A project to rethink professional photography presentation during a website redesign – www.mornick.com.

Professional photography presentation via the mornick.com website

Change is Constant

In professional photography one thing is certain – change. Styles, trends, the definition of what is and is not ‘professional’ in the world of photography swirls in a circle of reinvention. And this, in my humble opinion, is good. Ten years ago the creative sector could not get enough of deeply-saturated-uber-edited-dreamlike photographs from phenoms like Tim Tadder and Erik Almås. Flip through their portfolios and you will see it took a team of extraordinarily talented people to pull off these photographs. Tim and Erik pushed the field of visual storytelling by creating excellent imagery. Their work is still excellent, yet the style is no longer the flavor of the moment.

Take Alice Gao, a lifestyle photographer based in NYC. Mercedes recently hired Alice Gao to shoot an entire campaign with – you guessed it – an iphone. Alice’s style expresses a clear intelligence and elegance. It is best defined by its simplicity – the precise opposite of what Tim and Erik taught us about ‘professional’ work. Alice is as busy as any of us working hard to make beautiful imagery. She and others are pulling the field, styles, and trends, in a new direction.

Pick up the latest issue of PDN magazine and you’ll see this direction. Understanding it is important, because it informs not only what advertising agencies, editorial clients, photographers, and other creative companies think is professional, it also conveys how ‘professional’ photography is presented.

Professional Photography Presentation on Mornick.com

Professional photography presentation is almost as important as the work itself, so for the past three months, I’ve worked with media artist, designer, and experimenter Nick Hardeman to rethink professional photography presentation on the web. Below are five criteria that drove our design.

• Phones first. In 2015 we crossed a tipping point in the world of internet searching. According to Google’s internal data, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan. This trend will only continue. So when you design a website, anticipate most people who will visit via a mobile device.

• Backend management. As a photographer you want to spend as much time behind the camera and as little time managing your site. So, you want a smart content management system (CMS). A handful of companies offer template websites specifically for photography portfolios. They may look beautiful but behind the scenes are a nightmare to manage. Pay attention to the details. For example inquire about security, storage limits, where content is stored, how metadata is handled, and how content is created, updated, and posted. Of all the CMS available on the web, I recommend wordpress. Excellent backend management, no monthly fee, and everything is customizable based on your needs.

• All about photographs. Screen real estate is the amount of space available on a display for a website to present information. As we discussed how to use screen real estate it became clear everything should be devoted to imagery. Surprisingly, it takes real effort to present photographs as large as possible and then get the hell out of the way.

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Depending on your browser window, photographs will snap to full frame, taking up all of the screen’s real estate.

• Infinite scroll. Through Nick’s infinite wisdom we prioritized visitor experience for professional photography presentation based on what people do when on a portfolio site. The main activity is, you guessed it, scrolling. So we decided to make scrolling uninterrupted. No end of album. No back to main menu. Just keep the good times scrolling.

• Keep it simple. It is important to understand the latest styles and trends in professional photography presentation, but it is even more important to stop investigating, put down the computer, take a long walk in the woods, and come back with an eye towards keeping it simple. People who hire photographers are busy. Real busy. They don’t want to spend time on a portfolio site that is flashy, clunky, and has every imaginable bell and whistle. Every time I suggested the latest and greatest effect, plugin, or feature, Nick would quietly hold up a hand held stop sign, and we’d move on.

Simple info page that briefly describes Matt Mornick.

Click bottom left ‘info’ button, and a brief description of the photograph or album will appear over the image.

Hopefully this gives you some insight before you rethink your professional photography presentation. Check out the result of our efforts at www.mornick.com.

Edible Seattle Editor in Chief

With a mission to strengthen local food systems and support sustainable agriculture, I had my eye on doing food photography for Edible Seattle the moment I landed in Washington.

On rare occasion people enter your life with a manner and philosophy unlike any person before. Alex Corcoran, Editor for Edible Seattle, is unique to my world. He moves like ship captain inside a sensei inside a lumberjack inside a teenager. A mishmash of worldly conquests has resulted in his unmistakable swagger, tempered by his genuine curiosity for everything and his acute ability to listen and articulate his thoughts. He is likely to make you laugh, put you in your place, and correct your elocution all within the same breath. His presence is complete, and within three minutes of meeting him I trust whatever work he is going to ask of me is well worth my time. During our first lunch meeting at Pork Chop and Co. in Ballard, I convinced Alex to let me write and complete food photography for Edible Seattle.

SevenBeef Food Photography

My first food photography assignment was to interview and photograph Eric and Sophie Banh, successful and well established Seattle Restaurateurs, at their new Steak Shop SevenBeef. This Steak Shop is unique in the city, and it was up to me to find out why and share my findings with Edible Seattle readership.

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Eric and Sophie have expectations for food quality some would consider high, and you would be right to agree the quality of food at SevenBeef is just that: extremely high. But Eric and Sophie would disagree with this assessment. SevenBeef‘s mission is to serve grass-fed and grass-finished locally raised beef to their customers via their in-house whole cow program.  They don’t think this is extraordinary. They believe it is normal. Eric and Sophie believe this is the way – the only way – beef should be consumed. They make a strong case the US industrialized cattle industry has pulled us so far below the threshold of eating a normal healthy cow, that we’ve lost touch with the taste of normal.

For the full article I encourage you to subscribe to Edible Seattle. You not only receive fresh recipes that keep weekly grocery store visits interesting, you get insights into the efforts of chefs, farmers, brewers, cheese makers, restauranteurs, and the many others working to make the world more harmonious one meal at a time. Also, the photography ain’t half bad.

Northwest Crossfit is an institution in the Pacific Northwest. There are hundreds of crossfit athletes of all ages who choose from a variety of classes at three different locations. I was brought on to help Northwest Crossfit in Seattle, WA photograph crossfit athletes for new marketing material and general membership outreach. Below are four tips as well as images from a photo shoot I did at the Northwest Crossfit gym in Interbay that may serve as a basis for setting up your own photo shoot in a crossfit box.

Photograph Crossfit Athletes | Mornick Photography

Photograph Crossfit Athletes | Mornick Photography

Photograph Crossfit Athletes | Mornick Photography

Crossfit Northwest Interbay

The northwest crossfit interbay gym is an excellent facility to photograph crossfit athletes. The gym is a long rectangular 80 yards long by 30 yards wide. Racked weight is on one long side with pull up bars on the other. Ceilings are 25 feet high. All HVAC systems are exposed, with corrugated metal at the top making it reflective. Floors are black rubber, and the walls are painted dark colors. This is important because how the space is used and the color of the surfaces influences the lighting setup.

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