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I asked Keiko Hindley, Jason’s studio manager, if Jason could tell us a bit about the photo, which is one of three images selected for Lürzer’s Archive 200 Best Photographers 2012/2013 (more on that soon). Here’s what Jason said, along with a larger version of the photo:

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This photo by Jason "Giblin" Hindley, shot at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Asutralia, is one of three images by Jason selected for the new edition of Lürzer's Archive's 200 Best Ad Photographers.

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“I took this photo in Sydney’s Bondi Beach. I’d seen the sea pool whilst walking around the area and had made a mental note of going back to photograph it, as it looked so amazing. (I was visiting Sydney for a friend’s wedding, and we were staying at this beautiful house right around the corner from Bondi Beach). I’d never seen a sea pool before and thought it was a brilliant idea. When I went back to the pool one morning a few days later to photograph it, there was just one guy swimming in it. The waves were crashing hard against the pool, creating all the whiteness with the sea foam and the light turquoise of the pool amongst the darker green of the sea, with this one swimmer in it. It made a great image.”

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Two big photo festivals are almost upon us: the New York Photo Festival, which is entering its fourth year this month (May 11–15), and Flash Forward Festival, a Toronto-born fest making its stateside debut in Boston in June. If you follow the photo blogs, you know that the still-evolving NYPH has experienced some bumps along the road—at his blog, What’s the Jackanory?, Andrew Hetherington posted a notice about this year’s NYPH, commenting, “Not sure if anyone really cares anymore….” So it will be interesting to see how Flash Forward Boston fares its first time out. I interviewed MaryAnn Camilleri, the founder and executive director of the Magenta Foundation, the group behind Flash Forward, about what FFFB has in store for us.

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The homepage for Flash Forward Festival Boston. Click image to visit the site.

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Stockland Martel Blog: Is there a theme to Flash Forward Boston?
MaryAnn Camilleri: There is no specific theme—what we do is celebrate fresh new photography while allowing the exhibition curators to tell a story, or give their impression of what’s happening in the zeitgeist.

One of our broader Flash Forward goals is to provide a fresh perspective on our ever-changing industry. It’s important for emerging photographers to know that they aren’t working in a vacuum; it’s essential that they see the work that their peers are creating around the world—Flash Forward gives them a sense of place.

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SMB: Tell us a bit about the people involved in the festival—jurors, curators, etc.
MC: We were approached by Matthew Sterne, General Manager of the Fairmont Battery Wharf, to bring what he saw in Toronto last October to his property in Boston. I quickly learned that his instincts about how our programming could fit into what’s going on in the Battery Wharf area were bang-on and signed up wholeheartedly. The setting of the Battery Wharf and the Fairmont properties sets the scene for an amazing arts destination. Obviously, in this first year we can only do so much but in future installments there are numerous possibilities and I truly feel that Boston is primed for a world-class photography festival.

With regards to the community and the people curating, Boston was interesting. I had a few contacts: Paula Tognarelli from the Griffin Museum of Photography, David Katz and Blake Fitch from NESOP, and George Slade from the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, that I engaged with very early in the planning of this festival. From there, they introduced me to other key community contacts that helped me become more acquainted with the photography scene in Boston. What struck me as most encouraging was how accessible people made themselves to me. People I had never met, like Shane Lavalette, Chris Churchilll and Alison Zavos, and so many others, really helped put that special touch on the programming for Boston. Because of their enthusiasm, it made things very clear to me that people wanted an event like ours to happen and people were willing to roll up their sleeves to help. I feel incredibly privileged and honored for all the assistance I received.

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SMB: Which panel discussions and lectures do you think will attract the most attention?
MC: It’s hard to say which presentation will get the most attention when it isn’t possible to know what to expect. I hope they all get a lot of attention. My focus on the programming was to offer an interesting and diverse vibe; guest lecturers and topics that will appeal not only to Bostonians, but to an international crowd, as well. I think we’ve made some fun, informative and thought-provoking choices.

