(Re)Direction: Rob Haggart, From Magazines to Photo-Industry Expert

Our fifth interview in this series features Rob Haggart, whose blog “A Photo Editor” has become a valuable resource for anyone trying to navigate the commercial photo industry. A former photo director for publications such as Outside and Men’s Journal, Rob offers a forum for photographers just starting out, those burned by dubious business practices and those who run a successful business and want to share how they were able to make that happen. In this conversation, he talks about how it all started back in 2007, what it takes to run a viable photo business today and the importance of passion projects.

How did your path take you to magazines and what was it about them that appealed to you?
I was an obsessed skier living in Jackson Hole in the 90s and would read Powder Magazine frontwards and backward, looking at all the ads, reading captions, and photo credits. I loved the climbing, surf, skate, and snowboard magazines because, back then, it was the only window into those worlds. That led to me seeking out local photographers and becoming their studio manager. They were regional magazine publishers, so I got an inside look at how to make a magazine. I even started doing some layouts in Quark and working with photos in Adobe Photoshop 1.0. The photographers I worked for were legends in the ski industry, so I got to know quite a few other photographers, filmmakers, and writers. I worked as a freelance photo editor for a few startup magazines because of my connections, which led to a call from Outside magazine to work as their photo editor.

Do you remember an assignment that made you excited about your job and photography in general? 
It was always exciting and challenging getting top-tier photographers to work for Outside. It was not easy because they were in such demand, many had not heard of Outside, and our budgets were not that big. I remember getting Martin Schoeller to shoot a cover, and then he started accepting more assignments from us. For the 50th anniversary of the climbing of Everest, I sent him to make portraits of sherpas with his lighting kit. He and his assistants hauled all these lights to remote villages in Nepal. The results were spectacular and honored the people who made climbing Everest possible in the first place. I even got a call from someone at National Geographic who said our anniversary issue blew theirs out of the water. We won SPD Gold for that photo story. I went to New York with the Creative Director Hannah McCaughey and went up on stage with Martin for the award. That was one of my proudest moments for sure.

One of Rob's most memorable projects as director of photography was this award-winning photo essay about sherpas by martin schoeller for outside magazine.

In 2007, you started what was at first an anonymous blog, “A Photo Editor”. It presented a searingly honest assessment of the creative industry at the time. You not only wrote about your own job, but also called out business practises that were—at the very least—insulting and—at their worst—detrimental to creatives. Do you remember a moment that motivated you to sit down at your computer and take these observations and opinions public? 
Yes, I will never forget why I started. There were a lot of photographers blogging in 2007, and Kathy Ryan hired Todd Hido to shoot a story for The New York Times Magazine. Many of the blogs and commenters hated the images and were questioning the decision to hire him. I was reading all this commentary and felt nobody knew how magazines worked on the inside—the challenges of working with budgets, deadlines, and dealing with editors and writers. I felt like there was an opportunity for me to write about this and show people how it works.

I was also a bit angry with the magazine industry in general. The owners I had worked under were very controlling and petty. Some of the editors and creatives I worked with were wound too tight. I just thought we should be having more fun and, of course, letting the photography run and not overthinking everything all the time.

How would you describe what came next? That being not only the reaction from the industry but also the impact the blog had on how you thought about your job, what it could and should be?
Well, this was still the early days of the internet and blogging was having a significant impact on the media industry. I figured everyone would be blogging and using the internet to communicate with their audience so I needed to get good at this. A lot of the popular sites at the time were writing very personal stuff, so I wanted to be unfiltered and write about what was going on in the office and what I thought about it. I was anonymous then and just put it all out there and the following grew quickly. I remember going to events and people asking me if I knew who was behind the blog.

Eventually I decided I wanted to work for myself. I was in New York City at the time and had a young family, and we wanted to move back out west, so we left. I met my current business partner because I said on the blog that I would start a software business and he reached out to me. I realized I wanted to return to helping photographers so I started a website business. The blog gave me a lot of visibility and trust with photographers, so the business was a hit from the beginning.

what started as an anonymous Blog in 2007 has become a vast resource with many contributors.

You’ve spent more time than just about anyone else hearing about the nitty gritty that makes up the photo industry, both the good and the bad. To any photographer reading this who wants to start out in this field or who is mid-career, maybe floundering, what are the important traits you need to bring to the table and how do you need to think of yourself in this equation to make it work?
I know a lot of photographers out there just want to make pictures, but the reality is that you own a business that you’ve got to run yourself. Probably the most crucial part of running a business is sales. You’ve got to be good at selling the work you’re making. That means networking and marketing. There was an era where the work sold itself, but we’re well past that now, and it’s a competitive marketplace, so most of the time, it’s the photographers who are great at the business side that are doing the best.

