Q & A with a TeenVOGUE Photo Assistant

PDNedu interviews Photo Assistant Mardi Miskit of TeenVOGUE. She explains how she transformed from photographer to photo producer.

PDNedu: Where did you go to school and what did you study?

MM: I studied photography at Parsons School of Design.  I originally started out studying journalism at a liberal arts school in Rhode Island.  While there, I took some photo courses with a wonderful professor and fell in love with taking pictures so I decided to come to New York to pursue it.

PDNedu: How did you get started in photo editing?

MM: While at Parsons, I got an internship with Conde Nast Traveler magazine where I assisted photo editors with photo research and shoot production. After interning with them for 2 semesters, I was hired as a freelancer - in charge of film returns. During my senior year, I continued my freelance position while interning at Time Out New York.  At Time Out, I gained experience in shooting for a magazine.

PDNedu: How did you get your job at TeenVOGUE?

MM: Right before I graduated, I interviewed with human resources at Conde Nast. They informed be about the Photo Assistant position at TeenVOGUE and I immediately jumped on the opportunity.

PDNedu: What is a typical day like for you?

MM: So much goes on in a given day here.  I do everything from calling in portfolios and overseeing interns to arranging still life shoots in our digital studio and producing portrait and composition still life shoots.

PDNedu: As a producer, can you give a detailed description of how you helped out with a recent photo shoot from pre production to print?

MM: With every shoot, we first sit down with our Photo Director and Creative Director to decide on the best photographer and stylist for the specific job.  We book a hair and makeup team, scout locations/secure a studio and arrange all other specifics like catering, location vans, etc. I think the most exciting part of the process is when the film finally arrives.  We make our selects and hand them over to our art department.  Final selects are made and placed into layout.  The Uptown Girls shoot was one of the first shoots I produced at TeenVOGUE.  It was great to see all of the images come together in the final layout and even more rewarding to see one of the images also run as a portrait on our Snapshot page.  

    

PDNedu: Do you have any advice for young photographers looking to work at TeenVOGUE? 

MM: I definitely recommend doing as many internships as possible while in
school.  It is a great way to learn about the industry and discover what it
is you might want to do when you graduate.

Check out TeenVOGUE at teenvogue.com.  Learn about their job opportunities at Conde Nast careers.

Portfolio Advice

    In case you missed it, PDN ran an article in September advising photographers how to present their images in a portfolio.  Here are a few tips that I thought would be really helpful, as some of you get ready to present your work to future employers.

    Laura M. Wzorek, the Program Director of Center, Santa Fe, N.M., gives some advice when it comes to presenting and organizing your photographs, “What works best for many reviewers is 20 images from a body of work, no slip sheets, no glare from portfolio book pages; matted, mounted or even straight prints in a nice portfolio box that are easy to move around.”

    When asked if reviewers look at the quality of individual images or a whole body of work, Wzorek advises: “Different reviewers look at different things.  Art directors, Mary Maurer of Sony and Richard Aquan from Harper Collins [for example] will likely be looking for the one image that would be great for their CD or book cover.  I think almost everyone else, curators, book publishers, gallerists, are concerned with the whole body of work.”

    After your images have been viewed, don’t forget to follow up with the reviewer!  According to Wzorek, “Send a thank you card with an image that the reviewer saw during the review.  If the reviewer asked for something specific, such as an email with a link to the photographers web site, definitely send that at the requested time.”

    To find out more advice and to read the article in its entirety visit: www.pdnonline.com.

Photograph courtesy of lightimpressionsdirect.com

Peace, Not War

In an interview with Fabienne Faur, photographer Don McCullin says:

I wanted to be the greatest correspondent in the world, but now I regret it and I would like to lose my title as a war photographer ... I know from experience how ugly war is, you see the worst side of human beings.

McCullin was a photographer for 18 years with The Sunday Times. His  photographs are on exhibit in Arles until September 17th in a joint exhibit with late photographer Gilles Caron.

After 30 years of wars, revolutions, misery and famine, this is something that will never go away ... Go and photograph the peace. That's much more difficult.

Photo © Don McCullin

Ten Steps to Avoid Digital Disaster

Digital backup applies to all genres of digital photography -- portraits, fine-art, weddings, PJ, commercial, etc.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are safe unless you have an exhaustive and sometimes time-consuming system of redundancy. It only takes one technical failure of equipment to make you realize how vulnerable you can potentially be.

For me it was an external hard drive failing. And then finding out that the cheap DVDs that I had been burning to didn't have much of a lifespan. But that is part of the learning curve ... and I tend to learn best from my mistakes and not successes (unfortunately).

