a contract, or you may claim that the other party has breached the contract by failing to perform as required. You may also be an agent for your disclosed principal and not have any direct liability. This would occur where you are a representative of a talent or client.

Once you have ascertained the nature of the claim, you or your attorney should then enter into a dialogue with the sender. This might take the form of requiring performance of the outstanding obligations, a compromise in the amount claimed because of a failure of full performance, or some other imaginative resolution. Of course, in some situations, the claim may be perfectly valid, and you may very well be delighted to accept an offer to pay less than 100 percent of the amount due!

When you are sending a demand letter, you should make sure you have all of your ducks in a row, so that your demand letter is as powerful and accurate as possible, displaying a clear understanding of what resolution or remedy you are hoping to achieve. When you receive a demand letter, your first and primary response is not to panic. Once you get beyond the agitation of being accused of wrongdoing, you should get your facts together and find out what the claim is and why it is being made. Take a deep breath, and once you have reached that stage, you will be in a much better position to rationally respond, and, if necessary, attempt to negotiate a reasonable resolution. ✹ 47

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CHAPTER CAPTURE

CHAPTER CAPTURE DC/SOUTH • NEW YORK • MIDWEST/CHICAGO DC/SOUTH THE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING: THROUGH THE LENS OF MASTERS Judy Heffner ASPP’s DC/South chapter organized a program during FotoWeek DC on November 13, 2012. The Craft of Storytelling: Through the Lens of Masters, featuring National Geographic photographers Richard Nowitz and Kenneth Garrett.

Nowitz discussed mastering and using light to tell a story, while Garrett focused on the origin of civilization in the Americas. Nowitz presented images that ran the gamut from Monument Valley in the western United States, to Senegal. Garrett specializes in archaeology, paleontology, and ancient cultures, and the work he showed reflected his varied interests. Both men have extensive book credits. The event was preceded by a social networking hour and followed by a lively question and answer period.

Kenneth Garrett.

National Membership CoChair Holly Marshall talks to the audience.

COPYRIGHT: THE FACTS AND THE MYTHS Lori Epstein ASPP DC/South Chapter presented Copyright: The Facts and The Myths at the Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts in Georgetown, DC, on October 18, 2012.

After a short period of light refreshments and networking, the presentation began. The keynote speaker was Chris Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy and Special Projects, U.S Copyright Office. Chris’s very interesting presentation was followed by an engaging discussion and Q&A session with Chris, photographer and author John Harrington, and attorney Brad Newberg, a partner at Reed Smith specializing in Intellectual Property and Copyright litigation.

Richard Nowitz.

The evening was enlightening and well-attended by current local members and some new faces as well.

Former ASPP Executive Director Cathy Sachs chats with attendees..

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Credit for (4) images: ©Judy Heffner Photography

Attendees socialize before the program.

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NEW YORK BROOKLYN NAVY YARD BLDG 92 Louisa J. Curtis, Chatterbox Enterprises On Thursday, October 4, 2012, a group of intrepid enthusiasts headed out to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a “Through the Lens” presentation given by resident photographer Robert Clark and BLDG 92’s Assistant Director of Archives, Meredith Wisner. I already had some knowledge of the BLDG 92 Museum since I previously interviewed ASPP NY board member Laura Wyss, who talked about helping to clear the rights and assemble close to 500 images for the installations at the museum, and how one of the biggest challenges was reproducing a three-story-high photograph of the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a 27,000-ton aircraft carrier.

And it is thanks to Laura that this visit to BLDG 92 came about.

After a brief introduction from Aileen Chumard, Deputy Director of Exhibitions & Programs for BLDG 92, the evening began with Navy Yard tenant and National Geographic photographer Robert Clark, who gave us a wonderful overview of his stellar career, starting with his B&W photography for Friday Night Lights college football book by H.G. Bissinger, followed by First Down Houston, curated by Anne Wilkes Tucker from the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Over the years, Robert’s mentors have included Gregory Heisler, Craig Cutler, and Walter Iooss, but his fascination with the subject of evolution has been a constant throughline in his career. We were treated to images of naked mole rats, beautiful butterfly collections, and the five stages of feathers, but perhaps what got everyone most excited were his incredible images of the bog bodies.

Not only did we hear how Robert became a tenant at the Navy Yard, but he also gave us a glimpse into the now diverse community of skilled tradesmen who occupy the many buildings there, although not all necessarily “naval” by nature. As part of the BLDG 92 Museum project, Robert was asked to document the yard’s tenants through portraiture and video, for which he also enlisted the help of his Emmy award-winning producer wife Lai Ling. The fruits of their labors are now beautifully displayed in the ground-floor gallery, opposite a large display case containing some of the many fascinating and varied products made by the yard’s tenants, ranging from Caleb Crye’s award-winning digital camouflage vests used by the troops in Afghanistan, to Sweet & Low packaging!

