The big five (Hearst, Time Inc, Condé Nast, Meredith, and Wenner) have come together in an attempt to convince readers print is still king.  With the help of agency Y&R NY the five companies are putting out “The Power of Print” campaign starting in May.  The ads will run in almost 100 different magazines and appear on accompanying websites.

Via Graphic Arts Online -

“To achieve maximum impact, the ads will debut as color spreads, prominently placed in May issues of the publishers’ top titles with headlines such as, “We Surf the Internet. We Swim in Magazines.” And “Will the Internet Kill Magazines? Did Instant Coffee Kill Coffee?” These will be accompanied by iconic images lifted from the pages of America’s best-known magazines. A second phase, which will start appearing in June issues, will embed multiple cover images from widely recognized publications into the ad’s text to convey key phrases.”

The hope is that this push will help magazines gain a bit of control over the medium current destiny and perception by the public.  A grand effort to sell the product as a premium item.

I really want to see magazines survive in some form, I really do.  I make a good part of my living from editorial and absolutely love the people and projects.  I’m not sure what to make of the campaign.  It feels some what like a bandaid for a much larger problem.  Content quality continues to be squeezed, staffs downsized and budgets cut.  How do you sell your product as premium when you are producing it on a shoe string budget?  I would love to see this theme of a premium applied to more into creating the content for the magazine.  The campaign also seems a bit anti intuitive to the whole idea of making a product that spans different media.  Will the ipad version of the magazine suggest you go pick up a print version instead?

Here are a couple of numbers pointed out by the magazines in suport of the medium:

1. Magazine readership has risen 4.3% over the past five years (Source: MRI Fall 2009, Fall 2005 data)

2. Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009 (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first half 2009 and second half 2009 data)

3. Adults 18-34 are avid magazine readers. They read more issues and spend more time per issue than their over-34 counterparts (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)

4. During the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership increased 11% (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)

5. Magazine effectiveness is growing. Ad recall has increased 13% over the past five years. Action-taking-based on readers recalling specific ads-increased by 10%. (Source: Affinity’s VISTA Print Effectiveness Rating Service, 2005-2009)

6. Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent. (Source: Dynamic Logic)
You can read more at www.graphicartsonline.com.

Due to crazy production and a couple of big shoot days approaching I’ll be mia the rest of this week and perhaps most of next. Be back soon.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have gotten a couple of great conceptual illustration assignments (my favorite kind) from Fortune magazine. Back during the first week of January I was given the following concept by photo editor Amy Wolff:

The gist of the piece is that healthcare stocks took a beating last year because of uncertainty over reform, and, despite rebounding near the end of the year as the dust settled, are still undervalued.  Washington’s epic battle over health care reform has created a lot of uncertainty—and caused investors to flee the sector. Now the stocks look cheap.

It’s exciting to be given control over creative concepting, but its way easier to fall flat on your face if your ideas suck. Above is the final result, below are a couple sketches and descriptions I pitched, including the winner.

Sketch 1 – Get Well Card.  Could be on a very simple non desrcript surface, or something like a dining table or hospital like setting.  Also could add flowers or stuffed bear to play off of the get better idea.  My thinking here was works on two levels, card signifies health care and medicine, as well a healthcare stocks doing poorly and need to get better.

Sketch 2 – Surgical forceps on a metal surgery tray with a single dollar being held.

Sketch 3 – Stock chart/graph made out of pills.  Background would be white round pills, and the line would be red ones or various colors.

Sketch 4 – Red Cross Health Symbol (not the organization) with a sale tag attached.

One of my favorite things about having become somewhat accomplished as a photographer is that from time to time students will reach out to me for advice.  Its an awesome feeling to be able to offer advice and/or wisdom to the up and coming generation of shooters, especially when they are very eager to succeed.  Gabriel Stiritz, a junior at the Savannah College of Art & Design reached out to me with a couple questions the other day and I wanted to share his email as a great of example of how I think approaching a photographer can be successful.

