Project Edit: Eric Hatch

Loveland, Ohio-based Eric Hatch is a photographer and writer who is passionate about the climate and environment. His work focuses on landscapes, geology, portraiture, travel, and pseudo-architectural photography with a special interest in infrastructure and post-industrial America. 

Much of my work is socially conscious and focuses on things like post-industrial angst, the stigma of drug addiction, and climate change.

Eric approached Wonderful Machine in September seeking help on a project edit. He wanted to communicate his unique point of view throughout his images, avoid redundancy, and craft a cohesive presentation. He realized that this was a difficult balance to strike and could be greatly aided by a photo editor.

I’ve worked in various areas of the photo world for many years. Whether I’m on set for a commercial project, retouching images on a computer, or working with fine art and conceptual photography, I always strive to take a thoughtful artistic approach to everything I do. When doing a project edit, it’s important that the artists’ intentions come through and that the collection of images reflects their goals.

In this case, I was particularly intent on communicating Eric’s genuine admiration for the vast array of people, places, and environments he’s captured throughout his career. The images needed to cohesively tell the story of the myriad of experiences he’s encountered in his travels.

There were a few things that we wanted to achieve with this edit:

1. Gain a clearer sense of what market there is for his best work.
2. Get an understanding of his style, and how it affects both artistic quality and marketability.
3. Develop a more concise, sensitive, and thoughtful selection of his best work and the subjects he’s most passionate about.
4. Determine an elegant way to organize, sequence, and present this work to potential customers through a new portfolio-oriented website that is easy to load, navigate, update, and share.

After the project edit and a web template customization with Wonderful Machine consultant, Lindsay Thompson, Eric updated his website with the new galleries.

Since it was his largest body of work, the Environmental gallery is quite expansive, but I think that there’s a great amount of diversity, variation, and powerful work in there to justify and support a larger gallery like the one we ended up with. There’s a strong narrative throughout the work that ties it together and the gallery takes viewers on a grand world tour.

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