Issue 3, 2012: ASPP's The Picture Professional Magazine by American Society of Picture Professionals

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QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PICTURE PROFESSIONALS

ISSUE 3/ 2012

THE

PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

1,000,000 fine art images

from the world's leading museums... come experience our gallery

212.505.8700 www.artres.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS ISSUE 3 / 2012 THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

PORTFOLIO Tamar Levine

PORTFOLIO Camillo Longo

PORTFOLIO Jason Knight

CONFIDING IN SILVER Ellen C. Herbert

CLICK Ben High

DOCUMENTING THE TITANIC Richard Philpott

BOOK REVIEWS

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Michael Masterson

EDITOR’S LETTER April Wolfe

Q/A Photo Editor Agnieszka (Aga) Millhouse

THE LAW: CLASS ACT Joel L. Hecker, Esq.

CHAPTER CAPTURE

CONTRIBUTORS

LIFE IN FOCUS Witold Riedel

COVER IMAGE “Ancestor worship (Xie xie wai zu mu)” THIS PAGE “Examination Pending” © JASON KNIGHT 1

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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 Goodman/Van Riper Photography Levine Roberts Photography

MASTHEAD

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

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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 Ellen C. Herbert Ben High Joel L. Hecker, Esq. Agnieszka (Aga) Millhouse Richard Philpott Josh Steichmann 2012-2013 National Board of Directors President Michael Masterson Vice President Sam Merrell Secretary Sid Hastings

Minden Pictures Nature Picture Library New York Public Library North Wind Picture Archive Picture Archive Council of America Robert Harding World Imagery Ron Sherman Photography Science Source/Photo Researchers

Treasurer Mary Fran Loftus Membership Doug Brooks Holly Marshall

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 Visual Connections

DC/South Lori Epstein Jeff Mauritzen

Editorial April Wolfe editor@aspp.com

2012 Sub-Chapter Vice Presidents

National President Michael Masterson michaeldmasterson@gmail.com

Technology Cecilia de Querol

Bay Area Mike Kahn

Marketing & Communications Jennifer Davis Heffner

Minnesota Julie Caruso Missouri Sid Hastings

2012 Chapter Presidents

Ohio Mandy Groszko

West Mark Ippolito Jason Davis

Wisconsin Paul H. Henning

MidWest George Sinclair Wendy Zieger

Membership Doug Brooks Holly Marshall membership@aspp.com Website Daryl Geraci webmanager@aspp.com Tel: 602-561-9535 eNews Blog Cecilia de Querol newsletter@aspp.com

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

New England Jennifer Riley Debra LaKind New York Jessica Moon Daniella Nilva

• 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 MICHAEL D. MASTERSON ASPP NATIONAL PRESIDENT

DEAR PICTURE PROS, I confess: I love a good story. I’ve had a lifelong love of reading, instilled first by my mother and then by old-style elementary school teachers with jiggly arms poking out of Mamie Eisenhower-style dresses. Their passion for story telling was reinforced by my grandmother’s friend Flora who slowly parceled her library out to me a book or two at a time, all inscribed in elegant script, “To Mike from Mrs. Zenor,” with the date below. She’s the one who turned me on to Twain, Dickens, Kipling, and even Thomas Wolfe. I’ve lugged those books around for 40 years now, some of which you can see behind me in the photo above. And then the magazines! As a child I delighted in flipping through Life, marveling at the photos every week, and the arrival of National Geographic each month (hoping a map was tucked inside) cemented my love of photography and yearning to travel. There are stacks of partially read and soon-to-be-read copies of the New Yorker scattered around my house along with piles of other periodicals. Guilt and lack of time finally forced me to winnow my dozen-plus subscriptions down, but magazines still arrive weekly, beckoning me to delve between their covers. But there’s only one magazine I read from cover to cover, and it arrives quarterly: The Picture Professional. I am admittedly partial to it as it’s the only one I write for, and my picture appears in every issue. That said, and well beyond it, it’s damn good. It’s been a joy working with April Wolfe and Ophelia Chong and watching their collaboration produce ever more delightful results with each issue. I love the direction it’s taken, featuring more and bigger imagery and exposing us to the work of younger photographers. It is all about the pictures. And the stories they tell, of course. This issue takes that further by exploring the narratives woven through these images. It’s an extraordinary sampling of, dare I say, haunting work. It’s work that stays with you, stories that reverberate. Happy reading. And looking! ✹

MICHAEL

michaeldmasterson@gmail.com 5

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

FALL IS MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE time of the year. Aside

from there being Halloween, Thanksgiving, and my birthday, fall is the signifier that time has passed and that summered days are temporary. Here is where we can talk about death. Halfway through the production of this issue, my trusted MacBook shut its internal systems down. For a moment as I blinked at the black screen, I could faintly hear a mechanism spinning, then stopping, then spinning once more halfheartedly, until all was silent, and left only was the wash of heat on my legs from where its battery core rested on my lap. At the moment my computer died, I had thirteen separate windows open in five different programs. Even as the rainbow spiral told me it was far too much for the operating system to handle, I opened more windows and programs. I had pushed us too far. And then, for seven days, as I traveled by bus through the Midwest, I had no computer, none of my files, and, seemingly, no way to prove that I am. But I exist outside of my technology. It’s difficult to remember this when we’re all lurched over our laptops looking for work, keeping up with trends, or selling a client, but we all exist outside of our technology. We all have objects, ideas, and people who we’ve loved and lost, and even then the world has kept on spinning like that rainbow spiral—another signifier— this time for: we’re still working, but please take a breath and a minute to yourself. And even if the spiral halts, we’ve known from experience that it’ll all begin again.

Our cover photographer, Jason Knight, knows this well. In his Dead Man’s Curve series, he explores in depth the passing of time by hunting down the myriad cars that have careened off historic Mulholland Drive and lain to rest. Fashion photographer Tamar Levine takes a completely different spin on time in her series The Edge of a Hem, where not only is she racing against the clock to finish the shoot, but she’s also reconstructing a lush narrative of love and loss in the post-Civil War era. And then there’s Camillo Longo’s cinematic snapshots of something lurking just beyond a well-composed frame; is it humor, or is it fear? Also in this issue, we have Ellen Herbert’s heartfelt memorial to Lauren Simonutti and her striking and painstakingly composed images, as well as Ben High’s tech recommends, and Richard Philpott takes us through the remarkably large project of documenting the Titanic. As always, Joel Hecker keeps us up-to-date on the law, and in our continuing Q/A series, we interviewed longtime photo editor Agnieszka (Aga) Millhouse to get some perspective on the evolution of the photo industry and how we’re adapting. Why don’t you take a little break from your work and flip through these pages. When the world is crumbling, and you’re 30 emails behind, it’s a good idea to take a look out your window and notice that every tree outside goes through the process of death before growth. They return to their beginnings, and maybe it’s time for you to find your roots as well, maybe rediscover why you got into the photographic arts in the first place. ✹ editor@aspp.com. Sincerely, A.WOLFE

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WHAT’S HANGING

Photo exhibitions near you.

CALIFORNIA Mamá Art Café 4754 Mission St. San Francisco Mary Giancoli CUETZALAN: THE CITY OF MAGIC September 8 – October 20, 2012 Giancoli’s work explores ancient rituals and dances still practiced today in Cuetzalan. Nestled in the northern sierra of Mexico, Cuetzalan is rich with birds, turkeys, coffee and exotic fruits. In pre-Hispanic times, Cuetzalan held a ceremony for Xochiquetzal, the goddess of flowers, in October. The festival of the Huipil (from Nahuatl, an Aztec language, meaning blouse or dress) revives indigenous customs in music and dance as a response to people who were displaced from their land and beliefs. Contestants are ages fourteen to twenty, fluent in their native tongue (Nahuatl and Spanish), know how to weave, and perform domestic work in rural communities.

Ruud van Empel, Moon #7, 2008. ©Ruud van Empel 2008; Courtesy Stux Gallery, New York.

Museum of Photographic Arts 1649 El Prado San Diego

In Cuetzalan, where time stands still, women and men carry out ancient rituals as maidens, artisans, and voladores. The task ahead is to preserve these traditions, and improve the quality of life of the indigenous people. Giancoli writes, “The experience of visiting rural women artisans in their homes in Mexico, and seeing the Feria de Huipil and Cafe festival was transformative and a testament to spiritual customs, gender equality, empowerment of women, micro-business, and the ties that bind us.” Giancoli received her BA from Wellesley College and MFA in Photography from Hunter College, CUNY, NYC, and has taught photography at various institutions in New York. This exhibition was funded in part by ASPP in New York and through USA Projects and generous donors.

