WEB EDIT: Adam Lerner’s Vision

Adam Lerner captures people in their environment. He has a unique way of letting the viewer into his subjects’ world. Although Adam’s site is chock full of beautiful portraiture and fashion work, he was showing too much. He came to me for help with a Web Edit that would present his work in a more concise way. That would attract both editorial and commercial clients. Adam said he wanted “a tight edit with content and direction to showcase a strong editorial and portrait photographer with a voice and a vision.”

With this in mind, I went to work.

After receiving about 200 portraits from Adam, I knew I had to ruthlessly edit that number down. This meant removing images that weren’t on par with the rest of his portraits. Also, taking away images that weren’t intentional portraits, and setting aside any images that looked more like fashion than portraits. Because Adam sent us multiple images from each portrait project, I picked the best ones from each project and removed the rest. Then, I looked at the group of portraits as a whole to see if there were any trends or commonalities between them.

When it comes to specific galleries like portraits, I let color, body position, gender, scale, and composition guide me. Something that jumped out at me about Adam’s work was the many different types of people that he photographed. His subjects ranged from designers, chefs, restauranteurs, models, and businessmen just to name a few. I wanted to select images that revealed the essence of each person, as well as a mini-series of the chef images.

Up next was fashion. The main issue with Adam’s original fashion gallery was that he was showing every type of fashion image. He had multiple images of people on seamless, as well women holding handbags. Though they’re nice images, they weren’t aligned with the editorial fashion clients he wants to market to (he is interested in capturing more lifestyle fashion and less product fashion in the future). He also wants to engage with the people and the environment. I removed the images that were obviously selling something and focused more on experience and lifestyle. I also integrated a few of his studio images to show that Adam is a versatile photographer who can capture fashion in a studio as well as on location.

And finally, I directed my attention to Adam’s personal projects. With this, we complemented his branding while at the same time displayed his passion differently than in his main portfolio.

Adam’s trip to Havana had a profound effect on him. After looking at all the images I realized that the best way to tell this story was through the people. (That is his anthem, after all.) He is also a motorcycle enthusiast and we wanted to share that passion on his site through his series of custom motorcycle builders. I loved his detailed shots of the motorcycle parts and created a gallery showcasing the bikes and their owners.

It was a pleasure working with Adam because he was very aware, committed, and curious. I love when photographers are not only open-minded but really question the choices of the edit.

See more of Adam’s work on his website.

Further reading:

Wonderful Machine: Web Edit & Print Edit: An Update for Adam Lerner
Wonderful Machine: Web Edit: Steve Boxall
Wonderful Machine: Web Edit: Patrick Heagney

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