Web & Print Edit: Matthew Carbone

BY Wonderful Machine 9 July 2013

From our global headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, we deal with photographers and clients all over the world on a daily basis. While email, phone calls, and Skype are always adequate to get the job done, it’s always a pleasure to meet someone face to face. Enter Columbus-based photographer Matthew Carbone. Matthew needed to reboot his website and print book, and since he was driving through on his way to Client Introductions in New York, stopped by to discuss the processes of a Web Edit and a Print Edit. Matt came prepared, bringing a DVD of his images, as well as a proposal letter outlining the approach he wanted to take. He’d also made a flowchart mapping out his images, broken down by category and location. Matt felt that, as his career had taken off, his website had become unmanageable. In his words,

I think this collection of work is good, but I’m showing far too much. It needs focus.

Matt was also looking to change gears a bit; up to this point, his clients had been mainly architects. While he enjoys this work and will continue to shoot for them, his goal is to market to more commercial clients.

A yellow cover of a book with the photographer's name Matthew Carbone imprinted in the canvas — *Matthew’s print book cover*

With a strong sense of Matt’s goals, both in terms of marketing and presentation, I got to work, reviewing images and creating galleries. Matt and I agreed that, besides categorized sections, we should include a handful of “architectural stories” to illustrate how he treats an entire structure. I made these top priority, so before I selected work for the principal categories, I created four stories which I thought were among his strongest/most marketable examples of higher education, residential, and commercial spaces.

Next, I moved into the main galleries. I had originally suggested we divide them into two sections, commercial and residential. However, Matt was in favor of breaking it out a bit further. We ended up with five categories, including a section of personal work. This includes some really terrific landscape and aerial work that Matt is passionate about pursuing more of in the future.

A new web edit showing the homepage of a photographer's website

After the website was complete, we moved on to the print portfolio. The challenge here was to take all of this work, including the aerials and edgier black and white abstracts, into one slim volume. Fortunately we had great photos to work with, so I was able to create a 40 page book that easily covered his breadth at a glance.

A print book open to a page showing the architecture photography of a home (left) and the interior of a home library (right)

Editing Matthew’s work required the same tactics I’ve used with previous architecture shooters. Images of buildings, no matter how strong, can all start to look the same if you don’t make variety a top priority. Dividing the work by style of architecture, interior and exterior, broad and detail, muted and colorful is how I begin. Then selecting work from all these categories, and carefully sequence the work into in unexpected and varied manner, while still making it flow smoothly. Matt was very pleased with the results, particularly the book, which he had never had before. Armed with a tight, fresh edit, and a brand new portfolio printed by Artifact Uprising, Matthew Carbone is scheduling commercial meetings up and down the East Coast.

View Matt’s portfolio video: