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Ersatz!

For most of my editing career, I've been an ersatz art director and photo editor: creating concepts, setting up and supervising shoots, choosing final imagery, and working with production designers to package it all attractively. Everything starts with a great idea and strong team. Over the years, I've developed crucial but elusive skills: an art director's inventiveness and intuition, a photo editor's eye. I know how to ensure what happens in the studio lives up to, or surpasses, the original concept. During my 13-plus years as arts editor at Xtra, for example, I was responsible for the majority of cover shoots. In most of those cases, art directing consisted of bringing together talented photographers and creative subjects... and then getting out of the way when things started to click. I mean, when you have the voluptuous Sasha van Bon Bon (pictured) in the studio, you just have to stand in a corner and smile. In this small assortment of Xtra covers, the photographers are the amazing Paula Wilson and Glenn Mackay; the subjects include Will Munro and Miss Barbrafisch, Scott Thompson, Gavin Crawford, Mariko Tamaki, Michele Clarke and Aleesa Cohene, Jonathan Wilson and DJs Deko-ze, Jamal and Lytes. Often it's necessary to do more. In this selection I encouraged Nina Arsenault to create her wonderful portrait au naturel, I made the Hermey the Elf outfit and wig for Gavin Crawford's cover, and I even turned photographer for the Nirvana/Thailand travel cover. That's the "joy" of working in independent media: You do whatever is necessary to get the job done well.


One of my Ultimate Pride Guide covers snuck into this selection. From 2003 to 2009 I commissioned a series of cover illustrations from an amazing string of artists: Maurice Vellekoop, Daryl Vocat, Stephanie Power, Ian Phillips, John Webster, Jillian Tamaki and J Bone. See them here.

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