For Boston, we pulled some of the best attended/talked-about highlights from the Toronto event: Susan Bright, Stephen Mayes, and the photobook discussion with Andy Adams, along with a lot of new programming and new faces specific for the Boston crowd. We really relied on the advice of our local advisory committee to bring the Boston programming together.

One key person I was thrilled to sign up as a presenter was Todd Hido. He hasn’t been back to Boston since completing his schooling, and he was at the top of my list for the inaugural festival. Todd’s an interesting guy and I thought his presentation would be the sort of programming that I would want to hear as an attendee. And what better way to inspire people then to bring back someone who had gone off and done very well for himself?

The thing that I find most exciting about this programming process is when I can open up my address book to ask friends and contacts working in different sub-disciplines within this industry to participate. After many years in this business, and literally countless portfolio reviews and years of networking, the connections between artmakers, publishers, curators, academics and other culture workers are finally being brought to one place to share knowledge with the next generation of talent. I can only imagine what will happen in the future and I am very thrilled that my colleagues have invested their trust and faith in this new Flash Forward Festival concept.

In a way, I’m programming the kinds of lecture topics that I wish I could have been exposed to when I was getting my start in this industry. I didn’t even know what kinds of questions to ask when I was beginning my career and I hope that bringing all of these smart, articulate people to one event to talk about their experiences will help attendees feel inspired and better equipped as they move forward.

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MaryAnn Camilleri. Photo courtesy flashforwardfestival.com.

SMB: What does it cost to attend? I notice that all panel discussions and guest lectures are free and open to the public.
MC: That’s the thing, it doesn’t cost a penny to attend any of the exhibitions, lectures or panel discussions at Flash Forward Festival Boston! TOTALLY FREE TO THE PUBLIC! The point of this whole enterprise is to bring more art to Boston and to engage anybody that is curious about photography. Having said that, you’ll have to buy your own food and drinks, of course, but the art programming is all completely free.

If you have a family, or are on a date, and want to have a quality experience or even just a walk, then come visit the harborwalk where it starts at the Fairmont Battery Wharf. If you have not seen this part of the city, there are no excuses; come and explore.

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SMB: How would you describe the photography scene in Boston, and how did the scene there inform the way you designed the festival?
MC: I am learning more and more about the scene in Boston with every visit. I’m spending a lot of time here and really love the energy of the local photography community. What is appealing to me is the idea that there was nothing like what we do servicing Boston and suddenly we had this prime location available to us. Boston fits our vision as a home for an emerging festival like ours—we’ve been here with the touring Flash Forward Group Show these past four years and could see the void ready to be filled. Moving forward was a no-brainer and I’m really excited about growing this idea in Boston from year to year.

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SMB: What was the biggest coup for you in putting together this festival?
MC: That’s easy: being embraced by its community and opening up my organization to another city.

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SMB: What was the biggest obstacle?
MC: Fundraising in a new city is our main obstacle—I’m not even going to beat around the bush about that reality. Second biggest obstacle would be city permissions, which we are in the process of hurdling with assistance from our local advisory committee. Programming has been very easy to pull together, thankfully.

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SMB: The New York Photo Festival takes place just weeks before FFFB. Weren’t you concerned about overlapping with them or perhaps risking people having festival fatigue?
MC: My team doesn’t consider this to be a problem, to be honest. Our festivals complement each other and offer different programming experiences. We don’t feel that we are in competition with anybody. In fact, the more events like these, the better it is for working artists and their very interested audiences.

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SMB: You founded the Magenta Foundation in 2004 to, in the official language, “organize promotional opportunities for Canadian artists in the international arts community through circulated exhibitions and publications.” What are some of Magenta’s accomplishments over the past seven years?
MC: I’m proud of all of our projects. We don’t solicit submissions; my board brings ideas to the table and we choose everything ourselves. It guarantees a positive result. Some standout book projects that I am particularly proud of include the Carte Blanche volumes in Photography and Painting; Phantom Shanghai, by Greg Girard; The Dead, by Jack Burman; and of course the entire collection and expansion of Flash Forward. Also, thanks to my team at Magenta Magazine Online, Bill Clarke and Craig D’Arville, what started as a little online magazine project is kicking some serious butt and getting us lots of attention. Check it out at magentamagazine.com.

