Erik Snyder/Getty Images

Getty Images is bringing a fresh perspective on portraiture at the first ever New York Photo Festival which runs from May 14-18 in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Getty Images will be showcasing 42 pieces by some of its world-renowned photographers including Jeff Reidel, Steve Pyke, George Holz, Nicholas Prior, Phillip Toledano and Tara Moore.

The exhibit demonstrates the provocative, innovative nature of portraiture from the esteemed photographers and will be housed under the Getty Images pavilion (81 Front Street). It is free and open to the public.

About the New York Photo Festival

The New York Photo Festival will be the first international festival of photography based in the US with the goal of documenting the future of photography in all of its forms. Headquartered in DUMBO, the festival celebrates both the contemporary photography and the creative, inspirational talents of artists who produce this work.

Visitors can experience a variety of events, including curated pavilions by Kathy Ryan of The New York Times Magazine, Magnum photographer Martin Parr, Lesley A. Martin of the Aperture Foundation and Tim Barber of tinyvoices.com. In order to attend events at the festival, you must purchase a ticket ($45) which is valid for the entire four days.

Competition closes TOMORROW, 14 May, 11:59pm PST!

It’s the Ultimate Pitch and it’s open to the world’s creative community. Send us an idea that makes a world of difference. If it’s judged to be the best, we’ll flaunt your work across the globe and on the beach at Cannes Lions 2008.

If you win, you’ll get to go too. Stepping into the shoes of world-renowned Executive Creative Director Bob Scarpelli - soaking up the finest creative and enjoying all his usual luxury perks at the festival.

And we’ll help you get the gig. Kick-start your brainstorm with our inspirational Catalyst search to land those “eureka!” moments. Then, tap into our big-budget clips, original music tracks and award-winning images to bring your ideas to life.

Play the video - Cannes awaits

Enter the Ultimate Pitch

Good luck.

This is a question I have been frequently pondering as my head seems to be continuously stuck under the hood of the Macbook pro, tethered to the photographer, like some caped, Getty Images crusader, fighting the fight to sort out the good images from the bad.

Kari Pearson (art director), Jan Guy (model), Thomas Northcut (photographer), Heather Simchuk (stylist)

Recently I worked on a shoot in Fraser, Colorado with Thomas Northcut (photographer), Matt Wright (producer) and Emilie McKittrick (artist data quality specialist and connection to the locations we shot at - she traveled along and helped us with duties too numerous to mention), Seattle-based freelance stylist Heather Simchuk and rounding out the rest of the group was Mike Forster (first assistant), Ted Coster (second assistant), Pamela Chavez (props) and Beth Ryan (hair and make-up) all from Denver.

Looking at image after image rolling into the computer, gives one much opportunity to think. You think about how easily some images happen and how a lot of collaboration takes place on others. So I thought “hey, let’s do a little experiment, or a bit of an un-scientific survey, and take a look at a handful of images from the Colorado shoot and see how they sort out take-wise.” I selected a couple of images we spent a little more time on and a couple that I remembered coming fairly quickly (approx. times noted), wanting to keep this survey small, yet try to provide a sampling of images that are somewhat typical from your average shoot day.

Shot 1: 4 takes/a couple of minutes
*We were working on other variations within this scene and Heather (stylist) saw this shot and suggested that Thomas pull back to get the entire scene. I think Heather had ulterior motives and wanted to get a full body shot of her styling.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 2: 29 takes/approx 1/2 hour
*We probably had the shot around frame 20 and worked on variations of gloves on/gloves off, several body position changes and many attempts at fussing with hair while attempting to make the 12-year-old model look more serene than seductive while her father was on set.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 3: 4 takes/approx 1 minute
*This shot was from a breakfast scene that Thomas and crew lit so that we could set up the scene and Thomas could move around the table and capture various moments as they happened. This was a real moment and I thought Thomas captured it really well.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 4: 10 takes/approx 1/2 hour
*We tried variations of sitting up on the edge of the bed, laying down, messed with her hand position, played around with how her hand was positioned under her head to make her posture look more natural, fill, no fill…Since this shot was all about only using the available light source, we shot very slowly.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

Shot 5: 14 takes - approx 40 minutes
*Variations of vertical, horizontal, changed composition a few times, had model use various expletives to enhance the frustrated look on his face…Some downtime occurred while laughing at the second assistant who had fallen in the snow, managing to bury himself while still maintaining a tight grip of the light.

