Stephen Walker -- Photo Director of Nylon Magazine

Recently, Stephen Walker, the Photo Director of Nylon Magazine, visited Kent State's NYC Studio. Stephen Walker is a distinguished photographer who began his career as a Design Manager at Harper’s Bazaar. After working at Harper’s Bazaar for a two year period, he decided to venture into a slightly different avenue of his profession and began working as the Photo Director for Nylon Magazine. Whether Stephen’s work day keeps him at the Nylon offices or takes him to London on the location of a photo shoot, there’s always something new, fresh and exciting happening in his career each day. Stephen’s typical day at the office requires him to undertake a plethora of assignments. He must seek out and commission new and upcoming photographers that fit Nylon’s fun and natural style, conceive new ideas for photo shoot locations, and examine storyboards sent from the art department and various photographers. In addition to this research aspect, Stephen must also edit all of the artwork, confirm that everything is prepared for upcoming photo shoots, send call sheets to all parties involved in an approaching photo shoot, and prepare budgets and deadlines to produce a successful shoot. After all of this hard work, it’s finally time to use it on the set of the photo shoot.

Stephen doesn’t attend many of Nylon’s photo shoots because he wants the photographer involved to feel as if they have complete freedom of creativity; however, he always attends the cover shoot. The cover shoot is crucial because it represents the face of the magazine. The cover must convey the young and rebellious message that Nylon strives for. While getting the chance to get out of the office and travel to a photo shoot may seem fun and carefree, it requires a lot of responsibility. Stephen is in charge of going over the photographer’s direction for the particular photo shoot. If the subject of the shoot is an actor or actress, Stephen speaks to their publicist to ensure their happiness with their apparel and their posing positions. In essence, Stephen has the duty of staying on top of all tasks, making sure everyone has what they need, and that everyone is pleased with the outcome of the shoot. After the photo shoot is complete, the images must be perfected by a professional retoucher.

I feel that having a career as a photo director would be very stressful, yet rewarding. I could only imagine how Stephen must feel when he sees something he has worked on so hard be published in Nylon for millions of people to see!

Stephen Walker

 

 Photograph taken from:

http://www.onelifephotos.com/images/judge_stephen.jpg