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A screenshot of the Magenta Magazine Online website.

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SMB: Tell me more about Magenta Magazine. How often is it published, what is its editorial mission, and who’s the target audience?
MC: Magenta Magazine Online is a quarterly publication; Bill Clarke is the Executive Editor and Craig D’Arville, one of my board members, is Publisher. Each issue has an informal editorial theme that is presented through a couple of feature articles, some portfolios, international exhibition reviews and other interesting things we call Editors’ Picks, and more. We’re on our sixth issue now and readership is growing and growing. Thousands of people from around the world read MMO—we’ve logged ISPs from Canada, the U.S., across the U.K. and Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. We are frankly amazed at the amount of attention the magazine is getting.

It’s weird, but I really don’t have anything to do with MMO—this is Bill and Craig’s baby—so I get to read each issue as it comes out. It’s exciting to be hands-off on such an important aspect of what Magenta does but I have complete faith in what Bill and Craig are doing and have been consistently impressed.

Based on feedback, our target audience is right what we’d hoped: other artists, collectors, students, culture workers, arts enthusiasts and tastemakers; curious minds, really. It helps that we have content in every issue from around the world.

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SMB: Last question: You will consider FFFB a success if…?
MC: Holy cow, I am an overachiever. I tend to not measure success by a tangible yardstick, but with an event like this, we’ll be able to measure attendance levels and participant feedback. We survey attendees and ask our presenters to complete questionnaires that help us to fine-tune things moving forward. It’s a constant learning curve. Any criticism we receive we take very seriously and try to identify how improvements can be made. But let me also say that nobody can be as hard on us as we are on ourselves. We set the highest standards and work very hard to meet them.

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Thank you, MaryAnn!

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Alison Zavos, the photo editor of Feature Shoot, has posted a selection of photos by our own Fulvio Bonavia, who, as she notes, was named Photographer of the Year for 2010 by the Mobius Awards. You can read her post here.

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A purse that would go great with a little ranch dressing. Photo by Fulvio Bonavia.

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Previously on Stockland Martel Blog Brings You Highlights From “Multi-Platform Editing: Presenting Your Work to the New Media Landscape”:

Vaughan Hannigan photo rep Joe Pritchard offered advice for photographers who are editing their books: Don’t get attached to images “that SUCK,” he said, genially but seriously.

Photographer Chris Owyoung offered advice for those who are setting up an iPhone portfolio: “You need to have a thought process and workflow that works with the platform,” he said.

Moderator Stella Kramer said a Sports Illustrated photo editor told her she was not expecting to commission specifically for new platforms like the iPad, though imagery will play a vital role in the magazine’s use of those platforms.

R/GA art buyer Erin Rabasca said she can usually tell from a photographer’s book what kind of work they prefer to shoot. “Nine times out of 10, it’s the strongest image in the book,” she said.

And Time Out New York photo editor Roberto De Luna explained that he often needs photos that can work on both print and the Web but that he’s always looking for print quality, texture, and color.

Here in Part 2, the panelists discuss self-promotion, ways to respond when someone takes an image from your site or blog without asking, and whether it’s time to ditch your Flash site.

We begin with something that Dripbook cofounder Alex Wright said at the end of Part 1:

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“Technology is supposed to work for you,” said Alex, who acknowledged that it can be daunting. “Figure out the creativity first, and use the technology that’s true to you. If it’s not making your life easier, find the technology that does.”

And at that moment, it did seem like everyone in the room was feeling daunted and overwhelmed. Photographers are trying to stay in touch with their creativity and be all dreamy and artist-y, but they’re also trying to be smart businesspeople who have a pan and clear goals and know how to market and budget and so forth. It ain’t easy.

