Text and Photography By Terry SullivanLookingForward
B
efore I became editor of this
magazine, I served as editor-in-
chief and then columnist and
writer for another magazine, Profes-
sional Artist. Unfortunately, like more
than just a few magazines in the pub-
lishing industry these days, that title
is no longer on newsstands. That’s
one of the topics we’ll be looking at in
our next issue, which focuses on edito-
rial photography.
But while I was at Professional Art-
ist magazine, I’d often write both my
stories and illustrate them with my
images, which were often concept still-
life photographs or editorial still lifes.
For instance, one of my last articleswas a story I wrote on how art teach-
ers could learn something quickly (see
photos above). To illustrate the story,
I shot a close-up still life of my old art
history textbook, which I had used to
teach the subject earlier in my career.
I was also poking fun at myself: In
my opening paragraph, I pointed out
how on certain subjects in the text-
book, like the birth of modern art and
Picasso, I ended up underlining nearly
every single word. That’s not how
to learn something quickly. I’d have
been better off underlining the words
I didn’t find important.
In that article, I also wrote that
when artists have to learn somethingquickly, they “need a plan of attack,
and you need to make that plan
actionable.” That thought would
apply to many editorial, magazine
and newspaper photographers who
have seen their industry change dra-
matically as many publications close
or let go of staff photographers. Are
new opportunities opening online or
perhaps in new media and VR?
One other thing I learned was just
how incredibly difficult and demand-
ing it is to shoot editorial photos, which
is another topic we’ll cover by looking
at the photographers who have mas-
tered the art of editorial photography.
Stay tuned! DPPEditorial Photography
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