PhotoCine News is the insiders guide to micro movie production with a global viewpoint delivering an educated and analytical perspective. PCN is edited by three entertainment industry veterans and published writers, Michael Britt, Lou Lesko and Ben Horton. Here at PhotoCine News we present sophisticated content that always looks to the future.
Founder & Managing Editor Lou Lesko is a photographer and commercials director who started shooting pictures professionally in 1984. He made his directing debut in 1999 with a public service announcement (PSA) for breast cancer awareness. The breast cancer PSA, which was written by Lou, ran for three years nationally. In 2004 he began writing about the photography industry for Digital Photo Pro magazine. An irreverent style of writing and a best selling book about the advertising photography world, Advertising Photography: A Straightforward Guide to a Complex Industry, that was published in 2007 paved the way for Lou to become the managing editor for the National Geographic Assignment Blog.
Lou is a graduate of the English writing program at the University of Southern California. He is also the founder of Blinkbid business software for creative professionals. Lou lives in California splitting his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco, avoiding Interpol for a small incident that occurred in Brussels a few years back.
You can follow Lou on twitter @loulesko.
Founder & Editor Michael Britt: When Michael came to Los Angeles with his wife, actress Cheryl White, he started as a unit stills photographer on movie sets which he did for ten years. In 1995 he purchased his first Apple computer and discovered a passion and inherent aptitude for digital photography. This quickly earned him a fantastic reputation in the emerging digital photography space and he soon found himself as the consultant to high end photographers converting to digital.
As digital photography became the prevailing technology in the industry Michael embarked upon a forward thinking entrepreneurial venture with PhotoCine News’ Tom Stratton. AlternaStock was an alternate stock photography web site that, as the name suggests, offered access to alternative lifestyle images.
All of his experience; technical, creative and marketing culminated in the creation of Image Mechanics where Michael was a partner until 2009. It was during his development of the brand of his new business that he was tapped as a writer and a speaker – some of his speaking credits include; Thomas Knoll’s Soup-To-Nuts event, PDN On the Road, PIDE, Imaging USA, and the Digital Media Festival in Sydney Australia. He was also asked to be a consultant for the tech industry on projects like Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Light Room.
His latest venture before PhotoCine News was co-producing the critically acclaimed Collision Conference, a two day event focusing on the collision of stills and motion.
Editor & Field reporter Ben Horton started his career as a photographer by taking photographs of places where other people simply couldn’t go. The more remote the location, the harder it was to get there, the more appeal it had for the young upstart. It wasn’t long before Ben moved on to working in the commercial world, and was picked up by some of the top names in fashion and advertising.
As it goes, Ben’s original passion caught ahold of him once again while shooting a documentary film on a remote island in the Pacific. Ben was awarded the first ever National Geographic Young Explorers Grant for work he did to expose the issue of shark poaching on Cocos Island and as a result, he was invited to join National Geographic Explorer in Residence Will Steger on a two month arctic adventure, using photography to document the effects of global warming.
Ben is now a contributing photographer for National Geographic, and uses his advanced outdoor skills to tell the stories of the worlds far off places. Ben’s early career as a professional Kayaker gets him into remote rivers, diving and climbing experience get him to vantage points not often seen by the general public, but it is Ben’s tenacious drive to complete his goals that gives him the reputation for getting the shots.
Field reporter Judson Felder is a writer and photographer currently based out of Seattle Washington. Originally from Colorado he found a charge in hiking mountains, snowboarding and rock climbing. A desire to travel and explore new terrain sent him to the Pacific Northwest where he finished a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Washington and years later a second degree in Commercial Photography.
On his way, he has become an avid “gear-head”, finding a passion for the mix of art and functionality in not only photographic equipment, but in building/constructing houses, bicycles, and even furniture. Judson can now be spotted documenting an eclectic mix of extreme subjects from the surfers off the North Coast, to the fishermen of Alaska, even running in the streets with Seattle’s graffiti writers.
Contributor Lydia Winters started as photographer about two years ago. Soon after she discovered the magic of motion pictures. Keen to get involved in video she started a video-blog series on a whim. In November 2010, she began producing her own web show, Minecraft Chick, which quickly gained massive notoriety on YouTube.
Her daily show focused on her gaming adventures playing a specific popular PC game called Minecraft. It was around this time that Lydia got the opportunity to expanded her editorial horizons by taking a job as an associate editor at the National Geographic Assignment blog. Totally unrelated to gaming, but offering an extraordinary perspective of the world, the Nat Geo position fueled her inspiration to start working on more video projects.
After only seven months on YouTube, Lydia’s Minecraft show captured the hearts and minds of the gaming company Mojang. After one meeting the company made Lydia an offer for her to become their Director of Fun (aka Communications Manager) which she now does full time. Lydia also maintains a part time gig at Nat Geo Assignment and we’re thrilled to have her here on PCN writing about video in the gaming world.
You can follow her on twitter @minecraftchick or her Minecraft Chick Blog.
Contributor Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in the UK. He has written for many newspapers, magazines and blogs including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, MacUser, The Morning News, Cult of Mac, and BBC Online.
Subjects range from Mac computers and software, parenting, science, gadgets, the internet, and personal essays. He has a web site at gilest.org, and posts photos on Flickr. You can reach him by email at giles at gilest dot org; or follow him on Twitter @gilest.