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Ruud van Empel: Strange Beauty October 13 – February 3, 2013 Explore the extraordinary world of Ruud van Empel in the artist’s first solo exhibition in an American museum. Created with a singular artistic vision, van Empel builds vibrant photomontages of fascinatingly fabricated realities. Strange Beauty features over 40 of van Empel s digitally enhanced pieces, displaying images of perfect beauty with mysterious and captivating undertones. Van Empel constructs his works through staged photography, digital enhancement and collage. His modern technique and composition is a product of an artistic journey, which spanned graphic design, theater and television. Hence, each image holds a distinctly theatrical air.

WHAT’S HANGING

Ruud van Empel, World #19, 2006. ©Ruud van Empel 2006; Courtesy Stux Gallery, New York.

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MASSACUSETTS Photographic Resource Center at Boston University 832 Commonwealth Avenue Boston © Rania Matar, Siena, Brookline, MA, 2009, from A Girl and Her Room.

Rania Matar: Girls in Between September 6 – November 3, 2012 Rania Matar poignantly captures the elusive and mysterious moment in a girl’s life when she is both a child and an emerging woman. Spurred on by her observations of her own daughters, Matar invites her subjects to decide for themselves how they will appear in a photograph and what parts of themselves they are willing to share with others. By establishing what she describes as “beautiful and intimate collaborations” with each girl she photographs, Matar uncovers a world so personal to each girl that the viewer walks away feeling as if he or she has met and had a conversation with each subject. The girls in Matar’s photographs, from both the United States and Lebanon, simultaneously hide and expose themselves, exhibiting a dual vulnerability and ferocity completely unique to the female transition from girl to woman. This show features work from Matar’s highly acclaimed project A Girl and Her Room as well as never-before-seen work from Matar’s new project L’Enfant-Femme. American Society of Picture Professionals

Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and Cornell University, she studied photography at the New England School of Photography and the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico. She teaches photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and in refugee camps in Lebanon. She was selected at one of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers by Women in Photography, and was finalist for the distinguished Foster Award at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Among other exhibitions, Matar was also featured in EXPOSURE 2011, the 16th annual juried exhibition at the PRC. Her images are in the permanent collections of several museums worldwide.

WHAT’S HANGING

INTERNATIONAL NRW-Forum Ehrenhof 2 40479 Düsseldorf Germany Rankin Rankin– Show Off September 15, 2012 – January 13, 2013. Rankin’s first comprehensive museum exhibition and his first show in Germany, Rankin – Show Off is a journey through Rankin’s life as a photographer, displaying the diversity powerful images from contemporary iconography, including commercial campaigns, from Nike to Women’s Aid. Known for his dynamic and intimate portraiture, Rankin has photographed subjects ranging from royalty to refugees. He co-founded the style bible Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack, which established its stylists in the fashion elite, broke some of today’s top designers, and nurtured the budding careers of a generation of creative photographers. Earning a reputation for creative portraiture with a talent for capturing the character and spirit of his subjects, Rankin quickly became a formidable force in photography, shooting Britpop bands, including Pulp and Blur, and darlings of pop like Kylie Minogue and Madonna. Rankin’s career continued to blossom, and covers for German Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Arena, and GQ rapidly followed. His body of work since the early 1990s includes portraits of some of the most influential politicians, popular musicians, revered artists, and celebrated models. However, Rankin also continued to take on projects that featured ordinary people, often questioning established notions of beauty and causing controversy and igniting debates along the way. Düsseldorf’s tourism office is offering specials for the duration of the festival. Visit their website at duesseldorf-tourismus.de/hotelpakete.

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created this photo series as a finalist for the 2012 New Exposure Photography Competition, a competition cosponsored by Vogue, Bottega Veneta, and RED Camera. For the shoot, RED Camera lent each of the 10 finalists a RED Epic-X. Using a new camera—particularly a video camera— was a challenge in itself, but to further increase the difficulty, we were given one week to completely finish the shoot, while using the brand new technology of the Epic-X, which none of us had laid hands on previously. Everything else (models, concept, location) was left up to the photographers.

I began by creating a concept. I’ve wanted to do a shoot reminiscent of the late 1800’s, specifically post-Civil War, for quite some time, and this was the perfect opportunity. I try to keep all my narratives open for interpretation, but my heroine here is lost in time, trapped at home with her daughter. Her husband is perhaps at war, or perhaps has died at war, and now he is haunting the home. She is in limbo, simultaneously lost and trapped. I included a live owl as a symbol of death as well as truth, and amid all the chaotic factors of a photo shoot, the live owl was actually the easy part. Originally, we had a hawk lined up, and the hawk’s wrangler had canceled a day before the shoot (on a Sunday), so I spent the entire day before the shoot looking for an owl (which was my first choice because of the symbolism and beauty). Apparently, all bird handlers know each other in California, so after calling around I found the perfect owl and handler, who both had actually just gotten back from a feature film with Adam Sandler and were very professional. The most difficult part was everyone wanting to take photos with the owl and pet him while we were shooting with a very tight schedule.

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The Obstructions Tamar Levine on narrative, locations and owls

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For the fashion, I wanted to keep the spread timeless, with a current edge, taking the model through all stages of dress and undress, vulnerability and hope, and once I had the concept and the fashion, I needed a location. I had scouted a few B&Bs and other locations. This one stood out for a few reasons. Logistically, I was doing this shoot out of pocket. I had to pay for all my own expenses. So the fact that this wonderful B&B in Pasadena had a lot of props and furniture from the time period already to go without us having to bring in a ton of things was a huge bonus. It was very historically accurate. Also the owners mentioned that Einstein had breakfast at the dining room table once, and that was pretty cool. The next steps were to spend some time finding the right model through an agency, going to a prop house in LA, researching props and fashion from the late 1800’s, booking my crew, looking at inspiration photos, paintings, film, and drawings, and getting to learn the Epic-X as well as I could within this time frame. After planning, we spent a day at the actual shoot. I have a pool of people I tend to work with. We’re all very comfortable with each other. I’m lucky enough to be doing what I love—my hobby—for a living, so I tend to think it should also really be fun. I don’t like taking myself too seriously, and the second my work becomes a burden, I should start doing something else. I had three days to edit and retouch, and the series was finished a week later. All in all I learned quite a bit—from using a new camera, to experimenting with new lights (I had to use hot lights as I was shooting a video camera). I definitely wouldn’t call this particular shoot shotgun...Though it did require a lot of planning, albeit fast planning, but these are conditions you run into when shooting for magazines. I like the option of having more time to plan, but sometimes (most times), it doesn’t work out that way. While I’d never choose to only have a week to plan a shoot, I do thrive on challenges. Sometimes my work benefits from my being a little bit stressed—there’s something about the challenge that excites me. ✹ Owl Trainer: Mark Jackson Lighting: Milton Santiago Assistant: Andrew Lee Interns: Tamar Kasparian and Xintong Li Location: The Bissell House

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Stylist: Tashina Hunter Hair Stylist: Tara Mann Makeup Artist: Veronica Chanel Model: Andrea, Brand Models Little girl: Tegan Miller Owl: Perry from Avian Entertainment

ÂŠ Tamar Levine

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ÂŠ Tamar Levine

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THE WORLD OF

CAMILLO LONGO

Remaking Reality

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aspp.com ÂŠ Camillo Longo (4)

My inspiration and influences come from a variety of places. I’m often asked if horror films inspire me, and my answer is always yes, but not entirely. I grew up watching the classics by George Romero, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter, but that genre is only a part of what influences my work. I have film influences ranging from Rod Serling and Jim Jarmusch to Wim Wenders, just to name a few, and one of my favorite examples is the poetic contemporary western, Paris, Texas, by Wim Wenders. As a photographer himself, every frame is a piece of art. But what Paris, Texas does best is tell a story. The narrative from writer Sam Shepard, combined with the haunting soundtrack by Ry Cooder, worked in tandem with Wenders’ pictures, so that no one element was inspirational to me, but, instead, the whole film.

I can spend two weeks building a set and several weeks researching the context of the image, but only ten minutes making just one image from it. The process always starts as an idea that I’ll put down on paper, and then I’ll figure out how to make it a reality. The shot of “Eternal Circus” I set up in my backyard. The giant clown is painted foam board, and the rest is a fog machine and lighting. Constructing the sets from scratch gives me one-hundred percent flexibility, and sometimes I have more fun building the actual set than taking the photograph. Because most of my imagery is created with little to no Photoshop, if I need something in the picture, I’ll hunt it down or make it before I add it digitally. Luckily, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with a special effects artist, Mike Walters, for the last six years to make my ideas come to life. It’s hard to say why I’m attracted to stories like the Hartford one, or why Paris, Texas is my favorite movie. All I know is someone like Bruce Davidson can put so much soul into making images of the Circus, and Wim Wenders does the same with his films and photographs. That’s what moves me most, their curiosity for new cultures and the amount of soul that is put into their art. Without a doubt, that’s what drives me the most—curiosity. ✹ American Society of Picture Professionals

Films are just one slice of inspiration of mine. A majority of my influence also comes from history. For example, the image I created (“Eternal Circus”) of a ghostly little girl standing in the mouth of a clown comes from my fascination with the history of American Circus. I was reading about the 1944 Hartford circus fire at the time, which was not only the largest circus fire, but also one of the biggest fire disasters in general. How it started remains a mystery, but it began only a few minutes into the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey show, killing over 150 people and injuring over 700. After the tragedy, Hartford banned the circus until the 70s, but the mystery surrounding the fire created a legend. A little blonde girl in a white dress, “Little Miss 1565” was that fire’s most famous victim. She was never identified, but my image, which took several weeks of set construction and research, was an attempt to give her identity. In fact, I do a great deal of detailed research for all of my photos.

