Friday May 21st, 2010
One thing about awards parties: they’re great opportunities to put a face to a name, or to catch-up with industry folks who you’re normally in contact with through the less-personal email and phone. This is true of the photographers, clients, reps, consultants, and affable PDN staffers attending this year’s PDN Photo Annual awards and party.
Jacqueline Bovaird from Glasshouse Assignments, Anthony Georgis (our photographer from Portland), Manuela Oprea from Adweek, and me. All photos by Bill Cramer. Fujifilm gave out a bunch of Instax Mini 7's, so everyone was photographing each other.
Bill Cramer (our CEO) and I attended last night’ gala, not least to celebrate our winning entry featuring Cade Martin’s memorable photo (p. 124 in the print edition). See our previous post detailing the nine Wonderful Machine photographers who won.
Before arriving at the event, we met up with our Los Angeles big rig truck photographer, Roger Snider. We dined at 508, which I’d definitely recommend for their atmosphere and ceviche.
You really need to meet Roger in person to appreciate his infectious zeal for the work that he’s doing. He’s very much found a niche with his truck work, as it combines his lifelong interests in photography and the big rigs. FYI: No Plastic Sleeves recently featured his unorthodox print portfolio.
Me and Roger Snider at 508 Restaurant, from Bill Cramer's perspective
After dinner, we headed to the awards. The first person I spotted was the iconic and clever blogger/photographer Andrew Hetherington, and we had a nice discussion on the merits of whether photographers were getting any work from appearing in photo annuals.
Another question: which ones are clients still using to find photographers? You should check out Andrew’s blog posts discussing these matters, as he is concerned that there are too many contests these days. No picture of Mr. Hetherington, but he’s pretty recognizable if you’ve seen his Facebook page icon or read his blog.
PDN award winner and Wonderful Machine photographer Susana Raab talking with a slightly blurry New York Times photographer Stephen Crowley
Cade Martin was on a shoot and unable to attend for his winning photo. However, we did have the great pleasure of hanging out with several other of our award-winning photographers, including DC photographer Susana Raab, New York’s Landon Nordeman, and Anthony Georgis, who came all the way from Portland.
Not to mention PDN‘s friendly crew, including Editor Holly Hughes, Executive Editor David Walker, Director of Photo Amber Terranova, Events and Awards man John Gimenez, and Photo Expo’s Jill Waterman.
It was also great to catch up with Manuela Oprea from Adweek, Daniella Jo Nilva-Cunningham from VH-1, the hard-working Jacqueline Bovaird, rep at Glasshouse Assignments, and our buddy from many events, consultant Louisa Curtis. We met more folks than I can name, which says how jam-packed the affair was with industry folk.
I’ve been to the last three awards, and they’ve always felt friendly and collegial. Thanks for another great evening, PDN!
-Neil Binkley
Submitted By Wonderful Machine at 7:03 pm
Tags: Andrew Hetherington, Anthony Georgis, Cade Martin, Jacqueline Bovaird, Landon Nordeman, Louisa Curtis, New York, PDN, Photo Annual, roger snider, Susana Raab
Categories: Industry Events, Photographer Awards
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Thursday February 4th, 2010
PDN just featured Lydia Panas‘ fine art project, The Mark of Abel, opening tonight in Chelsea at the Foley Gallery and running through April 20th:
You can read more about it on PDN’s website, where they interview gallery owner Michael Foley about the reasons he chose Lydia. She’d been sharing her work at portfolio reviews since 2006, and it wasn’t until a few years later that she met up with Foley, who asked her to show at his gallery.
According to PDN he was “taken with the honesty he saw in the images. “I think that people are so prepared when a camera is focused on them to exert a certain face or look or posture,” Foley says. “I felt like Lydia disassembled and deactivated all those things that people use to prepare themselves. [The images] were very arresting, and I rarely see that in contemporary portraiture.”
He was also impressed with her dedication to the project, which took three years to shoot, and feels that she has a strong ability to articulate her vision clearly for this body of work and future projects.
Enjoy the show!
Lydia is a Philadelphia based photographer with Wonderful Machine.
-Neil Binkley
Saturday December 12th, 2009
Danielle Courier just posted an interview with me for the companion website to her upcoming book (coming in February) on portfolio design. Her book’s titled No Plastic Sleeves: The Complete Portfolio Guide for Photographers and Designers.
She was interested to know my thoughts on what makes photography portfolios and promotions stand out, as I had just judged PDN’s 2009 Self Promo Contest.
My encapsulation of her questions:
- What distinguishes the very best photographer’s promotions from the rest?
- What was most difficult and rewarding about judging the awards?
- How important is it to have a printed portfolio?
- Any advice to emerging artists?
You can see my answers on her site, but my overarching theme was that photographers should only show their best work, they shouldn’t try to promote twenty different types of specialties (because most can excel at 2 or 3, max – and that’s fine), and they should be open to feedback from clients, peers and consultants.
Danielle asked the same questions of another PDN Self Promo judge, Robin Milgrim, who is art director with R&R Partners and who’s worked on the Las Vegas Tourism, “What Happens here Stays Here” account.
I enjoyed that her responses had a strong point of view, and this one stood out to me. When asked about the importance of print portfolios, Robin replied:
Make it as good as you can. No excuses. If you don’t love it, don’t put it in your book. If you don’t have enough solid work, make more. Learn to edit yourself. Remember who your audience is. Consider what would appeal to them. Take them for a ride. Entertain. It’s a word often forgotten at the convergence of art and commerce.
The rest of the website seems to showcase a nice selection of design and photography portfolios and promos, so I recommend a peek.
-Neil Binkley