Thomas Northcut/Getty Images

And the survey says…

-5 shots/61 total takes/12 takes roughly on average/rounding up time-wise to about 1/2 hour per shot

I don’t know what that means exactly, other than completing this unofficial survey and me feeling somewhat relieved that the average number of takes wasn’t 150 or something like that. It did get me thinking that since this shoot was for LifeSize, I’d be interested in knowing how many shots on average it takes for say a Stone+ frame. Or even better, who is willing to document all of those shots that we sometimes spend way too much time on and way too many frames on, only to scratch them in the end?

I am thinking that may be better to blog about anonymously…

I’m really excited about the current trend “Tactile Graphics” - the movement of graphic designers to represent their ideas and layouts spatially. It’s blurring the lines between graphic design, sculpture and photography and opens up exciting possibilities for creative’s working in traditional photography and footage to experiment with conceptual ideas.

www.serialcut.com

With the ability to create almost any situation artificially or remove any flaw using software such as Photoshop I think this style of imagery is a refreshing visual counter point. It will be interesting to see if commercial clients agree.

Stephanie Cabrera/Getty Images

I’ve been thinking a lot lately (as many of us in the Northern hemisphere probably are!) about the end of winter weather and the shift to spring and summer sun. Interestingly, I recently read about the use of phototherapy for curing the real winter blues - it’s designed to simulate the effects of sunlight through the exposure to full-spectrum artificial light. It’s commonly used to treat conditions such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and psoriasis. I don’t have SAD or psoriasis but I sure am itching for summer. Looking at these kinds of images is my “photo therapy.”

Thatcher Keats/Getty Images

Smith Collection/Getty Images

Ofer Wolberger/Getty Images

Adrian Weinbrecht/Getty Images

Roy Mehta/Getty Images

In 2006 Getty Images signed a contract with the Compassionate Eye Foundation, founded by photographer Robert Kent in 2005, with the agreement that a majority of the revenue from the sale of images submitted via that contract would go to support the activities of the Foundation.

Their mission is “to support, honor, and empower those in developing nations in order to expand educational opportunities, basic health services, and tools for economic development.” So far their focus has mainly been in Guatemala, where 75% of the population lives below the poverty line, and in rural areas medical and educational programs are scant to nil. Recently they’ve partnered with Education Without Borders and will expand their work into Africa as well.

© Compassionate Eye Foundation

Here is a lightbox of highlights from the CEF photos on Getty Images, and here is the Getty Images page about CEF.

Here is a recent progress report sent out by founder Robert Kent:

facts:
1. Compassionate Eye Foundation royalties earned to date are just over $100,000.
2. Our January 2007 royalties were just under $200. In March 2008 the images earned just over $24,000.
3. The power of imagery to create positive change in the world summarizes our partnership with Getty Images.

TOGETHER, we will educate hundreds of children in developing nations.
Photographers UNITE!
Thank you.
Robert Kent

Current C.E.F. accomplishments as of March 2008:

 

• bought land + built one school, grades 1 to 6 in Guatemala with 2 teachers + 60 children
• established a scholarship program allowing graduates to attend grades 7 to 9 for the first time ever
• for two years have funded a Guatemalan women’s group teaching women’s health + safety, pre + post natal care + artisan skills to over 100 at risk women
• established a parent participation preschool project for 10 children for the first time ever
• providing funds for a young persons accepting personal responsibility educational program, educating over 500 rural teenagers
• providing funds for an agro-forestry project that is teaching about + introducing new crops
• completed the construction of a playground with basketball + soccer nets
• providing funds to a disadvantaged high school in cape town South Africa for a fine art + photography program
• on June 21 2006 spearheaded the first annual Getty Images solstice shoot, 11 photographers and their crews donated time, talent + resulting images to C.E.F.
• on June 21 2007 over 50 Getty Images photographers and their crews from around the world rallied for the second annual solstice shoot
• Getty Images stock contract in place with 900 images online

Our vision is to be a global foundation, C.E.F. is currently scouting projects in South Africa, Tanzania + India for future funding.

A few months ago one of the good things that can occasionally happen to a photo editor happened to me…
a photographer who had been involved with Getty many years ago but had fallen off the radar for some time got in touch via the website and his contact details were forwarded to me by the Dublin office.

I looked at the work that Robert Van Der Hilst had sent and found it absolutely stunning. He’d spent quite a few years in China, travelling all over the country, meeting people and being invited into their homes and workplaces, to catch a glimpse of their way of life in both remote rural and urban areas.

