art buyers are people too

when I'm put on a type of project I've never done before

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:14:54 -0400

Um…totally…

Well, we may have just gotten one of our favorite promos ever...

Fri, 03 May 2013 15:50:00 -0400

Well, we may have just gotten one of our favorite promos ever thanks to Annabel Mehran. It’s like she knew us! The mysterious pink construction paper package with the most amazing stamp collection and sealed with hot pink gaffer arrived at 3:17pm. We were in a meeting and wanted to rip it open then and there…patience…patience.

The meeting ended and we gathered ‘round…what was it? She knew our favorite color and favorite tape. Yes, some of us have a favorite tape! Like, woah! Shorts in every color…Annabel Mehran shot behind the scenes for Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and made a deck of cards from the images! Genius! We love it!!!! This is the f*ckin’ American dream! Thank you for making our Friday so wonderful Miss Mehran. You clearly rock.

Above is sampling of work from Annabel’s site and a peak at our new playing cards. Art Buyers/Producers/Photo Editors, get this girl in your office to get your own set!

You all have to check one of our new favorite...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:36:00 -0400

You all have to check one of our new favorite obsessions: http://www.jenren.com/. Jenny is a Creative Producer at an agency in Minneapolis. We think this is such a cool resource for producers, photographers, photo editors and creatives. She really runs the gamut on her site and updates regularly…mmmm…just like us, right? We will try to be better, promise. Just check out Jenny’s site when you need a quick fix. She has got it going on!

Does anyone spot Miss Marsalis in our little photo mash-up?

There is so much to look at. Featured above:

We seriously could spend all day looking through and clicking links on JenRen.com. Thanks for putting this together! It’s super rad!

If we can tell you anything, it’s not anything that...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:36:29 -0400

If we can tell you anything, it’s not anything that Emiliano Granado isn’t saying on his awesome limited edition poster. We kinda want one! It’s the best reminder in the industry. Emiliano, you are so awesome to make this!!! He is a force to reckon with…photographer, brand new papa, and now designer and print producer? So rad…so, so, rad! We are inspired!

quesofrito:

For those of you paying attention, I talk about HUSTLING all the time (see here and here). You have to hustle to succeed as a photographer. First you have to hustle to assist, then hustle to get your first jobs, then hustle for more jobs, and hustle to maintain relevancy and creative output, and then hustle some more to make money, etc. You get the picture. The name of this game is HUSTLE, people.

That’s why I wanted to make something as an homage to that hustle and inspire other people to keep hustling. I teamed up with my friend John Fayard to print up these limited edition screen prints (I’ve always loved screen printing!). Printed by hand in Brooklyn at Kayrock. Artisan quality, guaranteed!. Signed and numbered on the back by me. Limited to 50.

BUY NOW.

We had a good promo day today. We Are The Rhoads sent out a...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:57:37 -0400

We had a good promo day today. We Are The Rhoads sent out a very cool catalog of their work. The magazine format displays several stories that they were commissioned for and a few personal projects that were special to them. It is peppered with perforated postcards throughout, which is super smart. It’s cool to have a big printed piece like this. It must have cost a fortune, but it was done incredibly well, with so much room to breathe and for eyes to wander. We loved flipping through and giving our eyeballs a rest from websites for a few minutes.

We have a been loving Randal Ford’s L.L. Bean covers. They commissioned him to recreate the illustrated covers from the 50s and 60s as photographs. They are so cool and done to a t. Randal sent out a series of 4 of the covers as postcards and a little old-timey photography journal that has thoughtful quotes interspersed in the pages. It was a fun package to open and to be reminded of this project. He nailed the time period even with the texture of the stock for the postcards. This promo felt like a real labor of love, down to the little red pencil and the topographic map band. One of us didn’t receive it and was completely bummed out. Maybe it will be in tomorrow’s mail!

Check it out ya’ll! Remember our guest blogger, Suzanne...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:47:21 -0400

Check it out ya’ll! Remember our guest blogger, Suzanne Sease? She is also a contributor to A Photo Editor. She is calling on Art Buyers and Art Producers for your fave photographers. You can submit anonymously to her at: Suzanne.sease@verizon.net.

The first folks up are Anais & Dax. They are sweet couple who shoot a lot of food, lifestyle and portraits. We thought they were super nice when they came to see us recently. It got us thinking about all of the other couple duos who we follow and adore.

Some other couples worth checking out are:

the collaborationist-Jessica and Clark are just the cat’s meow! Super hip work by two super lovely people.

Jeremy & Claire Weiss-This husband and wife duo rocks our world hard! We recently had a portfolio review with Giant and we are pretty sure that we cleaned them out of promos for this power couple!