In this vein: What would you say makes an effective and good (ideally both) photo editor and where can someone with the right skill set find photo-editing work these days?
Having an excellent eye for photography is a matter of studying it and looking at it as much as possible. You’ve got to consume as much photography as you can in books, magazines, websites, museums, and galleries. If you are young and have some photographer friends create an online magazine or a local zine and find out what it’s like to handle assignment logistics and edit images. Working as a studio manager is an excellent path into the profession. You want to see all the bad images that go into making a few great images. Having empathy for the photographers you’re working with is a must. Beyond that, you need great communication skills, accounting skills, and making lists and files of great photographers you want to hire.

All the young creatives should be banding together and creating small media companies around their passion. We need to take media back from these rich idiots and down to the grass roots again. I mean I feel like it started with these passion projects many years ago and once magazines turned into money printing machines the rich dweebs took over and ruined it.

The template for passion project magazines is the Surfers Journal, a coffee table magazine started in 1992 by Surfer magazine employees that is now the only surviving surf periodical in the US after all the mainstream titles were run into the ground by dopy clearinghouse publishers. Many have followed their template of a magazine supported by subscription fees, and advertisers meant to be proudly displayed in your home and saved on the bookshelf. The owners of these magazines wear all the hats and are part of the community they represent. Most eschew the money-making advertiser-influenced gear reviews and top ten lists for long-form journalism and full-page photography.

One would think that print products have a unique appeal that digital would have a hard time matching: they are a tactile experience that you can keep around your home, they offer scale and—at their best—are an amalgamation of world-class photography, illustration, design and typography. So what—in your opinion—went wrong with printed editorial and do you think there are ways that it can still be successful?
I still get printed magazines, but they center around my hobbies. I read Adventure Journal, Bikepacking, and Backcountry Skiing. I’m trying to cut back on scrolling because it wrecks my attention span, so if I sit with a magazine that's not on the phone or computer, there’s no opportunity to scroll away. I believe we’re all going to discover we have to do this to stay sane. Turning off computers and phones will be mandatory for mental health.

As far as what went wrong it’s pretty simple. The media industry was at its zenith but run by a bunch of rich old men who had no vision and needed magazines to keep pumping out cash to finance their empires. They rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic instead of steering away from the iceberg. You can’t blame them really; it’s too much energy to start over and rethink how you do business. And even if they did hire some visionary to steer them away, they would have meddled too much for it to work.

In the "The Daily Promo" section on Rob's blog, photographers share in detail how they created their promo materials.

“A Photo Editor” exists to this day. What do you see as its main mission now? 
I’ve pivoted to a place where I can help educate photographers about the business. I’m doing most of that on my Instagram account, where I started asking photographers how much they make. That began an essential conversation about pricing, copyright, and dealing with clients. It’s been very informal but I have plans to create a space where I can post as much information as I can to help photographers run their business. Then, I have a more formal academic survey that we’re working on for next year that I hope will give everyone a better idea of what the industry looks like. Because everyone is freelance, it’s challenging to see who is in this industry and how they make it work.

In 2008, you started “PhotoFolio”, a website-making tool specifically aimed at photographers. What sort of void did you see at the time that needed filling?
When I worked as a photography director, I looked at thousands of websites, so I knew what I wanted personally. My pitch to photographers was that these sites would represent the client’s needs. So, of course, I banned music and slideshows, and then I made a little spot on the footer of the entire site where your email and phone number resided, so that this information was on every page of the site. Then we made thumbnails the centerpiece of the sites. Every conceivable thumbnail idea you could think of we built into the sites, and we made them big. If you hire photographers you are nodding your head reading this. We all had the same issues with the sites we had to look at. Then I made it all DIY, so you can add new work whenever you want. At the time, people were paying 20 and 30k for a custom website where they had to hire someone to make changes.

If you could chart out your trajectory until retirement (if you believe in retirement), what are important stations and/or goals still ahead for you? And is there anything you miss about working at a magazine?
I miss finding fresh talent and giving them their first meaty assignment. I miss turning uber-talented photographers loose on cool subjects. I miss working with other creatives where everyone is excited about a product we’re creating. Don’t miss the magazine execs inserting their terrible taste into the mix.

I have a perfect work-life balance, so retirement is not something I think about. I want to use the platform I have to make the industry stronger, and I’d like to have some sort of legacy where I created something that changed the business. In the end, my success is tied to the success of professional photographers as a whole, and so we’re all working together towards the same goal. 

For more, head to: @aphotoeditor, A Photo Editor and PhotoFolio.