© Robert Van Der Hilst

The more of the images i looked at, the the more absorbed i became. Together they make up a beautiful and fascinating document of a changing place and a people in flux, some clinging to ancient tradition while others embrace modernity, and others, somewhere in bewteen, live with familar elements of modernity in their homes, that look somehow out of place in this context.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

©Robert Van Der Hilst

Sometimes the people appear proud, or fascinated by the photographer’s interest, at other times they appear oblivious or turn their backs, not wanting have their face captured by the camera. 

©Robert Van Der Hilst

Sometimes the photographer decides to look away from them altogether and shows us possessions they live with or use daily. It’s sensitive and subtle work, and he never seems to have been treated as an intruder.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

At this moment in time the different ways that people are living within this one country seems amazing, and it seems unlikely that  lifestyles so diverse can co-exist for much longer.

©Robert Van Der Hilst

I thought i’d share a few of the images here and hope you will enjoy and find some inspiration from them, particularly in the light of the current Creative HOME brief!

There is a much larger selection of Robert Van Der Hilst’s Chinese Interiors and other images, recently uploaded to the Reportage collection.

I recently went to see ‘You, the Living‘ (’Du Levande’) - an interesting and truly strange film by Roy Andersson - who was once quite accurately referred to as “a slapstick Ingmar Bergman“. It’s a surreal, meandering film - basically a hipster, European sketch comedy show - but in the end I found it quite entertaining. What really struck me, however, was how incredibly considered every single scene is - set and lit like a photograph. This photographic feel is only bolstered by the fact that the camera moves only twice in the entire film. To top it off - almost every scene (interiors and exteriors) were sets, painstakingly constructed in a studio.

It’s worth checking out - if anything for a bit about a man who ends up being sentenced to the death penalty for unsuccessfully attempting the old tablecloth trick at a posh dinner party.

I wonder if these new Jagermeister ads (who knew they had ads?) were inspired by Mr. Andersson - there’s a similar feel. Quite a funny little set of ads - great colour pallette.

Over the last 30 years, I’ve done over 60 books, most with a strong environmental message. I realized that if this work translated in a compelling way to television, I could reach, in one episode, a hundred times the collective audience of all those well-intentioned books.

While Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge (now live on Getty Images) is first and foremost a show about photography, there is a strong environmental component to it as well, but we don’t beat people over the head with it. One week we might be photographing and endangered species:

IND0701300168: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

the next an extraordinary culture:

ETH0608300229: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

…and the week after that a threatened landscape.

ANTO611251055: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

We are a streamlined production by choice: with a low-impact four man crew (including me), we’re hopefully leaving nothing behind but shared good memories.

JLG0701190903: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions: Travels to the Edge crew, (L-R) Karel Bauer, Sean White, Art Wolfe, John Greengo

We usually have ten days to shoot each episode so equipment, guides, translators and other local resources are all put in place before we go. Sometimes our numbers burgeon alarmingly mostly due to safety issues.

JLG0711100011: © John Greengo/Edge of the Earth Productions: Travels to the Edge production in the Sahara Desert, Mali

Photography has always been an important way for large numbers of people to see and experience nature and places they might never visit. It’s going to become even more important now, at this critical juncture in history, as photographers build a visual record of what’s being threatened. We witness, we record…

Matthias Clamer/Getty Images

Beijing has raced to improve its air quality before August 8, crude oil just hit a new high at $117 a barrel, and a huge chunk of Antarctic ice just fell off right into the water (apparently it was seven times the size of Manhattan). Earth Day seems more important now than ever before.

There are demonstrations, celebrations, protests, new ad campaigns and all sorts of activities about how each of us can make a difference, make a change, save the world, save the animals, save the forests and save ourselves. In case you haven’t done your part yet, check out a few of the sights below that will give you some ideas on what to do next:

• http://www.earthday.net
• http://www.saveourplanet.org
• http://www.wecansolveit.org
• http://www.ecorazzi.com

Here’s the deal people - we love stuff. We love to buy stuff, hold stuff, look at stuff and dream of stuff. We are a culture of STUFF.

Those of us, in the business of communicating, are stuff experts. We entice people to buy more of it. That’s okay, I’m proud to be a stuff expert. However, the question for our time is this:  how do you sell more stuff while responsibly communicating about all things Earth Day?

To explore the answer to the question above, we did a study. It’s called Map 2: AspEn. Aspirational Environmentalism. Within the pages of Map 2 we look at green communication from around the globe to try to understand visually where we are today and where we might go tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite projects of all time, it’s about the human condition and how we all communicate about stuff we need vs. stuff we desire.

So go check it out. Don’t print it out. Drink from your recyclable coffee cup. Plant a tree. And go celebrate Mother Earth!