What's it like to do a New York Times Assignment
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- Find out what it's like to go on a professional travel assignment for the New York Times.
See the final story here.
www.nytimes.co...
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Thanks for watching everyone, what do you guys want to see next?
How has the pandemic changed your work? What shifts are you seeing and where do you think they'll lead, both for you personally and the industry in general?
More of these please. Super interesting. Love your channel.
Tony Wodarck Thank you Tony :) ,
More coming soon.
Tell us more about your photographic journey early on in your career. Like, what were some of your first paid jobs? How did that evolve into shooting New York Times assignments? You've spoken to this a little in the past, but could you go into deep detail? I think for a lot of us that are at the beginning of our career, just hearing the real humble details about how others got started is super helpful.
(Ugh. here i go commenting again. This is just such exciting stuff to me, I find myself "moved" to comment a g a i n. Geeking out... but every video is so good! I guess I'm helping your algorithm :)) This is my kind of dream work. I want to do doc/ visual story telling with humans -- not just locations or product. I also much prefer shooting in natural light as well though trying to learn speed lights as its important to have that skill as back up. Anyway, I love this video so much. Your photos are so beautiful and inspiring. Wondering if this particular assignment was shot with your Canon or the Leica system which you now use?! Gorgeous shots. Great, useful info as usual! Thanks, Jason, for always taking a moment to reply as you do. Its so appreciated.
Thank you Justin. As always, very informative and interesting.
It’s really interesting the way you use the word “toning”. Is that what they say in the industry, or have you just decided to use that word to avoid any confusion about the word “editing”?
Thanks for sharing your experience
Thanks for watching Steve.
Great video.
Now I'm going to listen to it again, at half speed... ;-)
Fair enough Rob, I've slowed down since those early days :).
Very, very interesting. Thx for giving us a little snapshot into this experience!
Thanks Ken, in the future I'm going to try to film more on the actual assignment.
Justin, you’re very quickly becoming my favourite channel on here! I work primarily as a portrait photographer in the London music industry and love what I do - but I’m curious: how much time do you think you spend taking portraits of people? I love the portraits you’ve shared so far in your videos (and the rest of the images, of course!)
You're too kind Seb, that made my day. I've wanted to do something like this for a while and it's given me a reason to work on my video editing so I'm enjoying it. It really varies for me, if it's a portrait on the fly for at travel story, meaning I see someone i'm interested in photographing and I shoot with natural light I can do them in 5 minutes. When I'm documenting someone or featuring someone for a story i can spend hours with carefully planned out locations or just go wander the streets with the person and see what I find. It all depends on the assignment really. For lit commercial stuff in a studio maybe an hour, but again it depends on a lot of things. I work relatively fast with natural light though. I hope that helps.
You've done a better job in terms of the content than those with millions of subscribers.
Hey Justin. Thanks for this. Any recommendations/advice for getting a foot in the door with some of these larger publications?
Great question Alex. I got in with these publications early on in my career through the Eddie Adams and Missouri Workshops, both opened doors for me with editors. Another way is to partner up with a great writer, if you can find a well-respected writer to team up with and pitch projects with, that helps a lot.
Thank you so much for this kind of content! This is absolutely fascinating. I was wondering, how do you include your captions for photos? Do you write them in a separate doc and refer to the file names, or do you include them somehow with the metadata by way of your photo editing software?
Thanks Richard and great questions. I use this program for all my batch metadata, resizing and tagging. home.camerabits.com
I embed the captions in the metadata and I make sure I tell my editor I did so.
@@AskMOTT Cool, I'll give that a try. Thank you! For whatever reason the "comments" space in Lightroom is always grayed out.. it was always frustrating when I had some notes or something I wanted to add.
Your Leica Ms are the gear of choice on assignments like this? :)
Thank for your question Timothy. For most of my career I used the Canon 5D series for all my assignments but for a year now I've been using my Leica set-up instead. I'm very comfortable with the Leicas now and I prefer how indiscrete they are and how lightweight everything is. For a travel story I'm typically on my feet for 15 hours or so and I"m always in really warm and humid weather, so having something very lightweight has been a lifesaver. I also love the color and overall look out of the camera of the Leica lenses.
Really interesting, I am glad I found your channel :-)
Chris Weiher thank you for watching Chris :).
Justin, in films like this in the sections where you're sitting at the table talking to the camera could you leave the pictures up for longer? Obviously we can pause the film to take in the picture but I'd like to carry on listening to you at the same time.
