Owlnotes.com

I'm an associate photo editor for the Web site component of a national entertainment magazine. There are two of us in that title, and even though it's called "associate," it's the top tier. We make all the photo decisions for the Web site.

I get photo requests all day long in e-mail format. The writers give me a basic description of the story and what they'd like to see in the picture. Then I research it. I find a photo that fits the design of the Web site, crop it to a certain size and color correct it. Finally, I upload it to a program that stores all the stories and pictures, and then builds each page.

Usually from online stock agencies, from publicists, or from the media sites for all the major networks.

We do everything in Photoshop.

We have two associates and two assistants who edit photos. I work mainly with the online news editors, TV editors and blog editors. I don't work with the writers unless they have questions. That's what makes it a little difficult, because requests are coming from all these areas.

Our main structure isn't indicative of every Web site. The structure and number of editors can vary. At my first job, I was a senior photo editor for a city guide Web site, and all I would do was research and pick the photos, and a production team would crop and edit them. Here we do everything, but usually you have your editing team and you have your production team.

For me, personally, it's lack of structure. I start at 9:00 a.m. and sometimes I don't finish until 8:00 p.m. I never know how long the day is going to be. If people want to publish stories at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., I get a call about it, and have to keep working. There are really no boundaries, but I don't think that's necessarily true other places. We're just eager to please. We're trying to find our niche, so everybody is working really hard. I hope that changes, but I don't know when it will.

It's flexible. You don't have to come to the office; you can work from home. Everything can be done remotely now, so people come and go. If I decided I wanted to move to Chicago, I could do it. An office isn't necessary if you like the structure of working at home.

Right now, I work 60 percent at home and 40 percent at the office. I'd like for it to be 100 percent in the office, but in general, I can't take the time to get here because I live far away and can't take a break to drive to the office. That's not indicative of the job itself. That's how it is working out here with an office in New York.

I like it. I can't see myself doing anything else I play with pictures all day long. I never thought I could do that for a career. I get to wear jeans and t-shirts. I was the art major whose parents would get on my case, and say that I'd have to get up early and dress up when I started working. But I don't. I really appreciate that I can work in a corporate world in the way that I want to and still have benefits, and still have retirement to set up a nice plan for me later in life.

My career path was that I knew I wanted to do something creative, but I didn't know how I was going to get there. I did a lot of non-creative stuff, but I got there. I was a fine arts major at a tiny private school. Half of my degree was in studio art and half was in art history. I knew I wanted to keep with something visual. It was also 1990, and the art market crashed, so I didn't feel like I had any options. So I moved where I wanted to live, to London, and did temp work at a bank. Then I came to Los Angeles and worked at an art gallery, but I realized art sales wasn't what I wanted to do. Then I worked in a hospital lab and that really wasn't what I wanted to do. Finally, I went home to Virginia and started doing production work. I started styling photo shoots for a catalog, but because it was for a furniture company, I was pristinely making beds for hours, steaming stuff, taping the backs of pillows, steaming curtains to make sure they rippled right. Then I moved to New York I told you, there's no path to this whatsoever. I started temping because I needed to make money, and I was working at a music club at the same time, so I was working all day and all night. I liked it, but I felt I was never going to be able to support myself. I quit my day job and started working at a corporate identity company that developed corporate logos. It was really corporate, and I hated it. I had to get up early and dress up. And I wasn't doing anything creative. Then my father passed away, and right before he passed away, he told me to do what I wanted to do. So I went to human resources and told them I was leaving. Then things started falling into place.

I met a photographer who allowed me to assist him. I don't want it to sound like it's all connections, but things started happening because of the connections I made in various jobs. I got connected with an art director at a city guide Web site. At the same time, I'd been freelancing as a photographer, working retail and working at the club. I was working all these jobs. I would let the art director and my friends into the club for free, and we'd all start talking. He needed a senior photo editor, so he called me up. I said, "I don't know how to do it" and he said, "I'll teach you everything, don't worry about it." I interviewed for the job and got it, and learned everything. I had my production team, so I would go to the photo shoots, organize the film, and deal with the writers. When you're an editor, you're a middleman, so I was racing around trying to get everything together and figure out what was going to go with the story, then I would pass them on to the production team. I really liked it, but it was kind of crazy. The World Wide Web was such a new, big, interesting thing.

Six months after I started working there, we all got laid off. The company was owned by a big corporation, and they sold the site to our competitor. We got to work one day, and we were told that in 90 days, our Web site would no longer exist. At that time, somebody from my current Web site read that we'd all been laid off, and they called and said they needed a photo editor, so I went over there and interviewed. I didn't think I'd get the job, but I did, and that was in 1999. I've been here ever since.