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ÂŠ Camillo Longo (2)

QA First off, how long have you been a photo editor and researcher? Where/how did you get your start? I’ve been a photo editor and researcher for over a decade. I got my start in September 2001. Towny Dickinson and Susan Freeman at McMillan/McGraw-Hill Education believed in my potential enough to hire me to work on the K-12 Social Studies textbooks. Under their guidance, I was able to hit the ground running in an industry that was completely foreign to me at the time. It was love at first sight. I always had an interest in fine art and photography so, in a way, it was a natural transition from my previous role as an assistant to the Curator at the newly created department of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art back in 1996.

around a light table with creative, editorial and production teams. No more time to search for the obscure gems. Every year brings more budget cuts not just for photo research but also for book publishing in general. It’s ironic how with the rapid availability of images online; there is less room for creativity. The researcher/editor often has to compromise between quality of an image (at a greater price) and an image that is “ordinary” but costs much less. Focus has shifted from the creative to the “let’s get it done as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible.”

Ellen Herbert, who also contributed an article to this issue, said recently on a Facebook post: “Curating is what Photo Editors used to do. Photo Editing is now what Retouchers used to do. I don’t know what Retouchers are doing now, though.” From your work history, it looks like you’ve attempted to cultivate yourself into an all-in-one service. How have your professional metaphorical hats evolved over the years, and do you wish things could go back to the days of doing a single job well? I’m pretty sure that the retouchers are not curating now. How I miss those days of putting together a photo presentation and creative collaboration between Editorial, Creative and Production departments. Just like the industry, I had to evolve in order to survive and keep on top of things. When I first started, I didn’t have to worry much about invoices and contracts. Financial department handled all that separately. However, that changed since my MMH days. In my last fulltime position, I had to literally read full transcript, decide what photos would fit best in each chapter, pick and choose which would come from the Public Domain sources, Rights managed and royalty free, negotiate contracts, secure any additional rights and permissions needed from, say Artist’s Rights Society, order high resolutions, transmit them to production, report usage, request invoices, approve and pay invoices, track usage and rights for each image.

When you began in the industry, what was your main mode of finding art? How has this changed? Ten years ago, it was 90% analog, lots of time, and generous budget. Unlike now, only a small fraction of collections in institutions like, say, The Library of Congress was digitized and most of it was not yet available online. So, one would have to create a list of specs and send it out, requesting slides, prints or transparencies. The process was very time consuming but, like I said, back then, there was a lot more time one could devote to photo research. There was paperwork galore. Even photo agencies didn’t have most of their collections available online and one would have to rely on the reps to provide exactly what was needed. I would send in research requests and wait for the slides from the agency. Once the material arrived (in yellow, padded manila envelopes), all the slides had to be cataloged, examined, pre-selected (curated) and labeled according to the specs before a concept meeting even began. Tracking was a task in itself. Every slide had to be accounted for and transmitted to Production along with detailed paperwork. Then, of course, they had to be returned in a timely fashion back to the agency or an institution. In some cases, I would contact an individual collector and ask for a loan of, say, rare marbles to be I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing, though. I think it’s photographed in our in-house studio. So, in a way, I was also the important to know the process from all sides. I find that many issues would be solved if people had a wider understanding registrar and art loan rep. I miss those days. of the big picture (pun intended). I can’t tell you how many It is hard to believe how the process of finding photos evolved times I had authors supply an image that was either too low of in a relatively short time. No more slides and concept meetings a resolution or was lifted from Google “It’s on Google, it’s free.” 26

PHOTO EDITOR AGNIESZKA (AGA) MILLHOUSE FORETELLS THE FUTURE INTERVIEW BY APRIL WOLFE

We are all familiar with that one. I also had the privilege to work for an image vendor. That allowed me to see the other side of the industry, from the supplier’s point of view. I think the key is to do all tasks well, especially if you are in a position to do so. Over the past few years, have you noticed a difference in the types of work you’re getting? Web over print? Commercial over art? And how has the industry adapted to the influx of both the demand for and availability of royalty-free images? Remember back in the mid 90s, the big dot com boom? All the industry went crazy trying to adapt to the dot com trend. All the advertising went from print to Internet because that’s where the future was. I see the same thing happening with the book publishing. More and more publishers are concentrating on the ebooks product with the advent of tablets and digital readers. I still can’t find a consistent answer regarding what constitutes “life of product” vis-à-vis an ebook. Or how does one calculate a print run when dealing with a digital product. All these issues are still up in the air and the “safe” route is to turn to the royaltyfree imagery when placing a photo. When I first started, RF

imagery was quite ordinary and, often, outdated. Now, I’m amazed at what’s available out there. Also, public domain images are becoming more and more in demand. People get educated as to what it means and find that institutions such as The Library of Congress play a great role in providing “free” images. Finally, what technology/program/website developed in the past few years has changed the industry most significantly and why? I think that any website that addresses asset management systems, with a focus on storage and retrieval of photo archives is essential. Personally, I find DAMNEWS to be most helpful. As I mentioned earlier, with ever increasing focus on obtaining free images, the Library of Congress is an excellent resource for those who are looking for rare, beautiful, and free images (not all images on the LOC are part of Public Domain so make sure you read the disclaimer carefully). Creative Commons is another resource where an editor can find one of kind photos. I personally find the individual photographer websites very helpful as well. It allows direct contact vs. relying on reps and third-party photo vendors. Again, all we need is more time.✹ 27

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Silver Jubilee street party, 1977, London, UK / Mirrorpix

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S E Rvenice E N inI Swinter SIMA

SERENISSIMA venice in winter

PHOTOGRAPHS by FRANK VAN RIPER and JUDITH GOODMAN TEXT by FRANK VAN RIPER “One of life’s subtlest acquired pleasures is the Venice of winter, of mists and puddles, umbrellas and empty alleys and gondolas in the rain. This book magically acquires the pleasure for us—and no less miraculously — enables us to enjoy it all the year round.” — JAN MORRIS, AUTHOR, THE WORLD OF VENICE; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE

PHOTOGRAPHS B Y F R AN K VAN R I P E R AN D J UD I T H GO O D M AN

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TEXT BY FRANK VAN RIP ER

AVAILABLE on AMAZON.COM and BARNESANDNOBLE.COM To order signed and inscribed copies, visit www.veniceinwinter.com American Society of Picture Professionals

“Serenissima: Venice in Winter takes us on the rare journey that a perfect book can and unravels the secrets of a very personal walk through the streets, canals, and homes of Venice…This book is a rare combination of pictures that take you there, and prose that lets you feel as if you’re watching it all from the corner of a small Venetian coffee bar, espresso in hand, ever glancing out the windows.” — DAVID BURNETT, PHOTOJOURNALIST, CONTACT PRESS IMAGES

Flappers dance the Charleston atop blocks of ice, 1926. ÂŠ Scherl / Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / The Image Works

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THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL EDITION IS HERE! Welcome to ASPPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electronic version of our quarterly publication, made possible through the support of CORBIS IMAGES. In addition to our beautifully produced print edition, we hope our members and subscribers will enjoy the extra content sprinkled throughout the publication as well as the convenience of having even more industry information just a click away. Dive in and enjoy the perfectly haunting visuals in Issue 3, 2012!

Enjoy this supplemental slide show from The Image Works

BECAUSE YOU ASKED... We received tons of compliments on this issue from our members and readers. Please keep sending us your feedback! Several people wanted to know more about the images on our cover and contents page by Los Angeles-based photographer Jason Knight. We asked Jason to share with you how these situations came about and he wrote, “I received the physical copy of the magazine from Ophelia and it is gorgeous. I am so grateful to be a part of it. Thanks for asking about how I took those two images. Here’s what happened:”

Examination Pending After a harrowing initial excursion into this hospital (complete with armed threats from the security guard), I wasn’t very thrilled to press my luck much further. So, I was quite excited when Brooke Shaden took up my challenge and actually got us in legitimately. Until then, they were not keen on photographers. This examination table must have seen many types of patients in its evolution from railroad hospital to a more for-profit center. As I processed this shot, I was considering the empty promises of modern American medicine. © Jason Knight

Ancestor Worship My friend Scott called me and asked if I was interested in exploring an abandoned skyscraper, “somewhere in downtown,” the location to be divulged when we arrive (this is standard custom in urban exploration photography). Luckily, he had scouted this location before and knew where the metal scrappers had broken through the drywall between stores on the first floor. As I looked through the photos, scattered throughout the chemistry storage room, I was struck by the determined gaze of this subject in the fading print, now an artifact in this abandoned photography store. Totally spooky.To find out more about Jason and his work, visit his Facebook page, lostlosangeles.org and flickr.com/photos/uelaphantom. Thanks again, Jason!

