Power Players Discussion at West Palm Beach Fotofusion

My teacher, Mr. Nestler, was able to arrange a field trip to Fotofusion in West Palm Beach to attend a discussion between photo editors Jimmy Colton of Sports Illustrated, Sarah Leen of National Geographic, Evan Kriss of Washington Post Magazine, Maura Foley of The New York Times, and Scott McKiernan from the ZUMA Agency. The discussion was moderated by Pete Cross of the Palm Beach Post.

Not a bad list of publications huh? Each editor made a short presentation about their publication and gave insight into their day to day work and also gave advice to photographers on how to approach publications and what they are looking for. After their presentation, the editors were open to answer questions presented by the audience.

Discussions like these can be invaluable. For me, one thing that I got from the discussion was how approachable editors can be. They hold important jobs at influential publications or in the case of Scott McKiernan, an agency, yet they are normal down to earth people. As Jimmy Colton of SI said "We're not Power Players, we're more like Power Rangers".

The editors stressed the important of presenting your work efficiently. An editor sees thousands and thousands of images a day. As they gave their presentations and showed work they had published, I was in awe at some of the images. There are so many amazing photos taken everyday that compete for an editors attention. The editors recommended photographers keep their edit tight and appropiate to the publication.