In our main office in New York, the normal day is 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but because they are three hours ahead, I start an hour earlier, at 9:00 a.m. The first thing I do is check for photo requests and go through e-mails to see what is going on throughout the day. At 9:30 a.m. on Mondays, I phone in to a meeting in New York to talk about the week ahead. On Wednesdays, there is an 11:00 a.m. meeting where we all pitch ideas, which is fun, but can take forever. Other than that, we get e-mailed photo requests, so we research them and do what we have to do to see the picture out from the request to going on the Web site.

It depends. If it's just a basic headshot and they need it ASAP which they often do I can turn it around in 10 minutes. That's if I know I can go to a particular stock agency and I don't have to weed through a bunch of stuff to find a good shot.

Usually I get from 12 to 14. But some days I only get five, which really amazes me. There's no structure, so I never know. On top of that, I get a huge long-term request every TV season for example, I'll have to find and edit photos of the entire cast of a reality show. So if I only get five photo requests for the day, I go back and do a TV assignment. We also have two blogs on the Web site, so if it's slow I can look for weird pictures to put on the blogs.

I usually can't take a lunch hour, because there might be breaking news. There's no schedule to it. I just sit at my desk and wait for stuff to happen.

Every day is a surprise. I don't know what requests are coming in. The Web site is so immediate that people don't organize it as it's happening they just tell me. It's not like you plan the week like the magazine does. Every day, if something sounds interesting you throw it up on the Web site. So it's a ton of variety.

There used to be days when it was 4:30 p.m., and because it was late on the East Coast, I felt like I was done. I could just keep checking my e-mail periodically to make sure everything was okay. Now I'm not done until 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. But I have my computer at home, so I always check my e-mail, just in case.

When I have to cover certain reality TV shows, the night usually goes until 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. because we put stories on the Web right when the show ends. Also, some people like to work really late, and if a request comes in at 9:00 or 10:00 at night, I'll just do it that night. It depends how attached I am to my e-mail.

I make a little over $65,000, but I still have my New York salary. In California, the salaries are about $10,000 lower.

In 1990, I started out at $32,000. Today, a starting wage would be between $30,000 and $40,000, but you might get overtime, which is nice. Now I'm salaried. I'd be rich if I got overtime!

I have a tiny little condominium that I bought as a learning experience because I'd never bought anything before. I'm living hand to mouth, but I have something I can sell eventually. $65,000 is great, I'm very happy with it, but it'd be nice to have a dual income. That would definitely come in handy right now.

Vacations have always been good. They started us out at four weeks. You get a fifth week after 12 years, but I can never even take four weeks vacation. You also get a ton of personal days and a ton of sick days.

There's a really good retirement plan. They match 50 percent of your 401(k). I feel like I'm totally going to be fine if I work here until I retire.

You get discounts on everything, from electronics to cars. I got a discount on my mortgage and on laser eye surgery. The retail discounts are not that big of a deal, but in the end, every little thing matters. When you work in media, a lot of things are tax write-offs, like your cable, electronics, cell phones, concert tickets, books, magazine subscriptions anything media savvy or entertainment related is all research.

I pretty much work 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and often later, depending on what's going on with television.

We rotate weekends, so every fifth week I'm on call. In general, we're not supposed to be responsible for work at night, but if I see a request at 10:00 p.m. I just do it if I'm at home so no one else has to worry about it. But I don't have to do it.

When I worked in our main New York office I didn't do any. From here, I go back to New York about every six months. It's fun, but they don't need me there as much as they used to. It evolves and changes so much.

It's not too bad. Friends are willing to meet you later. Or if I have to work late on TV stuff I'll squeeze in a dinner hour with friends. In New York, the social structure was better because we were all working 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and we didn't have a West Coast component, so no one would be waiting around at night for something to come in. But now that I'm out here, I feel more responsible than I did in New York. I'm also older, so I don't go out as much as I used to. And I don't like to drive all over town, which is necessary in Los Angeles. But for someone who's younger, you can still be out by 9:00 or 10:00 p.m.

You can make it what you want to make it. You can figure out what's coming in, and take breaks when you need to. If you want to carry a laptop around all day long and check in with a wireless connection, you can do it. Seriously, you can. (laughs)

I've been here since 1999. After I got laid off from my first media job, I didn't believe in stability. But they keep saying that pictures are so important to a Web site that they're never going to let go of that aspect. It's true. I've seen every department get knocked down except for ours. Ours is getting bigger.