“The point is self-promotion,” said Chris, by way of easing the tension. “We’re here talking about all of these things that are new, but I’m not there yet. It’s not there yet.”

He suggested setting small goals or tasks for yourself, like making sure your homepage has your contact info (turns out many photographers’ sites don’t). Rethinking your homepage if it’s Flash only. And here he explained that if your site is built entirely in Flash, then Web crawlers basically see one file when they traverse your site. Not good if you want to show up in search results. At the very least, you need to have an HTML backend, which apparently is how liveBooks—which took a few shots in the discussion for being Flash oriented—does it for its clients.

“I’m not saying trash your Flash site that you spent a lot of money on,” said Roberto.

“I am,” said Erin.

“Have a sister site,” Roberto suggested, meaning something on Dripbook or Flickr or some other means of site that shows your work and that is viewable on mobile devices, etc.

“Go to the root code of your website and put a link that says, ‘If you’re on a phone, go here,’” said Alex, explaining how to include a link to your alternate portfolio at the fancy Flash page of your main website.

On the subject of image theft, Alison Zavos of featureshoot.com noted that there are services now where you can do a reverse search on your image to see where it’s been posted online. One such service is TinEye.

“It’s better to satisfy the needs described here [by the art-buying panelists] than to protect your work,” said Erin. “Don’t hinder [art buyers].”

Chris also noted that you can add your metadata to each image file you upload consisting of your name, the copyright, and your contact info. He said that even if somehow your image did find its way into, for example, a magazine layout, most production managers will see the metadata and flag the image for removal or ask the photo editor to get your permission.

“The point is to appeal to clients and not to worry about the nickel-and-dime [infractions],” he said.

One music photog in the audience noted that fansites often pick up her work without her permission. Instead of asking them to take the image down or pursuing compensation, she asks for a prominent photo credit. She knows the fansites have no money—and that the exposure they offer her is valuable.

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I took pages of notes at the sold-out APA/NY panel discussion at Calumet on Wednesday. Let’s just say there was a lot of meat on that bone. I’m going to serve it up in two separate posts.

Stella Kramer

The panel was unusually strong: Roberto De Luna, photo editor at Time Out New York; Joe Pritchard, a rep at Vaughan Hannigan; Alison Zavos of featureshoot.com; Alex Wright, co-creator of Dripbook; Erin Rabasca, head of art buying at R/GA (and, in person, a dead ringer for Neko Case); and music photographer Chris Owyoung, who is also a marketing associate at PhotoShelter.

The discussion was moderated by Stella Kramer, who expertly guided the conversation through subjects like iPhone portfolios, editing your work, Flash websites, and more. First batch of highlights below:

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Roberto De Luna

On showing your work on an iPhone

Stella wondered if photographers would be editing differently based on the platforms for which their work was destined. Roberto often needs photos that can work on both print and the Web, but he noted that he’s always looking for print quality, texture, and color.

Erin explained that R/GA often designs iPhone apps for its clients, so she and her fellow art buyers choose images based on the limitations and strengths of that platform. She also said she’d be open to viewing a photographer’s portfolio on an iPhone, but that she couldn’t make a buying decision based on that. “If that was the only thing that I had, I wouldn’t be satisfied,” she said.

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Chris Owyoung

Alex reports that people have told him they’ve gotten jobs through their iPhone portfolios and that, if nothing else, an iPhone portfolio is a way to show your work on demand, on the fly, and then you can follow up with the printed portfolio. “It’s better to err on the side of showing [your work]” if you happen to meet someone, he said, than to have nothing and potentially miss an opportunity.

On a practical note, the portrait view shrinks the landscape images to a barely viewable size, so “I gang all of the landscape images together and all of the portrait images together so that the viewer only has to turn the device once,” says Chris Owyoung. He also said that if you do opt for an iPhone portfolio, creating it is not as simple as dumping your pictures into your device. “You need to have a thought process and workflow that works with the platform,” he said.