DEAD MANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

CURVE American Society of Picture Professionals

“Open the Trunk”

JASON KNIGHT

“Final Rest”

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“Force Stop”

WHEN I DISCUSS MY OBSESSION WITH

abandonments, people will often say, “Have you heard about,” and in my work, it’s just as important to listen as it is to see. Simply hearing a friend or stranger’s story has led me to amazing places—sometimes hard to find and sometimes hidden in plain sight—but one of those stories revealed the forgotten relics in these photos, car wrecks littering the steep hillsides descending from Mulholland Drive. These ruins proved a little more difficult to discover than I had originally expected. As a result, I found myself proceeding in increasingly random patterns, grabbing at roots, close to tumbling down the hillside like the cars I was hunting. After one near fall, I looked up and saw a color that didn’t quite fit with

American Society of Picture Professionals

the greens and browns of the hillside. It was a little off. A rust color. It was the first of the car wrecks that I would find. Judging from the lack of trees above it, it looked like it had barrel-rolled down the hillside. And it had been here for a while, I think. There was no leather interior, no plastic, no upholstery. Just the red, rusted metal and the shoots growing out of a long-ago crushed tree that still managed to survive and flourish. I was on one bank of a hairpin turn, and just the one car was there. I crossed to the other side and climbed up the creek that ran down that canyon, and I was astonished at what I found. First, a disintegrating section of crankshaft, half-buried in the creek, then big sections of plastic bumper, semi-buried in the walls of the narrow canyon and in the creek bed. And when

“Passenger View”

work, but what struck me as I looked on the rusted machines dotting the hillside was the very stark contrast between death and new life, how the two occupy and define one another. There was certainly heaviness I felt in walking through this potential graveyard, but there was also a sense of life and renewal, of nature’s reclamation. The tree shooting up through the wreckage may have been maimed, but the bent trunk accepted the heap of twisted metal with open arms and grew into it. I thought again of the passengers and wondered if this was symbolic of their fate? I thought about this car, perhaps racing on the very top of the natural world, on the crest of Mulholland Drive. This I most frequently hear the words “morbid,” “creepy,” car represents the victory of our intellect and also our and “eerie” when people talk about my photography. frailty. Racing in nature, racing against nature, and this These words certainly identify a central theme in my time losing. ✹ I crested the next rise, I saw entire cars. Some were almost completely buried. Some were totally exposed. I saw at least seven that were mostly visible. I wondered how many more were buried, and in one section of debris, there were three cars, stacked haphazardly on top of each other. One car had a splintered loop of cable tied to its bumper. A friend later told me that the city had tried and failed to pull some of these cars out of the canyon. With the expense, lack of success, and lack of outcry, they apparently gave up. I understood what he meant. Unreasonable expense is an unexpected, but grand protector of modern ruins.

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“Gathering Nutrients”

American Society of Picture Professionals

“In Dropsy”

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Review: ICP’s Exhibit: “Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life” by Ettagale Blauer We thought our members might be interested in a review of a major photography show, “Rise and Fall of Apartheid” at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Ettagale Blauer and Jason Laure co-wrote a very well-received book, South Africa, Coming of Age Under Apartheid, published by Farrar Straus Giroux, and fully illustrated with Jason’s photographs. Ettagle reviewd the show, which will run through January 6, 2013. It provides a comprehensive historical overview of the 50year struggle to live through and overcome apartheid. The show features 500 photographs from some 70 photographers, nearly all of them South Africans. The exhibit, curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester, demonstrates the crucial role of photography in documenting the system of apartheid and its stranglehold on the people.

The history of South Africa’s apartheid era was documented on a day-by-day basis by the people who lived through it. Now that history is on view in the remarkable new exhibit, “Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life,” at the International Center of Photography in New York City through January 6, 2013. The system of apartheid arose in 1948 when the right-wing National Party took control of the government of South Africa. Walking through the exhibition, a rich selection of mainly black/white photographs taken almost entirely by South Africans, shows the system at its most intrusive and dehumanizing. Unidentified Photographer, [Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial], December 19, 1956. Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, The intimacy of many of the photographs Johannesburg. reveals the advantage of living with a situation as well as the dangers of being part of the story being photographed. The parallel universe of black life is also captured by the mainly black photographers who had access to the homes, clubs and alternative systems created by the marginalized citizens. Curator Okwui Enwezor spent years in the formidable task of finding, organizing and utilizing the photographic images of nearly 70 photographers, filmmakers and artists, nearly all of them South African, to lay out the realities of the system in all its brutal methods and manifestations. His knowledge coupled with his artistic eye enabled him to sort through thousands of images.

Jurgen Schadeberg, The 29 ANC Women’s League women are being arrested by the police for demonstrating against the permit laws, which prohibited them from entering townships without a permit, and were later kept in Boksburg Prison for 14 days, 26th August 1952, Courtesy the artist.

With the assistance of Rory Bester in South Africa, Enwezor grouped some 500 still images, artworks, films, videos, and ephemera into the periods of apartheid from its declaration in 1948 with the Orwellian statement that it was a neighborly system – apartheid meaning separate (apart) and neighborhood (heid) -- for separating people, through the decades of its escalation into a system of absolute segregation of people along racial and ethnic lines. In the process, the ruling party made life a living hell for the majority of South Africans and codified every aspect of that process until it became a crime to do almost anything while being a black person in that country.

According to Enwezor, South African photographers were crucially involved in capturing the apartheid system, often because they were the targets of that very system. They immediately recognized the need to record every aspect of the intrusion in people’s daily lives. The excesses of the system were not always evident in its most brutal moves but rather in the physical wear and tear it inflicted, like water dripping endlessly on a stone. The well-known series of photographs taken by David Goldblatt on the buses that carried workers on two-three hour daily trips from distant townships to their work in the “white cities,” with some even forced to stand the whole way, showed the inequities of the system as much as the images

of police and soldiers firing into unarmed crowds. The subtitle of the exhibit points out the pain inflicted by South Africa’s bureaucracy. In the Afrikaner mind, if someone could be shown to be breaking a law, that alone justified the punishment. The venality of the law was easy to overlook in the bureaucratic mind.

Greame Williams, Mandela released. South Africa, Cape, Paarl, 1990. Courtesy the artist. © Greame Williams.

The exhibition occupies the two floors of the ICP building at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street, in the heart of the midtown business district, a few blocks’ walk from the Broadway theatre district and Rockefeller Center. The ordinariness of the location is in contrast to the painful story told decade by decade in the museum.

As the visitor enters the building, a full wall displays the curator’s introductory essay, brilliantly encapsulating the period in which apartheid came into being. The system grew through the fifties and sixties while elsewhere in Africa, anti-colonial movements were striving to become independent nations with Ghana becoming the first to achieve nationhood in 1957. The visuals show that system growing and becoming more and more oppressive. The rich life of the people who were brutalized by apartheid is also on display, with the stunning image of the young Miriam Makeba seen in a short cocktail dress, her head thrown back in soulful song. Afrikaners denied themselves contact with that rich culture even as they tried to deny the humanity of those they kept segregated. Copies of local magazines such as “Drum” show this alternative life that survived under the radar of apartheid. At the same time, women from the English-speaking community created their own protest against apartheid, forming the Black Sash movement. In silent protests, each one standing alone on the sidewalk so as not to be arrested as being part of an “illegal gathering,” they used their only weapon – moral authority – to try to defeat the apartheid system. These women came into daily contact with black workers in their own homes and knew firsthand what the system was doing to the workers’ daily lives.

Greame Williams, Right Wing. South Africa, Pretoria, 1990. Courtesy the artist. © Greame Williams.

One survivor of the system, black photographer Pete Magubane came to the opening of the exhibit, to see his own work among the images on display and to celebrate the end of the apartheid system. At the age of 80 he is the living embodiment of that system, through his powerful photographs as well as his ability to survive a five-year banning during which he was specifically prohibited from taking photographs. Enwezor cited the important work of the Afrapix Collective in the 1980s including Paul Weinberg and Eric Miller. He described the reportage of the four fearless members of the Bang Bang club, and the work of Paul Weinberg and Alf Khumalo.