From Gabriel:

Dan,
Hi!  I’m a junior year SCAD student, taking my first studio lighting class, and loving it!  I really admire your work, and I keep with your blog, which I have found is a good resource for BTS video and great contests!  I am about to buy my first lighting kit, and I was hoping you might have some advice.  I am divided between getting either a Profoto 7B first generation pack with two heads, or an Acute 2 2400 pack with 3 heads.  Which would you recommend getting, based on your experience with battery packs versus studio?  Also, I am looking at interning over the summer, and Tim Keating and Rebecca Nolan both recommended you highly as a photographer to contact.  I am entirely able to pay my own way, and I would love the experience of working in a studio.  I humbly submit a few photos from my lighting class, for you to see.  The rest of my portfolio is online at http://www.gabrielstiritz.com/.  Thanks for you time!

Here is what I like about Gabriel’s email.

1.He keeps the tone professional, but friendly.  Its not all formal business and I think people often make the mistake of being way to rigid in their emails, you need to strike a balance.

2.I like that he appears to have a genuine interest in my work and what I do.  It doesn’t take much, but by placing a little note about something you’ve seen by the photographer wether in a magazine or on their blog demonstrates a much more sincere interest.

3.He drops a couple of names for reference.  Connections are everything in this industry, and if you come to me by way of someone I know I’m much more likely to give you my attention.  Nearly all of my assitants and interns get in this way.

4.I love that he took the initiative to ask for an internship.  I always tell my students to not be afraid to reach out to photographers and ask to be their interns.  Don’t wait for a posting looking for an intern.  Search out the people you like and approach them.

5.He included a couple samples of his work.  I really like seeing a couple quick image samples, just one to three jpegs in the email.

6.This is pretty much how my emails look when I reach out to clients, save the questions on lighting! But seriously its all about finding a way to engage someone in an absurdly miniscule amount of time.

All in all Gabriel’s email got my attention and so I took a look at his site.  He had some great work that I wanted to share. You can see more at his site www.gabrieltstirlitz.com.

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

© Gabriel Stiritz

As mentioned on numerous posts, like every other photographer these days I’m making the leap into video.  While equipment is relatively affordable things can quickly add up especially when you start getting into the numerous needed accessories.  I knew a dolly was going to be a necessary purchase pretty early on and I had been eyeing the great kit offered at Microdolly, but at around 2000.00 it was a bit more than I wanted invest this early on.  Through word of mouth from my assistants I heard of a photographer that built a dolly for 18 Euros via the blog Ikea Hacker with the use of the Ivar shelf from Ikea.  This is not an original idea on my part.  We gathered the photos and some info in the comments on the blog and set out to build our own version. The info provided was pretty rough so I thought it would be useful to post how we built our version.  Straight off the 18 Euro price tag is not at all accurate, the Ivar rail you need from ikea costs roughly that alone.

This is what we came up with and what you will need to build your own dolly:

Item:                                                                Price:

- (12) 6″ corner brace “L” bracket              $ 36

- (30) 5/16″  bolt  2 in. length                    $ 5

- (6)   5/16″  bolt  1 in. length                     $ 2

- (24) 5/16″ washers                                     $ 4

- (54) 5/16″ nuts                                            $ 5

- (12) roller blade wheels w/ abec 5 bearings      $ 80

- (1) Ikea Ivar side unit 20 x 89″               $ 25

- (1) flagpole holder                                      $ 8

- (2) grip tape                                                $10

- (1) MDF board                                           $ 40

- (1) broom stick                                           $ 3

Total:                                                             $ 218

And a few photos to help with the building process:

The parts.

Greg cuts the MDF to size.

The wheel assembly.

Attaching wheels to the base.

Wheel assembly attached to base.

Wheels set to the Ivar rail, a little nub is placed to keep from pushing past the edge.

Grip tape to add a little more friction for the tripod.

A flag holder to attach a broom pole into to serve as a push bar.

In conclusion, the dolly works amazingly well, and while not dirt cheap to build, its a great alternative to buying one.  The thing is heavy so I’m not sure you’d want one of these for regular location work.  The Ivar rail doesn’t collapse either, so again a pain to get around.  In studio though I’m very pleased wit the results.