Following Robert’s presentation, archivist Meredith Wisner gave us some insight into her work with the Navy Yard Archive. She said, “I talk to a lot of old men!” meaning that as an archivist, she is often contacted by military enthusiasts and/or veterans looking for a photographic record of times gone by. Sometimes the requests are more obscure and less sentimental, such as “occupational therapy” photos showing patients in the Naval Hospital engaging in arts & crafts as part of their rehabilitation.

On another day, she might be asked for images that are more specifically time-sensitive for a movie set—what did shipping containers look like in 1943, for example? Chances are, Meredith can tell you and find a photograph of it. After the presentations there was just enough time left for us to explore the galleries and investigate some of the exhibits before catching our 9:00 PM blue Navy Yard shuttle bus back to the subway. A return visit seems in order, with so much more to see. For more information on their bicycle tours, educational programs, and more, be sure to visit the website, www.bldg92.org.

Clockwise from top left: Exterior view of BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. © Daniella Nilva Wall display of Robert Clark’s portraits & videos of the Navy Yard’s tenants. © Daniella Nilva USS Arizona in the East River, New York City, at the time of her trials, circa mid-1916. She is accompanied by many tugs, and has small pine trees mounted in her mast tops. Photo courtesy of US Naval Historical Center.

Crewmembers cooking on deck of the USS Monitor in the James River, Virginia, July 1862. Photographed

by James F. Gibson. Photo courtesy of US Naval Historical Center.

American Society of Picture Professionals

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On Tuesday, October 23, 2012, ASPP NY hosted an informative presentation and panel discussion on the ever-changing topic of copyright at the Scandinavia House. This event was sponsored by ASMP (American Society of Media Professionals) and Reuters, while additional support came from Aurora Photos, Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLC, Fundamental Photographs, John Wiley & Sons Inc., and Newscom.

For Shawn, from the photographer’s perspective, the photographs are still the key––it’s a question of the value.

New technology equals new terms. The purpose of copyright, he said, is for the image-maker to make money, and for him, the problem lies in the contracts, which is why he has no problem crossing out unacceptable sections (most of it, if need be) of a contract to avoid being unwittingly lured into a work for hire situation. Copyright needs to work for everybody, he said, so people need to be fair and equitable. Nancy finished off the group by saying that in order for Copyright to work, there has to be protection and enforcement. She reminded us that sharing is now part of our social culture, making it too hard to track every single thing online, plus these social networking and sharing sites have very broad terms and conditions.

In her introduction, co-chair of the NY Chapter Jessica Moon succinctly said, “Changes in the evolution of content creation, image licensing and distribution have the potential of crushing the industry, as we understand it today. If you aren’t paying attention, you’ll be left behind.” Christopher S. Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy & Special Projects at the Office of the Register of Copyright, U.S. Copyright Office, began with a presentation on the history and responsibility of the Copyright Office. Simply put, the U.S. Copyright Office is a part of the Library of Congress, designated to maintain the records of copyright registration. Once handled by the US district courts, registration of copyright was moved into a centralized location in 1870. Electronic registration was introduced in 2007 and now accounts for more than 80 percent of all registrations. Last year they processed more than 700,000 registrations!

Amongst the audience questions, Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director of ASMP, asked why isn’t there room for us to profit from these newer digital and electronic uses? Lynn was confident that if digital readership increased, then so would the compensation for the photographers, but not everyone agreed, pointing out that it is the image suppliers who are still paying for this experiment. Sam Merrill from the National Board of ASPP asked the panelists what they saw five years from now, and is there hope for all the “little boats” on these ‘big waves?” Jackie encouraged everyone to see the newer technology as opportunity, and Shawn agreed that there is still a need to create custom content and what a photographer may lose from stock, perhaps the new media is replacing it, as far as an income stream, we’ll see…

An ongoing priority is that of “orphan works” and the issues of “attribution” and “remedies.” Senate bill S. 2913 is just a starting point, but what makes a qualifying search “reasonable under the circumstances,” and as Laura Wyss, ASPP NY Board member asked, how do we define the true meaning of “fair use?” Chris responded that these are flexible terms and guidelines so they have to go case by case at this point. Bottom line, technology has changed how we think about or handle copyright—the law now has to catch up with the technology.

