I find photographers often come to see me or call me feeling lost. Sometimes it takes another person to highlight your successes, help you realize what you're doing right, and give you a boost to move forward.
What’s working, what’s next
Gary Beeber is a well established photographer looking to tweak things across his practice. Working together regularly for an hour at a time, we have focused on what is important, where to throw your energy, how to achieve impactful things - we've got him a bunch of editorial coverage and he continues to be juried into multiple shows. We are adding edition info and prices to his website, and starting to market to specific organizations and collectors.
The Image Troopers are two photographers I met when I was a guest speaker at a week-long celebration of photography in Norway in 2012. A year or so later we were working together to define and develop the project on which they collaborate. Since then we have spent several hours on Skype and in person as they continue with their successes.
Pej Behdarvand consulted with me for an hour about a new project, very different to his usual work, that he had started and planned to continue. We focused on what was the most important story he was trying to tell with the photographs, discussed what elements were working in what he had already produced, and I gave him goals to achieve with the next round of shooting.
David Goldman and I collaborate on an ongoing basis. I have edited hundreds of images, helped lay out his websites, advised him before and after trips abroad, discussed social media campaigns and generally provide an ongoing ear.
Website advice
Derek Brown has quickly built a fascinating niche in Bangkok: photographing tom boys. We worked together to lay out his website so that the text stays important but the volume of images he's made is obvious. Derek's website is currently the first hit in a Google search for tomboys in Bangkok.
Laura Migliorino hired me to go over her website and tighten things up a bit. We’ve also talked about everything from attending portfolio reviews to online promotion to project statements to print editions.
I used TeamViewer when working online with Rupert Warren, a Brit in Berlin. For about an hour we went through his various images, narrowed down portfolios on his website, focused on the sort of work he really wants to do, and did a tiny bit too much giggling.
Editions, pricing, curating
After my workshop in Norway this year, one of my students asked me to curate some images for his fine art print offerings. Lars Andreas Dybvik has a bit of a different eye on the usual wildlife and nature images. We had talked about editions during class, as well as reorganizing your website to reflect who you are and to focus on the perception you are aiming to give.
T. Eric Monroe is revisiting his 90s music archive. We discussed merchandise and promotion, and what's permitted by law.
Stefan Falke hired me to consult with him on an ongoing basis regarding his project “Border Artists,” in which he photographs and interviews artists working in all media on either side of the US-Mexico border. We collaborated on his solo exhibition at Photoville in New York, and I curated the limited edition boxed set of photographs for his collectors, establishing edition sizes and pricing.
Loli Kantor and I have been through a couple of different bodies of work, editing for exhibit and for festival entries, and reworking her statements. We hashed out thoughts on editions and pricing. Loli has so many things to juggle, we narrowed down her priorities.
Editing and sequencing
Editing with Phil Penman for his upcoming book. Planning four sections, we worked on choosing the best selection that reflects Phil's soul. Phil went on to successfully crowdfund his book, saying "Julie was instrumental in putting together my book “Street” and has been great source of information and guidance over the years through her blog aCurator.com"
Christian Nilson’s goals were to narrow down a number of images to between 6 and 20 that he could use for competitions, presentation, and his website. Sometimes you just need another set of eyes to sort through and highlight which are the most engaging images that tell the story quickest. After sending him the edit and sequence we had a 10 minute Skype chat, Zurich to Brooklyn.
Stan Raucher and I worked together on editing and sequencing one of his fantastic projects, cheerfully hashing out the final series together over the phone.
Directional advice
Margaret McCarthy is a photographer and a poet. With multiple websites and a variety of content we met to focus her web presence and give her a simpler way to think about adding content.
I work with Francis Smith on multiple aspects of his ongoing project "America by Another Name" which features portraits of people encountered on an epic American road trip - all to places called Columbia.
My old friend Steve Eichner wanted to take a view on his archive. Is it worth investing in scanning? What sort of non-traditional licensing opportunities might there be? We spent a healthy couple of hours talking it all through before Steve made his decisions.
Lori Hepner is as much a scientist as a photographer, so our one hour meeting was spent thinking outside of the usual photography box to target more technologically inclined institutions.
Erika Plummer seemed to have a Eureka! moment about an incident (somewhat crazy) she had experienced and had begun photographing. Should she continue and develop this project? I was gripped by the story and encouraged her to go make this special thing happen. In an hour, we nailed what the angle should be.
Rocio De Alba has deep, emotional, personal projects under her belt and when you work in isolation sometimes it helps to sit and talk about everything you are doing and decide what is worth spending most energy on. We spent two hours and covered a lot of ground.
Licensing images
Eric Pickersgill needed help navigating hundreds of requests for his photographs when his series “Removed” went viral overnight. I have converted dozens of publications who claimed they had no budget into paying customers, raised license agreements, wrangled interviews, negotiated contracts, and continue to bill and collect license fees.
Trupal Pandya is just graduating from New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology but already has a lot of experience under his belt. At his graduate exhibition he mentioned increasing interest in his photographs. I will be licensing images and whatever else Trupal needs as he returns to make new portraits with remote tribes later this year.
The Estate of Yousuf Karsh entrusts me with all the rights and clearances in North America for Karsh’s enormous catalog.