Tom P absolutely Tom, I’ve been going with 3 seconds per image but perhaps 5 is better.
Wonderful! How does one find a reliable fixer, especially in a place you’ve never been and have no personal contacts??
When I first started out I'd hire people from guesthouses and small hotels because they typically speak English well and know prices and places quite well. Later on I started building up a database by asking journalists based in the places where I was shooting, both writers and photographers. Another great source for fixers was local news organizations as they understand what you are trying to achieve. Lastly, going on local forums for photographers and writers on Facebook is always a great way to find people.
Thanks, Justine - greatly appreciate it. Keep these tips coming; very helpful to us hobbyists who are looking for some international travel strategies.
@@David-my3uu My pleasure David.
Hello. Very interesting story. In one of your next videos, could you please talk a bit more about sequencing?
Andreea Soare Thank you Andreea, I definitely want to do an episode on that topic, just trying to find an interesting way to approach it.
Thanks for sharing your valuable experiences. It’s been my dream for years to shoot compelling travel based images that are good enough to make a career out of. I’ve been able to create some ok work but my process is quite slow and my good images come infrequently. I’d love to take my work to a better level and quality but can’t think of a way to do that other than shooting lots and lots and learning from other photographers work. Sometimes I feel that I’m missing that special sauce that makes great or excellent photographers work stand out. I guess my question is something along the lines of being about how do you approach improving your work? Or knowing when to land on a style and approach and to refine and develop it instead of switching up styles for the sake of variety. When things get back to normal I’d love to join you for a workshop or personal coaching if it’s something you might consider. Thanks.
Du ดี These are great questions Du and the fact that you are asking these questions puts you far ahead of most people out there. Regarding on how to improve a few quick thoughts. 1.) Work on your craft constantly, have an ongoing personal project that you can always be working in. 2.) always be honest with yourself and self aware about your work. I’m my toughest critic and I’m never fully happy with my work. After my shoots I assess and write down what I could’ve done better and how to improve. I also compare my work with the best out there and aim to rival that work, that’s my goal. 3.) study and learn visual storytelling skills and all elements of your photography will improve.
Du ดี oh , regarding workshops I have a newsletter you can sign up for and when I have my next workshop you’ll be notified. Sign up here www.justinmott.com/subscribe
@@AskMOTT Thank you for your thoughtful and valuable answers, Mr Mott.
You give so much value through your videos because you live it and that makes what you say real. I'm going to screen-shot what you wrote and leave it on my desktop as a reminder. Peace to you brother and I hope to meet you one and buy you a drink someday somewhere in Asia.
Du ดี my pleasure Du, hope to meet you one day as well :).
amazing work ! well done! Considering that you use a manual focusing camera , I'm wondering if you sometimes miss the focus, or if you wish sometimes that you had a zoom lens with autofocus ?
TravelJournalist.com I don’t miss a zoom lens as I’ve grown accustomed to working without one. Every once in a while I’ve missed auto focus but I’ve gotten pretty good with manual focus. I considered a Q2 as a second body just for that reason but the 28mm fixed lens was just too similar to my 35mm.
@@AskMOTT ok, that's interesting. personally when I mount my Noctilux on the SL2 and I shoot a model, I tend to miss the focus, that's why I use the 24-90 . but I think I should practice manual focusing more often and I might improve my skills :)
I admire your skills for shooting the Rhinoceros so sharply, while he was certainly moving ....
Great video! How much would they typically pay you for an assignment like this?
dont know if anyone has asked this but. how do you find a trustworthy fixer?
I typically ask fellow writer and photographers based in that country or I hire a local journalist.
@@AskMOTT thanks mate
@@aquaticwombat4570my pleasure.
Hi Justin, great videos. Really helpful insights! Do you have any recommendation how to find a good fixer for up to a week. Travel agency typ might not always be the best choice. I guess once you shoot for the NYT you already have some contacts you can reactivate. But what if you`d go to a place/country you`ve never been to before? Cheers!
Great question David. When I first started out I'd typically find someone who worked at my guesthouse and negotiate a day rate. When I needed more in-depth translation I'd try to find a junior reporter or photojournalist who worked at a local newspaper and see if they were interested in working for a couple days as a fixer.
@@AskMOTT thank you Justin! Much aprechated.
@@davidwalterphotography My pleasure David.