I like the independence and that they trust me to do the right thing. There's nobody looking over my shoulder, nobody trying to micromanage me. I also like looking at pictures. I look at pictures all day long that's so much fun! As a visual person, I like doing visual things. It's nice to be able to work in a corporate environment and still do that.

I have very little structure. For as laid back as we are and as much as I hate meetings, we should come together more. We need more communication, because you start to rely on instant messaging and e-mail. If my phone rings I look at it funny, like, "Who's calling me?" Lack of communication is a problem, yet nobody is looking over your shoulder, which is good.

It depends on the Web site or the magazine you work for, and how the editor-in-chief is and how that person gets to know you.

Originally, you couldn't go online and research pictures. You had to call the stock agency and they'd send a messenger out with all these slides. But you still had these time constraints. Everybody would get together and look at photos, and then you'd pass it through a scanner. Scans at the time were horrific, so it took a ton of color correcting. Now I can go to one Web site, and the picture I need is right there; it's been color corrected, and everything's been done for me. I just need to crop it to the sizes we use, sharpen it a little bit, and change a little something here and there. That can take 20 minutes; before it would take two hours. By 2001, I could go online, and I refused to use stock agencies that didn't have a Web site I could access immediately. That was a huge change for Web sites.

Everything will be right at their computer. They just have to establish a relationship with stock agencies, set up an account and figure out how much they're going to pay for a picture.

Growing. Everybody's on the Internet now. I think there's going to be a time when printed paper media is not going to be considered a good thing, so more people will go online to read their newspapers and magazines. Magazines are going to deteriorate for awhile. People don't want to subscribe, and they don't want to go to a newsstand. They want it instantly. The death of magazines is like the death of CDs. Everyone is going online.

They might be, but I'm not seeing it right now. That's also because I saw that big web boom where everyone was a millionaire, then everyone lost everything. That happened in a year. I don't think it's ever going to be like that again. They're going to have to work their way up to it. It won't be like, "Oh, I started this Web site, I just made it public and I'm a millionaire."

Every TV network and movie network has photo editors in the marketing and publicity department, and they always need photo researchers and editors. All of that is in Los Angeles. There are tons of stock agencies in L.A. who do red carpet stuff and photo shoots and all that. Stock agencies are found in all the major cities across the country. There will always be city guides too. Now there are also blogs for every city. Blogs are going to get really big, and depending on their budget, they'll always need photo editors.

Years ago, I was in Richmond, Virginia working as a production assistant on commercials. At the time, I really wanted to be a producer, and voiced my goal to one of the producers there. She said, "I always believe that you should study what you want to, because it's not going to have anything to do with your career." She told me, "I was an English major, and now I'm a producer of commercials. In school, I got to read what I wanted to read and write what I wanted to write, and do everything I wanted to do, and I'm still a producer. So, study what you love. You can always find your career." She was completely right. I was an art major. I know all about art and art history, and now I work on Photoshop all day. Back then, I didn't realize photography was going to be that important to me.

You have to be flexible. You have to be laid back, but able to speak your mind in a way that gets your point across without being mean. You have to let everyone know where you stand and what your boundaries are, but still be open. You have to realize you're working with people who read (writers and editors), so they have an idea of what they want to go with the story, but it's not necessarily always going to be there. So you have to be able to explain to them that they can't always get what they want. You have to realize there are two kinds of creative forces going on photographic and writing. You can look for the outrageous thing they want or pretend to look for it but you know it's probably not going to happen. Keep an open mind, but have some boundaries and realize that people who write and aren't on stock agencies all day long aren't going to know what's out there. So learn how to work with them and how to make the picture work with the story, even if it's not exactly what they want. Bottom line if you really love working with pictures, it's a great job.

It can become mechanical at times. You feel like you're just this machine who researches, downloads, crops, and fixes. Sometimes it's not really creative; you're cranking stuff out to get it done and get the story to be published. So if you don't like that, it might be bad for you.

Any kind of background in web design helps. You definitely need a background in Photoshop; you have to know how to use it. Grad school is not required, but a college education is necessary. Even when I was getting into the workplace, you had to have a college degree if you wanted anyone to take you seriously.

I don't think there are any keys. Once you start, there's a natural progression. It can get stunted, depending on how big the company is. You can get stuck at a lower position because nobody's leaving. Some companies will promote you and some companies won't, depending on the structure. But I think there will be a natural progression.

You can do it all online now. Go on all the Web sites of companies you want to work for; they all have job postings. Send in your resume. If you know somebody, put his name down as a reference. Check job boards, check media job sites, check every network you want to work for, check stock agencies, check the blogs. If it's a lower paying job, they're going to look at all the local college candidates. If you want to live in L.A. and do something like this, you have a pretty good shot.