Recently, I headed back up to New York to participate in another thrilling installment of NYCFotoworks at the Canoe Studios in Chelsea. As is usual with Fotoworks, the number of very talented photographers was as impressive as the list of reviewers. It’s safe to say that this review has an excellent reputation. Last spring, I met with one photographer who came from overseas just for Fotoworks; this time, I met with four.
After a morning of reviews—including some really standout work from Susanna Blåvarg, who recently moved to New York from Sweden, and Marcel Molle, who came all the way from the Netherlands—I headed on to a top secret lunch meeting with Boston-based Michael Piazza. While I can’t yet divulge what when on at lunch, I can tell you that the consulting project we’re working on will knock your socks off just as hard as the pizza Michael and I enjoyed at Co.
After lunch, I headed down to the Half King Pub for a short but sweet happy hour with Kevin Steele, David Clifford, and David’s old pal from his days as a photo editor Stephen Scott Gross.
Kevin, Stephen, David, left to right.
After some enjoyable conversations, and equally enjoyable beer, I had to hustle to catch my bus back to Philly. I ran so fast and so recklessly that my complimentary bottle of portfolio-reviewer-wine jostled right out of my bag and onto the unforgiving New York sidewalk within three steps of the door. It was a sad end to an otherwise great trip.
Yadid Levy is a worldly fellow—born in Denmark, raised in Israel, currently makes his home in Buenos Aires. He speaks a bevy of languages—Hebrew, Danish, English, Spanish and passable Arabic. In his 15 years as a travel photographer, he ‘s visited over 70 countries and every continent, except Australia. He has recently shot for National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Magazine, and Bon Appetit. Not surprisingly, with such a massive body of work, he was struggling under the weight of an enormous website housing thousands of images. Knowing he needed a little help sorting his work out, he gave Wonderful Machine a ring.
Yadid first contacted me for assistance with a print portfolio. He’d been living without one (if you could call that living) for quite a while, and wanted two copies—one for us to keep and one for him. I started sorting through the work and seeking to strike a nice balance of portraiture, photojournalism, and food. Food is of course an important part of travel shooting, but it’s also a passion for Yadid’s. One of his favorite things about his job is the opportunity to sample amazing food and meet some of the best chefs around the world. While discussing his book, he shared with me a tragic story about the time he photographed in Copenhagen’s famous Noma—rated for several years in a row as the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine. Yadid was there when they first opened, photographing the chef and some of the signature dishes for a Swedish travel magazine. Chef René Redzepi offered to make him a few things to try as well as photograph. Yadid politely declined, since he ‘d filled up on spaghetti before the shoot. Nowadays, I hear it can take years to get a table. Yadid learned his lesson; never to eat before a shoot.
Anyway, back to the portfolio, I sequenced the layout to begin in the west; South America, Western Europe, and go east as the book moves, to North Africa and the Middle East, South Asia, ending in China. I also chose slightly quirky, funny shots for the opening and closing images. Never hurts to show some personality and humor, without misrepresenting your tone and style! Once the book’s layout was completed, we moved on to the printing stage. For the sake of price and ease, Yadid took my recommendation of the Adorama book, and the results were great.
Yadid was very happy with his portfolio, so he decided to continue working with us on a few other related projects. The next step was a leave behind/postcard. Our designer Peter and I worked on this together, using Yadid’s existing branding.
First, Peter came up with a few different front and back layouts designs. Yadid wasn’t completely on board with the early versions, so Peter worked from his feedback to create something they were both satisfied with. I then worked with the image selection. Once completed, it was sent off to Modern Postcard for printing. Now, Yadid not only had a crisp, new portfolio but complimentary leave behinds, making him all set for some portfolio meetings.
However, we weren’t finished yet. While Peter was working through the card design, I revisited Yadid’s website, which was so large it was starting to look like a stock library. I edited the work down to two main categories, one that focuses on destination travel, the other on food and portraits (mostly chefs). On my recommendation, Yadid left intact his travel features section. In my own experience using his site, I looked through his broader selection of travel images first, then moved on to the features section, checking out work in places that interested me in particular. I believe anyone who travels, or spends much time looking at travel photography, would do the same.
You can check out my edit, and Yadid’s beautiful images, on his site, www.yadidlevy.com.
Yadid’s entire rebranding project grew out of a simple need for a printed portfolio, which we now have on file for future meetings. I’d say that’s a win-win.
If you’re interested in learning more about Wonderful Machine’s consulting services, visit our Consulting Page.
Our director of photography Sean Stone may be well known for being Wonderful Machine’s resident portfolio guru, but he’s not the only one that knows his way around a book. Our photo editor Paul Stanek was recently commissioned by our New York food photographer Adriana Mullen to edit and design her a new food portfolio. Paul was happy to take on the assignment and the finished book has been met with flying colors at our reviews. Since he’s the one who slaved away creating a book that looks good enough to eat, I’ll let him take it from here. Enjoy!
- Maria
With the flurry of innovative, bar-raising food/drink photographers joining the ranks of Wonderful Machine these days, I was elated to have the opportunity to work on a book for a personal favorite of mine: Adriana Mullen. My enthusiasm grew after our initial phone conversation, where I found her to be incredibly pleasant and open minded. After weighing the options of a non-linear edit versus something of a more cohesive narrative arc, we opted for the latter. Adriana presented me with a few hundred images that provided the perfect means for an edit. I planned on starting with raw elements, moving on to preparation, and then presenting mouth-watering dishes followed lastly by artfully captured desserts.
Within the body of images Adriana provided, I found another conceptual layer to help guide my edit. While a vast majority of the images were of the portrait format, perfect for pairing, there was a beautiful landscape of unopened raw oysters, and another landscape of a raspberry tart—the beginning and end of a tempting culinary journey.
At this point I envisioned the entire structure of the edit as a visual sandwich, with the landscape images providing the perfect slices of bread to fill with layers of tasty pairings in between. After all, what’s more appropriate inspiration for a food book’s structure than a classic composition of the food universe? Perhaps it wasn’t quite on par with Kramer’s coffee table book, but I was pleased nonetheless.
Sean pointed me towards the book bindings of Adorama, which lay perfectly flat and provide for seamless panoramic spreads. I utilized these panoramic spreads only for the opening image of the oysters and the closing image of the tart, which also served as the inner covers. However, I found the seamless binding to provide quite an enjoyable viewing experience throughout the book. The cover design was minimal: I generated a subtle gradation of a grayish/bluish shade I “eye-dropped” from Adriana’s oyster shot, then garnished the darker bottom with her title, info, and some props to Wonderful Machine.
Finding pairings in a sea of imagery was by far the most engaging stage of the process. In fact, Adriana was kind enough to shoot this wine image mid-edit to custom match with a hearty marinara and ravioli shot that begged for proper libation.
Beyond such pairings with more literal contextual relevance, I utilized more formal aspects of composition—shape, hue, repetition, and symmetry, to name a few. I also strove to make diptychs that represented two individual images yet lent themselves to functioning as a whole composition.
Adriana ordered two copies of the book from Adorama—one for her, and one for us to hold on to for portfolio events. Our copy has made it to New York and returned with much positive feedback. Adriana herself was pleased enough to order another three additional copies!