It is difficult for anyone who has not seen apartheid in action to understand the pervasiveness of the system. A collective gasp went up during a walkthrough when curator Enwezor paused by photographs of signs and explained that South Africans used this medium to express their protests, in part because the government prevented the introduction of television until 1976. As surely as the Chinese government is

Greame Williams, The 94 election. South Africa, Soweto, 1994. Courtesy the artist. © Greame Williams.

able to close down internet sites today, the National Party prevented its own citizens – white and black – from learning how the outside world viewed them. On TV, black South Africans did not exist. But photography showed that they not only existed, they suffered the excesses of the apartheid system. Some of the toughest images show those who did not survive, captured by photographers who were themselves in mortal danger. The show travels to Germany early in 2013. ICP’s website, www.icp.org will archive images from the exhibition.

Ettagale Blauer, based in New York, is the co-author with photojournalist Jason Laure of the book, “South Africa, Coming of Age Under Apartheid,” published by Farrar Straus & Giroux, and is also the author “African Elegance,” a look at the crafts and cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, published by Struik. South Africa, Coming of Age Under Apartheid is available through the ICP bookstore. This article includes a selection of images from the exhibition, Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life at the International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, September 14, 2012 – January 6, 2013. Images are copyright the individual holders. All rights reserved.

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PAPER & PHOTOSYNTH

PAPER, by FiftyThree (fiftythree.com), isn’t specifically a photography-related app, but it’s immediately useful to just about anyone who has fingers and ideas (and an iPad, of course). Paper essentially creates a library of exportable, archivable, moleskinelike notebooks on your iPad, allowing for the creation of multiple notebooks of varying lengths. I’ve actually found Paper to be exceptionally useful in project management. I can make notes and sketches in Paper, then send either an entire notebook of notes and ideas, or just a single page, off to my collaborators. For me, it’s easier than having to photograph or scan images out of notebooks or the scribbled-on sheets of paper that constantly litter my desk. While it’s handy for jotting out a few quick notes or a quick visual brainstorm, Paper doesn’t have the extensive brush library and customizable brushes that an app like Autodesk’s Sketchbook has, and its paltry nine-color palette (and then only six colors if we don’t include black, white, and gray as colors) is a bit disappointing. At the same time, it’s that simplicity that makes Paper so easy to use, even if you’re not a master sketcher. Right now, Paper doesn’t allow you to import a photograph into any of the sketchbooks, which is, for photographers, the app’s biggest drawback. But next to the organizational elements of the app, the best aspect is the smooth, clean, dynamic ink pen tool that comes as the default brush, which actually makes me want to pick it up and draw with it. And if you want additional brushes, you can buy a few more via an in-app purchase. If you try out Paper and like it, let me also encourage using an iPad stylus. A finger works well enough, but it’s hard to compete with using a stylus when you’re American Society of Picture Professionals

BY BEN HIGH

drawing and writing. So c’mon gang, get out from behind your camera and draw a picture or write a note every once in a while. This app’s been helping me to organize ideas and it’s even been a little bit fun. Over on the iPhone side of life, there’s a photo app that you need to pick up. It’s been around for a minute, but if you’re not using Microsoft’s Photosynth (photosynth.net) to document your environments and tinker with immersive panoramic photographs, you’re really missing the boat. It’s by far the easiest of all the panorama-making apps. It’s almost automatic, as all you have to do is keep the camera roughly in the same spot as you pan around your environment. The best part is that it doesn’t exclusively make panoramic photos. From within the app, you can export a panorama, but while using the app, you can pan around the environment like you’re actually sitting inside of it. The app also allows these environments to be uploaded to Microsoft’s Photosynth website, further allowing you to embed them anywhere you might want to. I’ve been using the app for quite a while now and am consistently amazed at how easy and useful it is. Even if not used specifically to make art, scouting locations or just documenting things around you become a lot more fun when you can recreate a 360-degree view so easily. There are multiple spots I’ve captured using Photosynth so that later, instead of needing to describe, for example, that I live in a weird apartment that used to be a church, I can just show folks. It’s the next best thing to being there. ✹

X9L-975232 ÂŠ Holly Lindberg

CONFIDING IN SILVER Ellen Herbert Pays Tribute to Lauren Simonutti

BY ELLEN C. HERBERT

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The misfirings of my beloved/despised mind that conspire to convince me to destroy all, have rendered me housebound and led to a solitary life. I am a creature of past, proof, memory and imaginary friends.â&#x20AC;? Lauren Simonutti American Society of Picture Professionals

MY CLIENT deviantART RECENTLY introduced me to the work of Lauren Simonutti. As a photo editor, I spend a great deal of time looking at images, but something in her work held my gaze for longer than normal. Maybe it was the artist’s reality of having to deal with her own disorienting clinical madness that intrigued me; maybe it was her unique artistic process, in which she spent three-and-a-half years alone in the eight rooms of her house creating photographic tableaux from found objects and herself; maybe it was the transfixing nature of these haunting subjective memento mori. Doubtless it was a combination of all these elements and more, but the result is the same: these images stay fixed in my memory.

hanging light bulb, and would tone the picture using tiny paintbrushes (as she observed:“Some use ink, I confide in silver.”). Edelman observes that: “If you rock the photograph back and forth, you can see the bleach and toning. She acknowledged that this method of working was a tad compulsive, but she embraced this aspect of her illness.” Edelman was drawn to Simonutti’s work in the same way, it seems, that I was. “To this day, I think Lauren’s work is the most honest photography I have ever seen, dealing with deeply profound issues that most people are afraid to discuss. Her work is unabashedly honest, which scares some, but hooked me from day one.” One of the strongest aspects of Simonutti’s work is that it is grounded in gender; not maybe in the overt politics of feminist semantics, but certainly in a sense Simonutti wrestled with memory from her early twenties as a of girlish make-believe that will resonate with every woman result of the manifestation of her illness and medications. Her who was once a young girl and dressed up in her mother’s affliction rendered rational memory as an even more fluid thing clothes in secret. than for the rest of us. Her catharsis, and controlling mechanism, was to submerge herself in her own fantasy photographic world. In “Departure,” the artist slumps languidly in front of some One piece, entitled “Palimpsest,” portrays a visual metaphor for curtains, as if she was putting on a show for her parents. In “The the act of recording and retaining: a ghostly hand wields a pen, Truth About Mirrors,” Simonutti positions herself, archly, in scribbles over a higgledy-piggledy backdrop of printed texts. front of a mirror, a classic narcissist. Yet, on closer inspection, Below, an ancient typewriter holds in its platen a ripped up these indulgences carry their own dysfunction: the mirror may photograph of the artist’s eye; unblinking and ready to receive contain her reflection, but in the composition it is behind her. the catastrophic impact of any letter typed on the keyboard, What is wrong, she is asking, with this picture? direct upon the retina. It seems that the very act of creation promises pain. A palimpsest, according to the dictionary, is a page Simonutti addressed her illness directly and honestly, in her from a book, or scroll, in which the surface has been obliterated words and in her work. In her artist’s statement she observed continually, and has literally been “scraped clean” again and that: “Madness strips things down to their core. It takes everything and in again, as new meanings are superimposed. This was a profound exchange offers only more madness, and the occasional ability to see things that metaphor for Simonutti; and a sense of fragility—of things that are not there… I cannot set everything right, so I set it on paper.” Simonutti cannot be retained, or held—is vividly apparent in the ethereal lost her battle with mental illness in April of this year. Of course nature of her photographs. this is a tragedy, but one cannot help but feel that the artist retained a sense of dark and self-affirming humor (one image Simonutti worked with in-camera techniques (such as double- on her blog, “Resumé,” in which she slumps as she tries to type exposures) to layer her effects. Many of her images have the over a giant mound of books, contains the delicious observation ghostly feel of the Victorian séance parlor. “Holding Hands” that “I despise job hunting.”) throughout her life; one that should features two (bi-polar?) semi-transparent versions of the artist, challenge our own assumptions about madness. one seated, one standing, seemingly separate but simultaneously conjoined. The feet of both versions are equally elegant and At the time of her death, Simonutti was working on a new suite vulnerable: one stable and grounded, the other arched and tense. of spirit pictures. As Edelman notes: “I think the most important She contains multitudes within herself. thing to put in writing is that Lauren was working on a set of spirit photographs that she was very excited about. Many people Simonutti, who was born, 1968, in Morristown, NJ and have misinterpreted these photographs to be a farewell, or graduated, 1990, from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, premonition about her death. This could not be farther from the PA with a BFA in photography, also obsessively toned and truth. Lauren was excited about continuing this series, and while bleached her prints. She rejected digital techniques (apart from she always felt she would die young, her death was not planned, an occasional montage of separate pieces, such as “Drowning, not and is a huge loss to those that cared for her and the photographs waving,” which features some of her individual pieces stitched she made.” into a Surrealist collage) in favor of something more hands on. Edelman is hoping to find a publisher to collaborate with to Catherine Edelman, gallery owner and curator of Simonutti‘s create a monograph of Simonutti’s work. The Devil’s Alphabet will final show (8 ROOMS, 7 MIRRORS, 6 CLOCKS, 2 MINDS & be shown at the Baltimore Museum of Art from September 5th – 199 PANES OF GLASS) finds this a critical part of the artist’s October 7th as part of a group exhibit. methodology. “She was adamant about this… Lauren would set up a scene and work out the idea for days, often only shooting [Editor’s note: Simonutti’s work is among our new favorites here. one sheet of film when she felt she was ready. All of her work was These few pages can barely represent the depth and magnitude of her photographs, so we highly recommend seeking out her other contact printed in her basement darkroom.” work and viewing it in person; the physical artifacts are truly and When the prints were dry, Simonutti worked at a small drafting singularly unique.] ✹ table in her basement, using the available light from a single 41