Floto + Warner-Oh how we love this couple. Man alive, do they impress! We love their images so much. There 4 eyes capture some amazing stuff and their personal projects are seriously inspiring.

Now you will have a couple of places to check out the photographers that agency folks are digging on!

Happy Friday…like so, so happy!!! It’s been a long...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:39:32 -0400

Happy Friday…like so, so happy!!! It’s been a long days, so we made you this collage of likes from our week. Our hands hurt from typing. Enjoy and check these guys out. The links match from left to right.

Parker Fitzgerald for Kinfolk

And this blog…http://mpdrolet.tumblr.com/ We are obsessed!!!! Guy’s got taste!

And our guest blogger has arrived! We love hearing that we...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:04:00 -0400

And our guest blogger has arrived! We love hearing that we aren’t the only weirdos out there. This Art Producer scans Instagram as much as we do! It’s such a great way to see where photographers are and what they are shooting. It also gives us insight into what kind of people they are and what interests them. When we aren’t traveling we can live vicariously through them and their delicious images! And without further ado…we present to you another fantastic Art Producer:

I love Instagram.

It’s my go to app when I need to kill some time and want to see what’s happening in the world beyond my sad windowless office.

One of my favorite things to do it creep on photographers.

You probably think I’m pretty weird now, but I really do love to see what inspires some of my favorite photographers on a regular basis.

For me, its just another way to see what they’re up to and what they’re shooting. I can’t always keep up with all the promos, but I always make time for Insta Creepin’.

My top 3 photographers to creep on right now are below, check em out:

Brian Finke

http://instagram.com/brianfinke

Martien Mulder

http://instagram.com/martienmulder

Ture Lillegraven

http://instagram.com/tlillegraven

We’ve been bummin’…busy and bummin’. A...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:50:00 -0400

We’ve been bummin’…busy and bummin’. A bright spot for us was finding Samantha Casolari’s work. It perked us up a little with it’s dreamy, ethereal feel or maybe made us a little sleepy and longing for summer. Either way, it’s beautiful.

We have a cool anonymous guest blogger headed at you this week. She loves creeping on photographers as much as we do and we love her for that!

Meet Suzanne Sease. Suzanne was among the first Art Buyers and...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:12:00 -0500

Meet Suzanne Sease. Suzanne was among the first Art Buyers and has amazing insight for photographers, Art Buyers, Producers, Creatives, and so many others. We asked Suzanne to come up with some ideas and she had tons! We thought how Art Buying was created was a good place to start. Suzanne is a real champion for photographers and has so much heart for it. You can just tell how passionate she is, especially when it comes to protecting photographers and their intellectual property.

Thanks so much, Suzanne and we hope to hear more from you!

“And that is how Art Buyers were created”

Former Art Buyer: Suzanne Sease

I remember the days when I was at The Martin Agency in the budget control department. I was responsible for every single dollar spent on all print media assignments. I really got to know the cost of advertising. I was responsible for time and expenses, with the responsibility of keeping track of the dollars spent until the project was ready to be billed to the client. I would get all the invoices and verify that a purchase order had been issued. The majority of time it just had the photographer/illustrators name with no estimated cost written on them. And usage? To an Art Director, what’s that- “I want such and such to shoot this so who cares how it is going to be used. I want to win an award.” The estimate was usually a quote over the phone and rarely in writing. The purchased props never came back to the agency but damn that art director looked good in those new cowboy boots! And so the art buyer was created.

I spent my first several weeks of training at Scali, McCabe and Sloves (think Perdue- “takes a tough man to make a tender chicken”) under the supervision of the late Linda Marso and Amy Schuster. They taught me so much and the very first day we were checking in the inventory from a Bacardi ad, making sure receipts matched the inventory. The photographer was Eric Meola, who was very buttoned up, so not a single problem. The inventory went to the client as they had paid for it. Most clients donate the inventory to charities, but still need to show the value of what was purchased. At this point, you all are thinking “Oh the glamour”, checking in used clothing while sitting on the floor! Most had not been washed.

On about day three, I got a great lesson in copyright infringement. A photographer walked in to show his work. It was really bad. He could see the meeting was not going well, so he pulled out some transparencies (okay, I just dated myself but then again wisdom comes with age). This work was beautiful, but I spotted an image I had seen the day before with a rep for another photographer. The photographer left and I told Amy about the image. We went to Linda who called the work back in for a possible “Nikon” job. We called the photographer back in for a meeting and he was never expecting Jay Maisel, Brett Froomer and the rep for Bob Krist to retrieve their images.