WIN-Initiative is back with their 10 Best 10 competition, this time on an international scale.  I received word of the competition the other day in my mail box and wanted to follow up since I had posted regarding the first 10 Best 10, specifically because it was a free to enter photo contest, and I always like to spread the word for a rarity like that.  Unfortunately this time around there is a fee attached, though its relatively small at $10 for a portfolio of 10 images.   The contest peeked my interest due to the fact that 10 winners will be chosen, one each by 10 different magazine from around the globe and will produce a photo shoot with that magazine.  All ten shoots will be judged in layout to determine the grand prize winner.  The initial judging by magazines seems to be regionally based, so if your entering from the US I would suspect Time Out NY would be most likely be your potential place of publication.  I’d be curious to see how that would then effect final judging as a magazine like Time Out is much less progressive than some of the international ones represented ( love .  Anyhow I really like the premise and creativity of the competition, and for 10 bucks it may be worth a shot.  Oh and the prize list is pretty damn sweet.

The deadline is March 8th and you can register and get all the pertinent info at tenbestten.com.

A few months back Rachel Hulin visited my class at SVA to talk about blogging and at the time mentioned a top secret project she was working on with a few other people.  At 5:00 pm yesterday that project, a website dubbed The Photography Post (thephotographypost.com)officially launched.  I’m certain the site  is going to very quickly become the go to hub for all things photography news/blog related.  All the major players have their blogs feeding through the site which updates content every 15 minutes.  Beyond the feed, the crew of course offers its own original content of news, interviews, photo collections, and a marketplace. Pure Genius.

SPD announced the medal finalists today for Pub 45 and I’m happy to say that some of my work was included courtesy of Field & Stream in the Photo Section (multiple issues) category.  I’ve been working with Field & Stream continuously over the past 4 years ever since photo editor Amy Berkley gave me one of my very first editorial assignments.  So big thanks to Amy as well as former Art Director Neil Jamieson for all the amazing work and opportunities.   Photographers Travis Rathbone and Gorman & Gorman also had a hand in making the section look great, and the nod is as much theirs as mine.  Below is one of the images nominated that I shot for the section. To see the full list of SPD’s photo related medal nominations check out aphotoeditor.

I was personally hoping for a snow day today, but my guilty conscious got the best of me and I made it to the studio for some much needed retouching action.  With snow on the mind I recalled my favorite series of snowy day imagery by fellow MFA grad from the Savannah College of Art and Design Lisa Robinson.  I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Lisa personally, but have been enamored by “Snowbound” since I first saw the series back in 2007.  Below are a couple of my favorite.  You can view the entire series at Lisa’s site www.lisamrobinson.com.

© Lisa Robinson

© Lisa Robinson

© Lisa Robinson

© Lisa Robinson

© Lisa Robinson

The buzz around town of late has been a positive uptick in assignments and even gasp* budgets for photographers.  I must say a very nice change from the terribly somber fall we had here in NYC.  Perhaps it really is true, things are on the mend, or perhaps attitudes are adjusting and we are all just making the best of things.  Maybe its a bit of both.  Not to rain on the parade but I caught an article on the way home last night published in the New York Times that had some pretty somber numbers for the magazine industry with a newsstand sale drop of 9.1 percent.

Here are a couple of the hardest hit according to the article:

“W, down 41.7 percent to about 25,000 for an average issue; Newsweek, down 41.3 percent to about 62,000 (Newsweek had decreased the number of copies on sale, noted a spokesman); SmartMoney, down 37 percent to about 26,000; Time, down 34.9 percent to about 90,000; Good Housekeeping, down 30.7 percent to 395,000; and Redbook, down 30.1 percent to 126,000.”

Not all news was bad.  Women’s Health one of the more familiar titles mentioned rose 21.5 percent.

I think we are all still very much aware of the uncertainty facing our industry.  I personally have friends and colleagues at several of these and other titles, so I’m certainly rooting for them all to get through these rough times.  And even though things have been looking up this year it would be most prudent to keep planning for the uncertainty ahead.

You can read the full article from The New York Times here.