After a short break, the second half of the morning was a panel discussion moderated by Roy Kaufman, Managing Director of New Ventures at the Copyright Clearance Center. Roy began by showing us a short film from the CCC entitled “The Life Cycle of Content,” and then introduced the diverse panel comprised of Lynn B. Oberlander, General Counsel at the New Yorker, Jackie Lissy Brustein, VP Media Research, Rights & Permissions at Q2A/ Bill Smith, Shawn G. Henry, photographer & National President of ASMP, and Nancy E. Wolff, partner at the law firm of Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP.

Clockwise from top left: A packed room at the Scandinavia House!

Each panelist had prepared their own mini-presentation, during and after which questions were opened up to the floor. Lynn talked about how all of the new digital editions of the magazine for the web, iPad, Nook, Kindle, iPhone etc., have completely changed the way they license their content but they have kept it simple when it comes to their contracts—they only “license across all media” with no technology add-on’s. Jackie told us how Photo Researchers used to be experts in finding content with a focus on the “visual,” more than the licensing. Finding images may be easier now, but the licensing is more complex, and Photo Researchers have become media content providers and data management controllers.

The panel (left to right) Nancy E. Wolff, Shawn G. Henry, Jackie Lissy Brustein, Lynn B. Oberlander and moderator, Roy Kaufman.

Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director of ASMP asks some probing questions.

Christopher S. Reed from the U.S. Copyright Office covers a lot of ground in his excellent presentation.

All images © Debra P. Hershkowitz 51

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CHAPTER CAPTURE

THE NEW COPYRIGHT ECONOMY Louisa J. Curtis, Chatterbox Enterprises

CHAPTER CAPTURE

MIDWEST/CHICAGO ASPP NETWORKING EVENT Doug Brooks On September 13, 2012 in Evanston, IL, a band of intrepid ASPP members and guests converged to share stories, ideas, appetizers and beverages of choice, as the ASPP Chicago area fall season kicked off with a successful and fun networking event.

Industries represented included publishing, photography, illustration, stock, image research, and web development.

Christopher Beauchamp, former mid-west board member, who recently returned to Illinois after several years away, also graced us with his presence, as did ASMP President Ron Gould.

The mix of talent in the room created a fun atmosphere and lively conversation. While one-on-one and small group discussions took place the most ironic discovery was that member Todd Bannor and ASMP President Ron Gould are each official event photographers for either the Romney or Obama campaigns.

They each had interesting views on campaigns, shared no personal politics but did discuss contract details they have each had to deal with. Let’s leave it at that; you should have been there!

Nancy Kuhr and Debbi Van Kirk.

As always, we stayed beyond our scheduled time to everyone’s satisfaction.

W

Clockwise from top left: Christopher Beauchamp and Doug Segal.

Beth and Todd Bannor, Dave Darian.

Left side, front to back; Debbi Van Kirk, Beth Bannor, Ron Gould, Nancy Kuhr, Dave Darian. Right side, front to back; Todd Bannor, Doug Segal, Doug Brooks, Christopher Beauchamp, Jamie Santoro.

All images ©Todd Bannor

American Society of Picture Professionals

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53 , 1960.PHOTO COURTESY OF ULLSTEIN BILD/GRANGER COLLECTION, NYC. GERMAN ACTRESS MARIA LITTO WITH HUSBAND AND DANCING PARTNER HANS SCHMIEDEL

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THE FINEST NEWS, SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT IMAGERY OF 2012 Corbis Images presents the most evocative shots from the past year in news, sports, and entertainment.

Through our contributing photographers and collections, including the Associated Press, Demotix, and Splash, we bring you the images that defined events from every corner of the globe.

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BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS Photography: The Whole Story Edited by Juliet Hacking Prestel Hardcover, 576 pages $34.95 For a crash course or for writing the course, Photography: The Whole Story is a solid, comprehensive resource that includes practically every reasonably famous image, placing them in historical, thematic, and technological context. The design is tight and functional, with most photographs accompanied by a “navigator” sidebar that highlights “focal points” in the image and gives a biographical sketch of the photographer.

Arranged chronologically and clumped into sets like “Still Life” and “Picturing The World,” the sheer scale of the book—including everything from the first heliographs and Alphonse Bertillon’s mug shots through shots of the moon landing, Baghdad burning, and Kim Joon’s post-production photo-illustration—means that there’s no thoroughgoing narrative or thesis, just overlapping themes that give conceptually handy framing without too much prescriptive baggage. It’s a neat trick, and helped by focusing mainly on the images, a surprisingly rare thing in photo history survey texts.