The photographer was required to sign a form that legal action would be taken if they were ever shown again. I returned home from my experiences at the big New York agency and established the department at The Martin Agency. As the agency grew so did the responsibilities and experiences. So, the art buyer position was not only created to protect the agency/client, but more so the photographer/illustrator. It is the same today.

This is the first of many articles about what it is like from the inside from someone who is no longer at an agency, so I can speak freely. I am a creative consultant who uses my experience at different ad agencies, large and small, as well as in house corporations to help my clients take their work to the next level. I can be contacted at: Suzanne.sease@verizon.net and suzannesease.com

Photographer, Ian Spanier, sent us a note asking about paid...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:52:00 -0500

Photographer, Ian Spanier, sent us a note asking about paid advertising by photographers. We love, love, love your promos, but understand that they can be expensive. Ian also wrote that much of his work comes from hitting the pavement and social media. Dude, that is awesome and if it is working, then keep on keeping on! Just yesterday we discovered By The Barkers because they liked us on tumblr. We are social media whores! We are all over the place and have tons of bookmarks of folks who tweet at us, follow us on tumblr and are facebook friends. There are times that we wish we could just post what we are looking for, but then we couldn’t be so candid…so, not yet!

Promos do have a place for the growing photographer. Just yesterday up and comer Jeff Henrikson came in to show us his handsome and newly printed portfolio. We ooh-ed, we ahh’ed, we dished out words of encouragement. We flipped that last page and wanted our goodnight kiss of a promo to have something to remember him by…but no, nothing. We called him on this and bet that he is laying something out right this second! Keep it simple, a single image-postcard sized. When we love a book or a website, we need a little reminder to post on our wall or to stick in the pile under our monitor or our desk. We do look through this stuff. We promise you!

Above is a smattering of promos that have mostly been in the backs of books. The zines by Eric Ryan Anderson and Mike Perry were sent, but we included them anyway because zines make us feel special. You don’t have to promo the whole world. Start with a few select people that you like and work from there. Word of mouth does wonders for a career too and boy can we talk!

Included in the above image are promos by:

Happy Birthday Ansel Adams! In honor of Mr. Adams we each...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:57:55 -0500

Happy Birthday Ansel Adams!

In honor of Mr. Adams we each pulled a few photographers who shoot landscapes, who we love. One Art Buyer said, “I don’t particularly like his (Adams) work, but I can respect his place in the photo world.” Here’s the thing…we might not love his work now, but he paved the way for so many people in the photography industry by making his images and pushing for them to be seen. The amazing thing is that landscapes have changed so much and so has capturing them. Some of us love grit & grime, some of us love nightscapes, some of us love innovative ways of shooting, some of us love quirkiness…but they are all a form of a landscape at the end of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Adams and happy birthday.

Ah…romance! There are two photographers who love love....

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:05:00 -0500

Ah…romance! There are two photographers who love love. They are Chris Craymer and Max Wanger. These guys just adore couples and love and romance and hugs and kisses and cuddling. To top it off, they are two of the nicest men in the world! If you are looking for love, look no further.

Chris and Max, will you be our Valentines? It’s okay if you say no. We are going to go back to collecting each other’s tears in mason jars and selling them on Etsy. That’s not creepy, right?

Gotta say we love that Cynthia Held didn’t get all weird...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:02:00 -0500

Gotta say we love that Cynthia Held didn’t get all weird with us! She get’s the good sense of humor award from us and that’s a really big deal because who wants to work with someone who doesn’t make you laugh? Cynthia, will you be our valentine? At least one of our valentines?

We always tell photographers who are looking for agents they need to really like their rep(s)…like, really, really like them. It’s like a marriage. A word to the wise, if your gut tells you no…keep looking for the right one.

Check out Cynthia’s blog

As much as we love a treat in the mail, this one was a little...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:45:00 -0500

As much as we love a treat in the mail, this one was a little odd, but it got us talking and eating and regretting the eating.

One of us ate the entire box, one dumped the contents in the trash (save the condom) and kept the box to up-cycle, one opened the box and nibbled a bit and the last was completely horrified at the prospect of candy and condoms being put in the same package and by who? Who touched that candy! This was all said after the first one inhaled the entire box, which sent her to the bathroom immediately. (That last sentence is a total lie.)

If you want to send us candy maybe make sure that it comes across as sanitary. Some of us don’t care, but there are some real germ-a-phobes out there. The other thing about this promo was that we went right to the website of Cynthia Held and well, how the heck do you contact her? Not all of us have enormous monitors. Thank goodness one of us did, because she made the rest of us feel badly that we didn’t by saying, “Look, you can contact her right here in the left hand corner!” and then came over to our computer and well…then we felt really bad because we have an inferior monitor. And then the other one was like, “Just hit full screen!” But really, can someone make it dummy proof, please because we want to know how to call you!!!! Unless you are just being all cute, which is totally cool too.