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ÂŠ Lauren Simonutti

For more on Lauren Simonutti:,Catherine Edelman Gallery 300 West Superior Street Chicago, IL 60654 (312) 266-2350 www.edelmangallery.com on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/laurensimonutti on deviantART: lauren-rabbit.deviantart.com the blog: www.lauren-rabbit.blogspot.com

ÂŠ Lauren Simonutti

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STAYING AFLOAT : THE GRAND UNDERTAKING DOCUMENTING THE TITANIC RICHARD PHILPOTT

THE CITY OF BELFAST has a proud and distinctive industrial history, much obscured by “The Troubles” of recent decades, which are becoming mercifully more distant every day. To lay rest the past by taking hold of their heritage, the city fathers and local government of Northern Ireland joined forces with a number of institutions to redevelop the entire docklands of Belfast, lift the city’s fortunes, and place her on a long-absent visitors’ map. And the most important of these initiatives was the Titanic Belfast attraction, in which I was fortunate enough to be heavily involved. The job: build a world-class attraction. That’s it. The rest was detail—considerable detail. As Eric Kuhne of Civic Arts has profoundly observed, as we move ever faster from the digital or data economy into the experience economy, we move from the possession of things toward the pursuit of thoughts. Attraction visitors spend an average $90 per head, so it’s a no-brainer for a government to invest in development. Of course, there is no shortage of government without brains, but in Belfast they made the leap. On this type of project, however—something with such depth and magnitude, shrouded by fictional and non-fictional media— the research, archiving, licensing, asset management, and copyright clearances we tackled rivaled the legend of the ship itself. Also, this was not to be wholly about the Titanic, nor even the White Star Line (from which the Titanic emerged) or shipping. Foremost, it was to be a story of the industry of Belfast, its origins, and its people that made the city into an industrial commercial center of world-class proportions. To that end, the story begins with cigarette and linen manufacturers as much as steel and ships. There was so much to learn, but isn’t that the best component to our job? American Society of Picture Professionals

Let’s get the numbers out of the way first: 7,000 assets including 385 films and music elements selected during research, along with the 1400 licensed assets, including 25 minutes of video. As Titanic was one of a class of three, no one paid the special attention to her that posterity might expect, and a great majority of the images circulated today as Titanic are actually of one of her sister ships from the White Star line. Many of the pictures we used came from families of passengers and from collectors, as well as from all the large commercial agencies and national collections in England and Northern Ireland. A significant number of these had to be treated with either personal or diplomatic sensitivity, either because of the relatives involved or because of political and institutional differences that made some sources unduly cautious or even suspicious, and even religious differences bubbled up from a well of pre-21st century resentment. Flying to Belfast to disentangle parties before they confronted the Minister was time well spent! Footage, of course, is altogether more complex than photography, both technically and in copyright. As our company, Zooid, began life as a film and TV production company (and I mean film—not video), we have long-since integrated complex technical footage workflows into our Picture Desk system. As the majority of the world’s footage archives remains analogue, we digitize film and video in-house to enter our workflow. In practice, this means that the client can instantly access a selection of music clips for Zone X, Gallery Y, Interactive Z, subsection 09_12, read any comments by participants (curatorial or technical), read any of our comments (eg. on quality or licensing issues), add their own comments, download or order masters. “Is that really the Marconi room on the Titanic?” “No, it’s on the

T: Olympia, but it IS identical!” “Can we license this clip from the never-relased Nazi propaganda feature film of the Titanic?” Like any full-service firm, we’ve attempted to troubleshoot to streamline the process, but sometimes no amount of planning can hopscotch over issues that arise from other entities. We all know about third-party rights, right? How many of your clients do? What do they say when you tell them that Leonardo DiCaprio says yes but Celine Dion says no? In our case, 20th C Fox suddenly imposed a moratorium on the infamous Cameron movie. At that point, we needed to make the choice on whether we should go ahead with the footage in the hope that four months of discussion with the lawyers in Hollywood would pay off (that’s Hollywood CA, not Holywood, Belfast), or if we should look for alternatives, even though Cameron’s film has been by far the most recognizable entity based on the subject. And speaking of tough decisions, what do you do when you discover that a worldfamous agency is prepared to license you pictures that you know they don’t have the rights to?

In the end, we went to my former colleague, and he agreed to a special dispensation to license us a small selection for Belfast, because of the importance of the city in Titanic history, but he declined all but one picture for another exhibition we were doing in Liverpool. Should we take the indemnity and go Route One, or pay twenty-five times the agency rate and secure these musthaves via Route Two? I don’t think the government of Northern Ireland would have been too pleased to have an injunction shut their keystone museum on opening day, do you? Moral of the story: due diligence and indemnity may not save you! But time doing the footwork, putting in the time, will count.

The legacy for Belfast, and indeed all the towns and cities across the globe that are closely associated with the disaster, is continuous. However, out of tragedy has come a return to national pride in a remarkable industrial heritage and a key has been turned in the door to the future of Northern Ireland, where things have become thoughts and thoughts are being shared and explored to the benefit of all. Our small part has given us tremendous pride in helping to reveal the richness of this legacy and produce a lastIn this instance, the agency was acting in perfectly good faith ing testimonial as rich as it can be, for generations to come. Since and even showed me the contract from their supplier giving the $150M Titanic Belfast attraction opened on 1st April 2012, them the rights. They said they’d even indemnify me against more than 3,000 people per day have visited it. any breach of license and copyright. But I, through a twist of fate and several years in the business, happen to have a long- When I visited the US later that April, the first thing I saw as standing acquaintance in the entertainment business in the US I checked into my hotel was a tourist trailer for Ireland, beginwho claims exclusive exhibition rights on those pictures, grant- ning with the stunning Titanic Belfast signature building in the ed to him indirectly by the Order of Jesuits who have inherited midst of the city’s new Titanic Quarter. It’s a tremendous feeling the only pictures taken on board the Titanic afloat as it sailed to know that people care about history, and that the work we do as from Southampton to Cobh, where the photographer, Father researchers, curators, copyright managers,✹and historians matters Brown, got off and left the vessel to steam towards her destiny. in the big picture and the largest of ways. It’s a mouthful…and a brainful. 47

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THE LAW: CLASS ACT

JOEL L. HECKER, ESQ.

GOOD NEWS FOR ASMP IN THE GOOGLE BOOKS CASE, BUT STILL A LONG ROAD Firstly, the court says the differences Google highlights may be accommodated by grouping association members and their works into subgroups. For example, in the ASMP action, it could separate photographs from illustrations, and in the Author’s Guild action, it could create, say, subgroups for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and cookbooks. Judge Chin concluded that he could effectively assess the merits of this fair-use defense with respect to each of these subgroups without the necessity of The companion litigation brought by the American Society of conducting an evaluation of each individual work. Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Further, the associational plaintiffs in both the Author’s Guild Photography Association, and Professional Photographers of and ASMP cases alleged, on behalf of their individual members, America (collectively, the “ASMP Associational Plaintiffs”), that Google engaged and continues to engage in the wholesale as well as individual photographers, however, has yet to be copying of books and images contained in these books without the ruled upon with regards to the validity of their associational consent of the copyright holders, many of whom are association representation. But for those involved with ASMP, the Author’s members. And, it should be noted that precedence had already been set in the case. Guild ruling is a good sign of things to come. JUDGE CHIN, in a typical well-drafted and structured opinion, rejected Google’s motions to force authors to bring suits individually in the ongoing Google Books case. This ruling is hugely important, as it ensures that authors can and will be represented in a class-action suit by the Author’s Guild, associational representation being somewhat extraordinary for the suit.

Google, of course, pointed to the extraordinary circumstances of an associational plaintiff in a copyright infringement suit, and the crux of their motion to deny associational plaintiffs is its fair-use defense. Creative works and non-creative works are often treated differently in the fair-use analysis, so, Google asked, how it could be possible for authors of both to be represented by one association?

American Society of Picture Professionals

The Author’s Guild has played an integral part in every stage of the Google Books litigation since its inception almost seven years ago. Only in 2011, when it became apparent that there would be no settlement in this action, did Google first object to associational participation in both litigations.