This article, Ten Steps to Avoid a Digital Disaster, posted in the July issue of the WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) photography monthly, offers a great starting point.

It will hopefully save you a lot of heartache.

Pet Portraits

There is a good article just published in the San Francisco Chronicle about pet photographer extraordinaire Amanda Jones.

Adrianne Marcus writes:

What Annie Leibovitz is to rock stars and celebrities and Richard Avedon was to the rich and famous, Amanda Jones is to pets: the best portrait photographer.

Unintentional marketing:

After sending out a series of 13 dog portraits as a mailing piece, people called -- not to see the rest of her work but to make appointments to have their dogs photographed.

Tips for photographing your pet:

Get down to eye level. Shots taken looking down will never contain the candid nature you want to capture. At eye level, your dog will come up to you and you can indulge in some fine portraiture, such as a quizzical look, a tilted head, or even a smiling canine. They love when their masters (or mistresses) are on the floor with them.

It's a fun read. And a lucrative way to make some extra money this summer. Jones charges $850 for a portrait session and is booked up months in advance by both American and international clientele. Sweet!

Icons of Photography

Sports Illustrated Photographer Peter Read Miller offers advice on capturing the personality of an athlete as one of Kingston's Icons of Photography.

Nobody I know these days can get by as an action photographer only. The field is just too competitive. Along with being a steady source of work, shooting sports portraits gives me another outlet to explore my creativity.

Here are some tips about shooting athletes that Miller provides:

• Get them comfortable
• Pick a good background
• Frame your subject within the viewfinder (not in Photoshop)
• Be ready and familiar with your equipment
• Be spontaneous

Miller has covered 7 Olympic Games, 30 Super Bowls, the Stanley Cup Finals, the World Series, the Kentucky Derby, the NCAA Final Four, World Cup Soccer Finals, and so on and so on and so on. It is definitely worth reading what he has to say on the Kingston website.

Or you might want to attend his photographic workshop next April in Colorado -- and get in some spring skiing!

Paying Your Dues

Here is a helpful article written by Jim McNay of the Brooks Institute of Photography called "Paying Dues: Showing You Want It." It was published in SportsShooter.com.

Here are the cliff notes:

• Shoot for a campus publication and get published regularly.
• Do an internship every year.
• Get a paying job shooting even if it isn't prestigious or lucrative.
• Start building your career.

And don't be a slacker who just reads the cliff notes, read the whole article!

The Business of Being an Artist

Here is a full-day seminar produced by the Santa Fe Center for Photography to help you create a successful career as an artist!

Location: Armory for the Arts Theater, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Date: Sunday May 14th (mother's day)

Time: 9:30am - 5:00pm

Cost: $55 for students and $115 for professionals

Volunteer Opportunities: 505.984.8353

Some of the topics include: the roles of the gallery, curator, book in your career; marketing essentials; striking a balance between business and art AND there will also be a panel of emerging and mid-career artists discussing choices that led to success.

Presenters include:
Lorraine Davis, Lorraine Davis Appraisals
Terry Etherton, Etherton Gallery
Darius Himes, Editor, Photo-Eye Booklist
Mark McKenna, President, Herb Ritts Foundation
Sheila Pree Bright, 2006 winner of the Santa Fe Prize
Ken Rosenthal, Photographic Artist
Mary Virginia Swanson, MV Swanson and Associates
Barbara Tannenbaum, Chief Curator, Akron Museum of Art
Hank Willis Thomas, Photographic Artist
Jo Whaley, Photographic Artist
Clint Willour, Ex. Director/Curator, Galveston Art Center
Julie Blackmon, 2006 winner of the SFCP Project Competition

Planet Photoshop

You can never learn enough about Photoshop. There are always new tricks and shortcuts to add to your toolkit. That is why I am so excited when I find information for FREE.

Planet Photoshop is a website devoted to Photoshop and its effects, enhancing text, tools and their applications, integration with the web, and my favorite -- correction. They even have a section on using the digital camera to get the most out of Photoshop.

Since we are all visual people, you'll truly appreciate the video tutorials. And for those who are visual and social, there are discussion boards about Photoshop. 

Now you can start saving your money for the next Photoshop upgrade :)

Lessons from Lexar

Lexar, a company well-known for their professional compact flash cards, is including a lot of digitally worthy material on their website.

Recent tutorials include Understanding your Digital Camera's Histogram and the Benefits of Shooting in RAW Format.

Other features include Tips for Photographing Pets, Using White Balance Settings, and Wireless Flash Setup.

And for those of you who prefer philosophy to technique, read Irakly Shanidze's Photography as a Way of Life.