One particularly nice aspect is that Photography: The Whole Story takes an implicitly feminist approach throughout, from discussions of Ed Weston’s many muses to Man Ray’s “Ingres’ Violin” to discussions on the nude throughout photography. It’s a shame that a feminist perspective in a general survey photography text is worth noting, but by taking feminism as given in the same descriptive tone used for all of the writing, editor Hacking remedies a frequent shortcoming of generalist art history books in a way that furthers her goal of offering the whole story.

For all that, Photography: The Whole Story would best be experienced as part of a course, rather than as a stand alone book; it’s a great resource for people who already know photography and need a quick reference, but the breadth precludes depth. For example, the Roger Fenton photograph “Valley of the Shadow of Death” is accompanied by text that alludes to Susan Sontag’s claim that Fenton staged the photograph, since debunked by Errol Morris. But with only approximately 400 words to place the photo in context and explain the process he used, getting the “whole story” just isn’t possible. The book is already nearly 600 pages, including index and glossary; fleshing it out would turn it into a cinder block, but a good prof could turn this book alone into a whole curriculum.

Possession, 1976, British Council Collection, London, UK © Victor Burgin; Courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne

- JOSH STEICHMANN

American Society of Picture Professionals

56

Sitting on the Wall–Shenzhen 1, 2002. Chromogenic color print © Weng Fen

Follow Me, 2003. Chromogenic color print © Wang Qingsong

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BOOK REVIEWS

Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast Nathalie Herschdorfer Prestel Hardcover , 150 illustrations, 296 pages $65 When a colossal conglomerate like Condé Nast gives an author unprecedented access to their centuryold archive, prodigious results are bound to happen.

That’s what we have in Prestel’s book, Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast. Nathalie Herschdorfer had to be pinching herself sapphire during the process. What a dream to have nearly 300 pages to fill from rooms full of images by the world’s most illustrious fashion photographers. There must have been overwhelming moments, too. But Herschdorfer stays true to the premise of writing a book about fashion photographers as artists, and she selects images that are more about the approach than the trend depicted, concentrating on how the field developed and how careers were launched.

We also find out how Nast went about surrounding himself with talent and using his influences on the publishing world. It’s wild to imagine that when he acquired Vogue in 1909, the circulation was a mere 14,000 copies per month!

Coming into Fashion is organized in four major sections.

In “The Beginnings: 1911-1939,” Edward Steichen defines High Society by depicting a sophisticated woman from the shoulders up, letting light catch on a simple strand of pearls and the tips of a silver fox wrap. He also cleverly sets a hand model sliding Ma Jong tiles across a board; the emphasis is on her ring and three stunning bracelets perfectly set on her arms. Composition dominates the next part, “The Golden Age: 1940-1959.” Here we find Erwin Blumenfeld charting new ground. He spends eleven years at Vogue, experimenting with multiple exposures and colored filters. Diane Arbus takes the idea of photography concept into the magazine’s pages by staging scenes of a fashion shoot itself.

Then, through “The New Wave: 1960-1979” and “Recognition and Renewal: 1980-2011,” the book goes on to discuss and rediscover the work of this genre’s leaders. Helmut Newton’s trademark subversive style, Deborah Turbeville’s method of shooting her models in controversial poses, Paolo Roversi and Mario Testino’s approach to the model as the fashion itself plus a new generation of artists who are making their mark are just a few of the many photographers profiled in this excellent volume.

©Erwin Blumenfeld Vogue, 1946

- JAIN LEMOS © Diane Arbus Glamour, 1948 American Society of Picture Professionals

58

Reuters: Our World Now 5 Edited by Reuters Thames & Hudson Paperback, 320 pages $24.95 I am an unabashed news junkie. I grew up at a time when they still showed newsreels prior to the feature at the movies (quaint, eh?). That, along with experiencing major televised historical moments like the JFK assassination aftermath, the landing of the first man on the moon, and the Watergate hearings have made me a natural consumer of such 24/7 news networks as CNN and MSNBC. But, my developing years were also a time when newspapers (yes, the paper version) still reigned. As a teen I developed the habit of devouring both the morning and afternoon papers in my hometown of Milwaukee and we were lucky both papers had exceptional staff photographers who were given ample space to display their creations. For those of us addicted to the rush of both current events and eye-stopping photography, then, books like Reuters: Our World 5 are a treasure. This compilation of international photojournalism visually summarizes a truly amazing year, 2011: twelve months that included the Arab Spring, devastating earthquakes and an ensuing tsunami in Japan, the Occupy movement, riots in London and continuing global financial crisis, as well as the “normal” plethora of scandals, births, and deaths.