In a clear acknowledgement of Google’s sudden changes in position, the court said that, given the sweeping and undiscriminating nature of Google’s unauthorized copying, it would be unjust to require that each affected association member litigate its claim individually. The court pointed out that when Google copied works, it did not conduct an inquiry into the copyright ownership of each work, nor did it conduct an individualized evaluation as to whether posting snippets of a particular work would constitute fair use. Google has displayed snippets of text from those books as well as images contained in the books, without permission of the copyright holders, but they argue here that snippet display might affect the market for in-print books more than it affects the market for out-of-print books. Judge Chin said that Google can’t now turn the tables and ask the court to require each copyright holder to come forward

THE AUTHOR’S GUILD HAS PLAYED AN INTEGRAL PART IN EVERY STAGE

individually and assert rights in a separate action. For millions of titles, Google simply copied and made search results available en masse. In a nutshell, since Google treated the copyright owners as a group, the court held that the copyright owners should be able to reciprocate and litigate on a group basis. The above notwithstanding, limited individual participation is necessary to establish the association’s copyright infringement claims. To establish such infringements, as is the case in all copyright infringement claims, the plaintiff must show ownership of a valid copyright and copying of constituent elements of the work that are original. It was undisputed that the second element, individual participation, exists since Google does not deny that it has copied millions of original works without permission of the copyright holders. Finally, found the court, no individual participation would be required at the relief stage because the court could simply enjoin Google with respect to that subgroup, such as displaying snippets of association members’ works. Since the associational plaintiffs only seek injunctive relief, no individual damage assessment would be necessary. The litigations will now continue deeper into their discovery stages and head towards trial or further attempts at a proposed settlement. Based upon Judge Chin’s ruling, it certainly can be anticipated that the ASMP plaintiffs will also, at the appropriate time, successfully move for class action certification in the photographers’ case. Good news for busy artists seeking a voice on the issue of copyright infringement. [Update: In August, shortly after Judge Chin’s decision came down granting class action status in the Authors Guild case, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals granted Google permission to appeal that determination, and hear Google’s arguments to decertify the class. Accordingly, the class status issue is still unresolved.] ✹

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DC/SOUTH • NEW YORK • NEW ENGLAND • MIDWEST • WEST Speaker Steven Gosling (left) talks with photographer Mary Jane Moody while photographers Jessica Sheppard and Ashley Sullivan catch up on photo industry news.

DC/SOUTH WHAT’S IN YOUR BAG? Jennifer Davis Heffner

Credit for (4) images: ©Jennifer Davis Heffner

ASPP’s DC/South chapter and Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW) cohosted an event called, What’s in Your Bag? at Studio 52 in Washington, DC on May 31. Speaking at the event were Associated Press photographer Susan Walsh, wedding photojournalist Jay Premack, sports and wedding photographer Steven Gosling, and Washington Post videojournalist AJ Chavar. The special surprise guest speaker was world-renowned photographer David Burnett.

Washington Post videojournalist AJ Chavar goes through his equipment during the “What’s in Your Bag” event at Studio 52 in Washington DC.

Washington Post videojournalist AJ Chavar gives his tips on how to convert your DSLR to a video camera.

Award winning photojournalist David Burnett shares a story of what he carries on assignment now and during the film years of photography.

The night kicked off with a wine and cheese party, while ASPP and WPOW members and guests networked. The speakers talked about the variety of equipment they use on their daily assignments, as well as equipment tips for the budget-conscious photographer. The evening concluded with a raffle for prizes from ACE Photo, National Geographic, ASPP, WPOW and Lens Baby.

NEW YORK

Credit for (2) photos: ©Antonio Rosario

ASPP NY + Getty Images Present: Innovation in Storytelling Eric Rachlis, Sr. Director Licensing Services, Getty Images (left); Marisa Benedetto, Executive Producer, HarperCollins Digital Media; and Ilana Safer, Director, Corporate Counsel, Getty Images (right); look on as panelist Todd Gilmour, Creative Director, Dow Jones Content Lab fields audience questions during the lively conversation following the presentation. About 50 industry professionals turned out in the middle of August for an engaging and informative panel at Getty offices on Varick Street. Craft beer, wine, and small bites were served following the presentation as the conversations about innovation in digital storytelling continued.

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CHAPTER CAPTURE

ASPP/ASMP New York Summer Party Anita Dickhuth It’s been talked about for years, and it finally happened. ASPP and the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) got together and threw a fabulous party. A Celebration of Summer was held on July 18 at Sun Studios in New York City. Along with specialty cocktails, light hors d’oeuvres, and a snow cone bar, ASMP photographer Cliff Hausner invited all—solo or with friends—to pose for a portrait on a couch against a white backdrop. The sitters were given prints to take home, and the images were later posted on Facebook for all to enjoy. Hundreds of members and guests attended and partook of the far-reaching networking opportunities and gourmet fare, including custom Brugal cocktails by Brian Quinn Events.

MFA Curator Karen Haas talks to ASPP members and guests. ©Martha DiMeo/ ChromaQueen.com

MIDWEST/MINNEAPOLIS PICTURE CONNECTIONS Julie Caruso Several dozen photography students and ASPP members gathered in the beautiful Vine Arts Center in the Ivy Center for the Arts on May 9 for our Picture Connections education event in Minneapolis. The walls were covered with truly exceptional student work by the Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) Photography and Digital Imaging program graduates. MCTC’s photo department head, Jack Mader, helped coordinate this event to help his students gain a foothold into professional photography. Our speakers were industry veterans Kirby Johnson, lead Target photographer and Kat Daligar, Minneapolis Ad Agency art buyer extraordinaire. They led a fun roundtable discussion on how to break into the commercial photography industry through networking, assisting, being confident and finding your own style. For example, Kirby has been very successful in breaking the ice on set by telling a great many bad jokes to his clients and coworkers. This tactic is not for everyone!

LEFT: The party overview with a packed house at Sun Studios. RIGHT: Cliff Hausner’s “red couch/white drop” set up for the party snaps.

Kat kindly shared her top ten tips to photographers that she had developed for her Clarion Call 2011 Professional Photography Telesummit presentation. Tip Number 4: Make networking a lifestyle, not a single event. After the discussion ended with some Q&A, we acted on these words, and got down to networking. Kat and Kirby reviewed all the student portfolios and gave great feedback to the up and coming photography pros. We hope to be back next year. The proof is in the print: fun!

NEW ENGLAND Speakers Kat Dalagar and Kirby Johnson lead a round table discussion with MCTC students at the Minneapolis ASPP Picture Connections event.

Modernist Photography: 1910-1950--Tour and Talk at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Debra LaKind On March 14, the New England Chapter hosted a private and exclusive tour of Modernist Photography: 1910-1950 at the Museum American Society of Picture Professionals

Credit for (3) images: ©Ashley Miller Phot

Credit for (3) photos: ©Salem Krieger

Many thanks to our generous sponsors for hosting such a great party: Sun Studios, dreamstime, Reuters, age Fotostock, Corbis, Newscom, CDAS, The Granger Collection, Photo Researchers, Inc., Sterling Publishing, Fundamental Photographs, Grant Heilman Photography, Aurora Photos, The Bridgeman Art Library, Brugal, Brooklyn Brewery, Bottlerocket Wine & Spirit, and Sony.

of Fine Arts, Boston. More than 25 ASPP members and guests attended and enjoyed an intimate and in-depth talk by Karen Haas, The Lane Collection Curator of Photographs. After the discussion, the group spent some time networking and enjoyed drinks at Taste, the Museum’s newest wine bar and café. It was a wonderful event.

CHAPTER CAPTURE

An MCTC student hands out fliers of Kat’s, “Top 10 Tips to Being a Successful Photographer.”

Event organizers Julie Caruso of ASPP and Jack Mader of MCTC are happy with how the Picture Connections event came together.

WEST/SEATTLE THE HOUSE SECOND ANNUAL SUMMER SOCIAL Mark Ippolito

Festooned with party lights, picnic tables, sunbrellas and white picket fence, the studio décor perfectly reflected the “indoor picnic” theme and was further accentuated by a gourmet hot dog stand, wine bar and ice cream bars delivered by ASPP’s very own—and event co-chair—Danita Delimont. Not content with just creating connection, the Summer Social is also an opportunity to showcase images and increase exposure and awareness of work being produced within our community. Fifty-seven photographers, artists and illustrators submitted more than 300 images that were projected throughout the evening. This year’s event also featured a showcase of 11 video submissions reflecting the increasing role motion images play in demonstrating both the capabilities and interests of ASPP members. The evening was capped with some great island sounds and a photo booth provided lots of self-produced entertainment. Armed with more than 100 new contacts, dozens of sponsor VIPs and new supporters, our ASPP Board will leverage our many new found friends to build our membership and expanding our leadership role in Seattle’s creative community.

Summer Social Attendees enjoying slide show and videos.

