My Favourite Edit

One of the aspects about photo editing I love is seeing the final layout and saying “Wow. That one actually totally and completely works for me.” There are often so many factors going into the final design of a piece – everything from page counts changing in the 12th hour to conflicts in thoughts on flow to images not living up to their wordy cousins and equally as common, words not living up to the pictures – that when the issue finally lands on my desk I am well past reliving the story and relishing in its glory. This is the same for photographers I am sure. More often than not one hears that the edit wasn’t as strong as the shooter would have liked and while the photographer is not privy to all the ins and outs of what goes into the final layout it still stings a bit to both of us to know there could have been more to it. My best edits have always involved a bit if struggle, whether that be in creative differences, production logistics or plain ego – being taught something by the results of my hard work.

So here is the first post in what shall be an ongoing series featuring photo editors and photographers, aptly named, My Favourite Edit.

If I may, please allow me to be a bit self-indulgent here and show three pieces I worked on that made me very proud as all had the elements of struggle that I mentioned above. The first edit is for 2 magazine, a wonderful magazine that comes out of Toronto, and is the first shoot and layout that I worked on that I was super happy to see come out in print. The idea was to shoot real people on the beach in summer clothing. No models, no giant production – just us, a photographer and two bags of sample sized clothing. In discussions with the Art Director Jaspal Riyat and Style Editor, Naomi Kim, we decided we needed a photographer that had employed a very free flowing style and that also had a contemporary look to them – oh yeah, and one that wasn’t rooted in the world of fashion. In the end I used Annabel Oosteweeghel not only because of her look which seemed a mix of non-intrusive yet well lit documentary photography, but because of how she described her shooting style – which in fact is very directed, with purpose and flexibility.

Why does this edit work for me? For one, we were all on the same page when it came to the pictures which to me says this is really strong. Everyone agreed on the edit right out of the gate which is rare esp. when you have so many great choices present. Another reason it works for me is that it hit all of our shoot objectives bang on. It only contained real people, scouted right then and there on the beach (‘scue me miss. Can we have 5 min of your time), it had the look of spontenaity we were after though it was well lit and directed and most of all it was not your expected fashion shoot.

The second Layout was for Toro magazine and is one of those stories we often get were you whisper under your breath “how the hell…” The editors decided to run a travel package, one made up of mostly far off locations and had to be driven by pickup material. As a photo editor I generally cringe at the word pickup for a couple reasons but mostly it is a knee jerk reaction caused by my ego because I don’t get to commission something and hence don’t have some form of ownership of it. Weird I know. This story changed the way I saw myself using pickup images.

I like this edit for a couple reasons. For one the opening shot, which is by Toronto photographer Paul Orenstein, is dramatic enough to make me want to jump right into the pages. As mentioned the story is made up of all pickup images and for the most part, these locations weren’t found on typical stock sites whatsoever which meant finding them via other means. This was my first jump into the world of using Flickr as a resource (late 2006 pre-getty days I believe) and I think it was rather successful as over half the photos ended up coming via searching flickr and contacting the photographers. I actually think the shots found from Flickr are stronger then the media shots provided and helped maintain, or even add to the story with which there could have been many visual flops.

Finally, my most recent favourite edit is from Chatelaine. There are certain stories where words almost seem unnecessary and this is one example of that. The idea was simple: Let’s talk about body image. The execution not so simple: Have eight real women sit for portraits that show the body part they talk about. It takes guts to say I think I have flaws and then back it up by showing it to 3.5 million readers. The most natural choice for this job was George Whiteside as his natural light portraits are beautiful and timeless which is something I wanted to bring home. Beauty is timeless. In the end the quiet images were exactly what was envisioned when the idea was first discussed. It also resonated with our readers big time, which means it truly did its job.

I am excited to be apart of this blog and I hope together we can push editorial conversations forward, in a direction that helps make the strong community we have here already, even stronger. Let’s talk. Let’s share. Let’s question. Let’s answer. Enjoy.