Stockland Martel

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It seems counterintuitive: A photographer launches a portfolio review intended to help other photographers get work. But that is, in fact, the mission that editorial photographer Marc Asnin has chosen with his NYCphotoWorks Portfolio Review. And he is taking it seriously. So far, Asnin has enlisted the participation of photo editors from Conde Nast Traveler, Glamour, The New York Times Magazine, Men’s Health, Fast Company, and Vanity Fair, among other notable publications.

In a Q&A today with Resolve, Asnin talks about what photographers can expect from the event, which is scheduled for October 22 to 24, as well as shares insight from his own experiences as an assignment photographer.

“We’re…not pigeon-holing people. So if you’re a reportage photographer, that doesn’t mean you can’t see Vanity Fair,” he says. “That’s an important thing for photographers to understand. For instance, I’ve worked with Bruce Perez at Redbook. If you don’t understand the magazine world, you might wonder, what would Marc ever do for a woman’s magazine? Well, I did a story on breast cancer and another on a boy with brain cancer. So you can get interesting reportage work at a woman’s magazine. I used to work a lot for Good Housekeeping and did some other incredible stories there.

“But if you know who you are and what you do, there can also be a lot of opportunities to try new things. Like I once did a thing for Men’s Health about firemen in Chicago. Then I got another assignment from them to do these detail shots. I call them my still lifes. And I got another assignment based on the creative director loving those, to do these close-ups on the life of Hemingway. So it’s not like, because I do this one thing, I can’t go to that magazine. But don’t go in there trying to change who you are.”

You’ll find the rest of Resolve interview with Asnin here. For more on the NYCphotoWorks Portfolio Review, go here.

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