Delivering on ASPP’s mission to create connections among photo professionals, on August 22 the Seattle chapter was delighted to present our Second Annual Summer Social hosting more than 175 attendees for a fun night of entertainment, conversation and connection. To host an event of this magnitude, the chapter effectively partnered with five sister associations including AAF/ Ad Club Seattle, AIGA, Graphic Artists Guild, ASMP, and APA all providing funding and promotional support to ensure a large turnout among the full spectrum of Seattle’s photo and creative community. Moreover, we enjoyed additional support from six corporate sponsors, including Corbis, Danita Delimont, Evolve Images, Glazers Photo, and Spaces Images. Our main partner in executing the event, The House Studios provided unparalleled leadership, creativity and logistic support including access to their fabulous studio and facilities.

Members mingle at the outdoor patio replete with gourmet hot dog stand.

Mugging it up at the Summer Social Photo Booth, ASPP Seattle Board Members (left to right) Tom Wear, Christine Saunders, Mark Ippolito, Danita Delimont and Jennifer Walker with Emily Goodnight (center), Manager, and event co-chair, The House Studios. 53

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CHAPTER CAPTURE

WEST/LOS ANGELES ASPP LA InstaParty Instagram Trek of Downtown LA Jain Lemos Saturday, July 28, was a perfect summer afternoon for strolling city streets with friends and snapping moments to share. Our Southern California group instigated an InstaParty, inspired by Instagram’s Worldwide InstaMeet program. An InstaMeet is a gathering of local Instagrammers and ASPP formed a local group and invited members and Instagram devotees at large to a guided tour of historic downtown Los Angeles. Starting at 4:00 pm, our tour was hosted by amateur historian, our ASPP National President. Michael Masterson put together an outstanding walking route that began at the stunning Biltmore Hotel across from Pershing Square. We forged ahead on his itinerary, using our Instagram skills to record and relay our impressions. Our course took us though many of downtown’s iconic landmarks, including the Los Angeles Times Building, City Hall, the Grand Central Market, Angels Flight, and Walt Disney Hall. After a few fast hours, we ended up at the legendary Redwood Bar and Grill for refreshments, a downtown watering hole with a totally kitschy nautical theme. We highly recommend organizing an ASPP InstaParty. It’s easy to put together and creative for all. Basically, once a time and place to meet is established, you and your fellow photo enthusiasts can enjoy a few hours together exploring a favorite destination in your area. The Meetup Groups site helps to promote the ASPP to like-minded folks in your area and provides a great networking opportunity. If you would like to hold a similar event, please call the National office for details.

For more Instagrams from Downtown LA go to: www.gramfeed.com/instagram/tags#aspplainstameet

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BOOK REVIEWS

Alfred Waud, Schenks Ohio Regiments, June 17, 1861, New York Illustrated News, July 13, 1961, Library of Congress

Civil War Sketch Book: Drawings from the Battlefront Harry L. Katz and Vincent Virga W. W. Norton Hardcover / softcover editions, 288 pages $50.00 On the 150th anniversary of America’s darkest internal conflict, we are hauntingly reminded of our nation’s violent past through the eyewitness illustrations in Civil War Sketch Book: Drawings from the Battlefront. These brave draftsmen—known as Special Artists—revolutionized the field of combat documentation and set standards for future war photographers. Two Specials, brothers Alf and William Waud, were Englishmen, and supposed to be neutral to either side. They were hired by publisher and fellow illustrator, Frank Leslie, to contribute to his Illustrated Newspaper, a Northern Virginia frontline publication that clearly stood with the South. Alf Waud describes battles as horrific sights, often sketching dead and dying men and horses, “in every conceivable position.” We might be grateful that these journalists didn’t have today’s high-res/high-definition equipment. In Joseph E. Taylor’s 1864 image, “Sheridan’s Campaign,” which depicts an incident at the Battle of Winchester, we see a dedicated hound protecting his slain rebel master. He stands alert with his front paws on the chest of his fallen comrade. They are sketched below a grove of large and graceful trees, with other dead lying in the silent distance. It is hard to grasp how one could have taken out pen and paper to record such a moment without collapsing into tears.

and beauty of many of the areas they covered. Plates depicting political gatherings and local architecture are presented with confidence and pride. This expanded reporting created bodies of work that allowed many of the Specials to land permanent positions with prominent publications of the day.

This rich collection of special images, spanning 1861 through 1865, truly documents the start of pictorial journalism. Katz, the former head curator of the Library of Congress, and the prolific The publisher has done an exemplary job in reproducing these picture book author Virga, have teamed together to build a mustgems. But the drawings are not crispy. Instead, they are sad and have book for any noted American history collection. wispy. Clouds in the sky and swirling dust are from quick and shaky hands. Beyond the gore, the Specials captured the serenity

- JAIN LEMOS

American Society of Picture Professionals

Masterclass: Arnold Newman Edited by William A. Ewing Thames and Hudson Hardcover, 272 pages $60.00 Everyone probably knows Arnold Newman’s magnificently composed modernist portraits–Stravinsky with his curved piano, pantsless Capote, ghastly Krupps–but Masterclass: Arnold Newman is an argument that everyone should know Newman, and it’s a largely successful one at that. Editor William A. Ewing worked with Newman for many years, and his two biographical essays place Newman into an aesthetic context, and serve as a good introduction to the world of influences that shaped Newman’s meticulously planar portraits, positioning Newman between stark modernists like Walker Evans and Newman’s own early experience in a photo studio for tourists, where he shot thousands of portraits per year. That positioning lets Newman function as a hero for working photographers, able to get paid to turn out brilliant portraits of artists, politicians, captains of industry. And the portraits are brilliant.

He shoots Mondrian in an easel grid, Francis Bacon with a grim bare bulb, Lee Krasner with a superimposed palm motif, Joel Peter Witkin with dead, rolled eyes, Andy Warhol with a slashed, mad stare. Even lesser artists like Lucas Samarus get startling, beautiful shots that provide the illusion of familiarity and gravitas. Newman also benefits from Ewing’s judgment and broad access to Newman’s archives. Where Newman rarely published his non-portrait work (much of it modernist abstractions after Walker Evans), and was merciless about culling subjects whose fame had waned, Ewing’s focus on the photographs above the importance of their subjects gives this book some depth that Newman’s own books lacked. Shots of Philly bars and clapboard houses inform and invigorate his portraits, and some forgotten figures (like Major Robert Michael White) reclaim their iconic status through Newman’s shots. The only weak point—and this is trifling—is the final essay, on Newman’s 1976 project Faces USA, which had Newman shooting twelve quotidian Americans in their everyday lives. It’s some of the little color work in the book, and while it mentions many of the subjects, only two are excerpted here. Obviously, for a photographer with over 3,000 published photos, and thousands more in his personal archives, there are always going to be some omissions, and it’s a testament to Newman’s broad appeal that those omissions are felt. For anyone who has or wants to take pictures of people, Masterclass: Arnold Newman will provide inspiration and awe. For anyone looking to teach Newman, Masterclass is a singular source. And for Arnold Newman, who always worried about his stature in the art world, Masterclass is a posthumous vindication.

Newman was known for “environmental portraiture” (a term he disliked; he preferred “symbolic portraiture”), eschewing studio work for shooting subjects in their everyday surroundings. His paradoxical pursuit of authenticity by constructing a context for the subject (Stravinsky’s piano and studio space were borrowed) makes for iconic images of nearly everyone who sat for him—it’s difficult to picture science writer Helen Curtis without thinking of Newman’s portrait. Likewise, poet Carl Sandburg or banker David Rockefeller, but Newman’s at his strongest when shooting other artists, integrating their aesthetic into his own. - JOSH STEICHMANN 59

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BOOK REVIEWS Masterclass: Arnold Newman

ÂŠ Arnold Newman / Getty Images American Society of Picture Professionals

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. We are a community of image experts committed to sharing our experience and knowledge throughout the industry. We provide professional networking and educational opportunities. If you create, edit, license, manage or publish images, you want to reach ASPP members.

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ISSUE 3 / 2012 THE PICTURE PROFESSIONAL

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 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.: 212.557.9600; website: www.RussoandBurke.com; email: HeckerEsq@aol.com.

Art producer and owner of NEAT Production, ELLEN HERBERT is a career photo professional. She counts herself lucky to collaborate with a variety of clients, from publishers and ad agencies to filmmakers and photographers, from her home base in East LA.

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

RICHARD PHILPOTT studied Fine Art at Oxford and has remained active in painting, film, environmental sculpture, photography. He worked as Head of the Picture Library at Camera Press, then as freelance picture researcher, before founding Zooid Pictures Limited in 1984 as an independent film and television company producing experimental shorts and documentaries. Zooid then pioneered large-scale digital workflows, asset and project management systems, and a comprehensive range of media services for large publishers, museums, and corporate clients. He is author of a biographical study of the work of Vincent van Gogh, numerous articles on the (technological) history of cinema, and has contributed occasional chapters and editorial research to a number of books.

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.

CONTRIBUTORS

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