Project Edit: Christina Gandolfo

I’ve previously worked with Glendale, California-based www.cgandolfo.com/ on a range of projects, including a Web Assessment and a new Project Gallery to highlight her Me & My Emmy project. Recently, she reached out to work on a new edit for a personal project Single-Parent Twins Adoption, which she had pitched to AARP.

Excited to share this new work, Christina and I aimed to publish the gallery on the same day AARP featured it on their social media. I thought it was a great idea for the timing of the live gallery and the featured Instagram post to coincide, as it would help drive clicks to her site and more engagement on her social media, so we immediately dove in!

To start us off, Christina sent me a tight selection of 50 images to work on within three hours of editing. My goal was to create a gallery of 10-15 images.

In the early stages of the edit, I tried to absorb as much of the story as I could through the images alone, but without a lot of background context, it was tougher to build an edit that felt complete and true to Christina’s intentions. Luckily, Christina left me image descriptions in the metadata for my reference and sent me more images. With more images to work with and more backstory, it was easier for me to build out the edit more authentically, but it also became harder to narrow down my selections.

I really fell in love with the story and the family. It was so endearing to see such a loving relationship between family members and getting to know Genevieve’s and Xavier’s individual personalities. Christina had photographed such sweet and loving moments that became hard to walk away from.

So, I tried to approach the edit more strategically. As corny as this would sound, I focused on letting the images tell the story that had such beautiful complexity. On one side, I saw that it was about the twins’ individual personalities and their sibling relationships. On the other side, I also the joys and difficulties of single motherhood, especially for a doctor. With the help of Senior Photo Editor and Project Manager Honore Brown, I aimed to portray these layers in a way that allows viewers to interpret the story without knowing much of the family’s background.

Thanks so much for sending such a thoughtful edit over. I really like where you’ve gone with this! – Christina

After I delivered the edit to Christina, she uploaded it to her site, and in true Christina fashion, she was able to take what Honore and I put together and add her own colors and twist to it.

I loved the way the diptychs played off of the similarities and “dualities” between Genevieve and Xavier, as we see in the screenshot above. That extra step Christina took helped make the story feel more complete.

After a few extra changes Christina and I made through email, the gallery went live and just in time for the feature on AARP’s Instagram!

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