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Alex Wright

There was talk of editing and of how photographers are, almost without exception, terrible editors of their own work. Joe joked that photographers will look at an image and remember how much fun they had during the shoot or how they met their wife on set, and they lose track of the purpose of the image in their book and how it functions with the rest of the work they’re showing. “You get emotionally attached to images,” he quipped, “that SUCK.”

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Erin Rabasca

Erin said that when she’s meeting with a photo and looking at their book, she’ll

ask them what they like to shoot. “Nine times out of 10, it’s the strongest image in the book,” she said. The lesson there is to shoot and show the work you want to get and not try to be something you aren’t. “Anything that’s forced does not work,” she said.

The generally agreed-upon number of images there should be, maximum, per portfolio: 15 to 20.

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Alison Zavos

Stella said she’d recently talked with a Sports Illustrated photo editor who told her she was not expecting to commission specifically for new platforms like the iPad, though imagery will play a vital role in the magazine’s use of those platforms. Stella noted that at the beginning of the tech revolution, when Web usage was the only concern, most contracts were written to include Web rights in the fee—as well as any usage for technologies that might be developed at any point in the future. A big yikes.

But Erin said it’s “always good” when technology shows photography as “the hero.” It creates demand and appreciation, and the higher those two things go, the more imagery is needed, and at top levels of quality.

Joe also suggested that these new platforms could represent a bargaining tool for photographers. If a magazine is available as an app that costs $3.99 per month, whereas a print subscription to the same magazine cost $15, then that changes the photog’s fee negotiation. It gives them leverage.

“All this technology is forcing people to think about things,” said Erin. “Their work, their worth.” She also said that most art buyers are not trying to “put one over on you, so ask questions. Art buyers want you to understand it. It’s critical that the photographer understand what the final execution will be. What [the client] will do to the image.” She, and the others on the panel, said it was important that photographers keep an open mind in terms of how their work is used and, frankly, will be altered to accommodate the needs of a new platform. “You need to throw away what you thought before,” Erin said.

“Technology is supposed to work for you,” said Alex, who acknowledged that it can be daunting. “Figure out the creativity first, and use the technology that’s true to you. If it’s not making your life easier, find the technology that does.”

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Nirrimi Hakanson is just a normal 16-year-old with big dreams. Really big dreams. This young Australian wants to be shooting for Vogue before she reaches adulthood. “Photography took my hands and led me to a personal paradise at age thirteen, and I’ve been self-taught and seeing life through a lens since,” she tells Alison Zavos at Feature Shoot. (I kind of had a Heavenly Creatures moment when I read that quote, but in a good way.)

The site has posted a bunch of Nirrimi’s photos, and I should warn you that if you have any inclinations toward feeling like an underachiever, you definitely do not want to see more of her work here.

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Photo by Nirrimi Hakanson. Who is 16 years old.

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In December of 2006, photographer Tim Mantoani began making portraits of renowned photographers holding one of their best-known images. It was a personal project times two: personal for him and for the photographer he was shooting. As he explains in a recent interview with Feature Shoot, “In some cases it is obvious which image the photographer would bring. For the most part, I leave it up to the photographer sitting for the portrait as to the image and the size of the photo. It can be very telling of how they see themselves as an artist. The images are career defining, iconic or images which they feel the most proud of creating.”

Mantoani started with Jim Marshall and Michael Zegaris and has since produced portraits of Walter Iooss, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Timothy White, Doug Menuez, Pete Turner, Mary Ellen Mark, and Elliott Erwitt, among others. All of the portraits are shot with a 20×24 Polaroid. “…The 20×24 format is magical and every photographer finds the process interesting,” he tells Feature Shoot founder Alison Zavos. “I don’t think I would have had the success I have in getting people to sit for me if I was shooting digital.”

Below, some samples from the Mantoani’s series. There are many more at his website.

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