The beauty of this book is multilayered: first and foremost, its layout truly does justice to the photos, with most covering a full

page and many extended across the gutter to a second page as well. In addition, since editorial images without context don’t tell the full story, the images are divided by calendar quarter, and then further sub-divided into smaller sections that culminate in single pages containing both caption data and thumbnails, so you don’t have to keep flipping back to previous pages. This logical design makes it easy to spend as much or as little time with Our World 5 as you care to in single sittings.

And the photographs themselves? Powerful, passionate, and in many cases just plain gutsy. I can’t tell you how many times I had to stop and say to myself, “Who in their right mind is out there photographing this stuff?” Although Our World 5 contains a few human interest-type images (the Prince William–Kate Middleton wedding, spectators at the British Open golf tournament, a man sleeping at a trade fair in Berlin, etc.), the overwhelming majority of pictures were generated under circumstances that represent the sorrier side of the human condition: war, protest, famine, and civil unrest. The debt of gratitude that we owe to the photographers who, in many cases, bravely put their own lives on the line to make these photos is enormous, and they reinforce the fact that single images, even in an Internet/cable TV/YouTube world, still pack enormous power.

Since American newspapers seem to be dominated by AP and Getty for their images, the chances are most if not all of the photos in Reuters: Our World Now 5 will be new to you. This “freshness factor” only adds to what is an already highly enticing homage to 21st-century photojournalism.

- PAUL H. HENNING

THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PICTURE PROFESSIONALS

ADVERTISE WITH THE ASPP ABOUT ASPP Readers of our magazine are decision makers! Our membership includes buyers, editors and researchers who collectively license millions of images each year for a variety of print and online publishers including National Geographic, Smithsonian, Pearson, AOL and Readers Digest.

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217 Palos Verdes Blvd, #700, Redondo Beach CA 90277

JOEL L. HECKER, ESQ. Practices in every aspect of photography and visual arts law, including copyright, licensing, publishing contracts, privacy rights, and other intellectual property issues, and acts as general counsel to photography and content-related businesses. In addition to writing for The Picture Professional, Hecker lectures and writes on these issues in PhotoStockNotes, the New York Bar Association Journal, and the association’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal.

He is a past trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, and past chair of the Copyright and Literary Property Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Tel.: 212.447.9600; website: RussoandBurke.com; email: HeckerEsq@aol.com.

The first time JOSH STEICHMANN got paid for photography was when he turned a snack shack at a summer camp into a 12-foot by 12-foot pinhole camera.

Since then, he’s had a love of 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 home-hacked Holga.

BEN HIGH is an Iowan turned Angeleno turned Iowan. He used to be a music industry wonk and commercial photographer. Now he designs fancy (sometimes photography-related) jewelry and shoots Polaroid and instant film. You can see what he’s up to at benhigh.com.

CONTRIBUTORS ISSUE 4 / 2012 THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

PAUL H. HENNING was a professional location photographer for 15 years. He co-founded and directed Third Coast Stock Source, and was manager of European operations for Comstock Picture Agency in London. He’s served as acting managing director at the Robert Harding Picture Library and is the founder of Stock Answers, a consultancy that works with stock picture agencies and photographers worldwide. Paul also serves as the director of business development for Tetra Images, a New Jersey-based royalty-free image production company.

WENDY ZIEGER is the co-president of the ASPP Midwest Chapter. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and works remotely for the New York office of The Bridgeman Art Library as a senior account manager and picture researcher. She has a BA in Art History and an MLIS in Library Science.

In her “real” life she’s “Mom” to two boys and a girl, ages 16 to 28 and “Nana” to a 2-year-old.

© Camillo Longo

RJ MINTZ is a photographer born and raised in Los Angeles. He will soon be receiving his BFA in Photography from Art Center College of Design. See his current work at rjmintzphotography.com.

IMAGE: © RJ Mintz 63

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LIFE IN FOCUS

Š June Korea • wwwjunekoreaphoto.com

LAST YEAR a tsunami piled through Japan, destroying homes, businesses, and beach fronts. Since then, a woman named Nancy Shortt in Long Beach, California, has walked the beach by her home daily, picking up and sorting debris that made the transoceanic trip from Japan to the US. Her work is endless, but it is her choice, and nobody has asked her to do it. Every day, Nancy Shortt is reminded of a place very far away from her home.

In late October of this year, the Eastern seaboard was pummeled by Hurricane Sandy, destroying our own homes, businesses, and beach fronts. The repair efforts are ceaseless, but many are still without shelter or a means of income. Amidst this, a bundle of 57 love letters between a WWII army private and a New Jersey woman washed ashore days after the storm. Nobody knows where they came from, but the boy and his mother who found them returned to their flood-damaged home, sat down by the fireplace, and read the letters aloud to one another in the dark.

Love travels far to those who need it.

American Society of Picture Professionals

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