May 4, 2013

Good editors cont...

A good editor will not force his photographers to shoot subjects that they have no interest in just to follow the money train. Without interest in your subjects you will be shooting from a conveyor belt only getting glimpses of your subject.

Good editors will allow the photographers decision to take a photo be at the forefront. His decision to create this image deserves an edit consideration.  

Styles change, technology advances, taste become fads, fads fade, run and gun images explode on the market scene, editors are under pressure to get with it, get hip and join the movement.  But a good editor knows that a powerful image is still the best way to express an emotion that can connect with the audience.  And clients know this too.  Sure, there is alot of new devices that make photography easy and fun but that doesn't equate to quality intent image making.  

A good editor can look at an image submission and immediately know if the photographer took the easy way out in his approach and interest in the scene.  Did he go with the herd mentality and take images from the pedestrian location and perspective and didn't see or dig deeper into the subject and find something of interest, something more personal that expressed his own unique style?  Will the editor, under these circumstances, automatically reject the submission?

The simple answer is NO! A veteran editor will look at a new submission from his photographer and even though it is a scene that has been shot a million times before, will still respect and have confidence that the photographer looked under the surface of the scene and photographed the homogenized subject in a new an illuminating way.

The photographer didn't allow the lure of pedestrian imagery to deter him from finding gems in the rock garden.