Brian Lee

 One of Brian's photos that bridges the feeling of commercial and documentary.

You can see a progression in Brian Lee's photography.

The further he gets in years from photojournalism school, the more sophisticated and precise his pictures become. As a result, more and more of his work falls in the commercial and magazine editorial realm.

Brian and I set out to tweak his online portfolio. It was set up in several categories by topical approach. That can work but it sure asks a lot of people who might hire you. We come to your work to as quickly as possible get a sense of who you are and understand in what kinds of settings you can make successful pictures.

We went through a few hundred pictures. Not a lot by any means. And we talked. He is doing more commercial and stylized editorial work but he doesn't want to abandon his edgier roots. And surprise, there were those two types of photographs among the few hundred. I went through them all, tagging the strongest images and color coding each of the selects as either commercial or documentary.

Then we sequenced each of the two groups separately. And I'll be darned if there aren't the same number of photos in each.

Sequencing is an art, by the way. I explained to Brian my thinking in sequencing and then told him why each photo sits next to its neighbors in his portfolio. Part of my process is teaching people how to fish, not just giving them fish.

Here's to fishing.