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Conceptual Research
Conceptual Research
I was the photo researcher for O, The Oprah Magazine. I sourced images for book reviews and quotes. The goal was to use contemporary artists, but that's tricky because not a lot of contemporary art inspires the uplifting sentiment required for the brand. I spent my time going to galleries, art fairs, and thumbing through the library books at the International Center of Photography. Licensing an image directly from the artist, foundation, or their gallery representation can be tough, but having Oprah as the calling card helped for sure. I was impressed by the legendary names we were able to publish who were not known for magazine illustration.
William Eggleston
I worked with Cheim & Read gallery for the rights to this image. Eggleston, the pioneer of color, was always included at the forefront of my research for book review artwork. This piece, “Untitled (Young Boy in Red Sweater)”, was also on view at the Whitney Museum’s show Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection.
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Irving Penn
My photo director wanted to honor Irving Penn by publishing one of his images just after he passed. She was the one who found the Jessye Norman portrait, but it was my job to work with his foundation. They were unwilling to license the image if it was illustrating a quote, but I got them to offer us a work around by including an on page mention of his exhibition on view in London.
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Bruce Gilden
This image came from Magnum Photos collector’s edition magazine called “Fashion Magazine.” Each issue follows the traditional magazine format, but showcases one of their photographer’s work including ads. Martin Parr was the debut artist and Bruce Gilden followed up with the theme of the “Seven Deadly Sins of Fashion”. I also got in outtakes for the rest of our article on beauty and aging.
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Laurie Simmons
She is one of my all time favorite photographers and it was great to be able to find an opportunity to feature her work. I licensed the image through her gallery at the time Sperone Westwater.
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Man Ray
Part of a researcher’s job is finding images for mood boards. I pulled this image as inspiration for a possible shoot to illustrate an article about irritated eyes. I tried to find other photographers who did similar images and during the process I discovered that Man Ray’s foundation had a licensing department. I contacted them and we got the original.
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Adama Delphine Fawundu
In 2001 the Brooklyn Museum had a quintessential exhibition called "Committed to the Image, Contemporary Black Photographers” that featured 95 photographers. The show was before my time, but I was first introduced to Fawundu’s work because it was featured on the cover of the book the museum published in conjunction with the exhibition.
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Arlene Gottfried
At the ICP library I found a book Arlene did on churches called The Eternal Light. She is usually known for New York street photography, so it was new to me and worked well with a group of book reviews on the theme of faith in different forms. I got to work with her directly on licensing the image. The New York Times recently ran a feature on her work and published the same image as the hero.
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Tierney Gearon
After seeing her show “The Mother Project” at Yossi Milo gallery I thought she would be a good fit for the magazine. I contacted the gallery to see if she had any new work and they sent me this as part of a series of double exposures she was working on at the time.
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Lise Sarfati
I started following Sarfati’s work when she gave a talk at the Aperture foundation and then discovered she also had a show up at Yossi Miko gallery, Rough, Cold, and Close, A Russian Poem. After some research I found out she did a series in China and pulled this image. Her work captures the tone of Ha Jin’s novel about longing to be a poet.
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Catherine Opie
I found this image in her book, “In and Around the Home”, a portrait of her domestic life in LA. It came out in conjunction with her solo show “Catherine Opie, American Photographer” at the Guggenheim and juxtaposes intimate images of queer family life with underlying political themes.
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Fashion Research
Archival Fashion Research
Photographs in archival collections are not keyworded with fashion in mind. If the article explored an accessory theme like bangles instead of a celebrity I had to comb through stock sites with the keyword of “actress” or “singer” to hopefully find someone wearing bangles. Hopefully AI will be a fix. Keywording is a huge obstacle in any CMS or archive.