Happy Freaking Valentine’s Day.

We love Adam Dare…Who doesn’t love the bunnies with...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:58:00 -0500

We love Adam Dare…Who doesn’t love the bunnies with the hearts? We see a good theme emerging this week. Do you?

This is a fun interview by vndl magazine. We think they are swell and have a good eye!

vndlmag:

Adam Dare

VNDL: Describe your work/process?

AD: I do urban contemporary fine street art on canvas. I…

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We love a little Valentine in our mailbox! The pinks and reds...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:58:00 -0500

We love a little Valentine in our mailbox! The pinks and reds and x’s and o’s! Bring it!

The heart promo (with a tattoo on the back!) came from Melissa Punch, a New York based still life photographer with well, lots of punch! She is represented by Big Leo. Check out their links and spread the love.

Chris Stanford sent out the romantic little ditty with the x’s and o’s. Chris is represented by Jennifer Hutz. We love us some Jennifer Hutz! We met with Chris a while back and loved him too. He had us in stitches.

Thanks you guys! We heart you too.

xoxo

Happy Monday?!?! It’s been a rough one. We can’t lie to you. It’s foggy and our...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:06:25 -0500

Happy Monday?!?! It’s been a rough one. We can’t lie to you. It’s foggy and our brains are foggy, so sorry if this post is foggy.

We have been finding all sorts of new inspiration in agencies out there…We can definitely get comfy cozy with our old faves, but there comes a time when we need to step out of the box and get fresh!

Here are few sites that we have been stalking and should keep you busy for a day or so:

http://marasinger.com/

http://www.wreps.com/

http://agentoliver.com/

http://7artistmanagement.com/

http://www.cartelandco.com/#

We would be remiss to not mention Sharp + Associates http://www.sharpeonline.com/. We haven’t really been following them for a while and they just popped back on our radar recently. We are going to keep our eyes on them and see what we think. What do you think? Anyone that you are watching these days?

Word on the street is that we will be seeing a few more multi-media representatives opening their doors in 2013. Stay tuned!

Production Time!

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:33:00 -0500

We love to talk about production. We have our favorite producers and we will try new folks who come highly recommended. We research the heck out of producers that we haven’t used before. It’s so important that a producer understands that the client is, well, the client and has the checkbook, that the agency is hiring and making sure that they are getting paid, and that the photographer and his/her team needs a lot of TLC and support. It takes a strong production company to manage all of these personalities and needs.

We were catching up on Heather Elder’s blog recently and were thrilled to see her comment on the relationship between agency and production company:

Production Companies

More and more agencies are beginning to make suggestions as to whom the photographer uses for production and often times they are requesting specific production companies. Now that art producers are being required to understand and produce videos, they are more savvy with the value of a production company. They are even sometimes more willing to pay the extra money involved with the larger productions just to have the peace of mind that goes along with having more people involved in a production. Not all clients can support the larger budgets but I suspect that having a hand in choosing a producer is something we will see more of in 2013.

Heather speaks the truth. We really do like to have a relationship with our producers. It’s so important when we are traveling as a group, or that they care if someone on our team has dietary restrictions, or they know how our billing works for advances and invoices, and that they support the photographer and his/her team in a completely positive way. We want everyone to have a great shoot! The better the production looks and the more buttoned up, the better the photographer and crew looks and that can mean repeat business just because the shoot felt “easy” to the client. We call it “smoke and mirrors” but know how much work it takes to make it seem effortless.

We are sure that if you speak with any Art Buyer/Producer that she can give you a nightmare production story. This may be why this is a growing trend. We are all for it. It’s nice to have someone who is a lover. A great producer is a very special person.

Check out Heather’s blog. She is a great resource for how the industry operates and she has a strong commercial roster to boot!

We haven’t told you who we are loving on Tumblr in a while...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:46:00 -0500

Jessica Antola

We haven’t told you who we are loving on Tumblr in a while and now we are following way more people! This allows us to see so much more, which is awesome. We are watching you…

Here are some people who we are loving:

Girl Power:

http://jessicaantola.tumblr.com/

http://cassbird.tumblr.com/

http://amandamarsalis.tumblr.com/

Sensitive boys:

http://jeffluker.tumblr.com/

http://williamhereford.tumblr.com/

And the agents:

http://apostrophe-reps.tumblr.com/

http://wonderfulmachine.tumblr.com/