A conversation with photography editor Laurie Kratochvil (Rolling Stone, InStyle, more). Interview by Sean Plottner

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Close your eyes and picture a classic Rolling Stone cover. Dozens probably come to mind—portraits of music legends, movie stars, political icons, cultural rebels. Bruce. Bono. Madonna.

These images are etched into our cultural memory as more than mere photographs. They’re statements.

But when we remember the cover, and maybe even the photographer, how often do we remember the person who made it all happen? The one who dreamed up the concept, found the right photographer, navigated the logistics, managed the personalities, and ultimately brought that unforgettable image to life?

It’s the photo editor. But who thinks about the photo editor?

Photo editors are essential—especially at a magazine like Rolling Stone—for decades its covers defined our visual culture. Behind every iconic cover is a photo director making hundreds of invisible decisions under pressure and facing tight budgets, unpredictable talent, and shifting editorial winds. They’re the ones keeping shoots on track when the talent shows up two hours late. They’re the ones coaxing photographers into greatness—the person behind the people behind the camera.

Photo editors are expected to be tastemakers, producers, diplomats, caterers, and art directors all at once. Although their work is everywhere, their names are not. They’re under-thanked. Underseen. Too often unknown. This is the paradox of their work: When a shoot goes well, it looks effortless. When it doesn’t, they take the bullet.

Laurie Kratochvil, Rolling Stone’s visionary director of photography from 1982 to 1994, knows this all too well.

“Everybody wanted to shoot for Rolling Stone. I didn’t realize the power until I started calling people and everybody was interested.”

Sean Plottner: I’d like to pick up right where we were talking about Mick Jagger and his underwear. If we could just start there. You’re at Rolling Stone. You’re the director of photography at a photo shoot with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Somehow you got him in his underwear, but I’ll let you tell the story.

Laurie Kratochvil: It was an unusual shoot because we were only shooting Mick. I had been used to shooting the whole group, but I think he had an album coming out, a solo album, and we set up the shoot and his assistant said we’re going to come, and it’s just going to be Mick and I. That’s going to be it. It’s going to be very low key. William Coupon was the photographer.

And it was down in the Village. And they arrived and they had some clothes, we did our introductions and he went into another room, and I guess it was about 10 minutes later, the door opened and out he came standing there in his underwear.

Which was shocking. Not really shocking, but I was very surprised he didn’t have anything else on, and he’s teeny tiny. Anyway, he said, “Oh, could you put some music on?” And I just froze. I was like, “Oh my God! What on earth do I put on for Mick Jagger?”

So I went to the tapes and there wasn’t very much—we’re still in the year of tapes—so I put Marvin Gaye on. And it was perfect. It was an unusual shoot, because usually in those days you had 20 people at the shoot.

Sean Plottner: And I assume he was happy with your selection?

Laurie Kratochvil: I think he was. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with William Coupon, but he was shooting these colored backgrounds in those days and he was photographing a lot of people, very famous people, and he would change the background up a little bit. But it was great being at a shoot where it wasn’t a big production. I really enjoyed that.

Sean Plottner: And just for the sake of filling people in who may not have seen these shots. Boxers or briefs?

Laurie Kratochvil: Briefs.

Sean Plottner: Okay. This was before Coupon was using that iconic backdrop?

Laurie Kratochvil: No, he was using it. He was using it. I liked William a lot and we used him a lot, but I also knew what I was going to get. Which isn’t necessarily the way I do things. But in this case, I wanted to know what I was going to get. I wanted to know that it wasn’t going to take that long. That it was predictable. But what happened when we weren’t shooting wasn’t predictable.

Sean Plottner: That’s a great point for me to step in and say we’re talking to Laurie Kratochvil, the legendary director of photography, who spent a long time at Rolling Stone, 1982–1994, and at In Style magazine, 1994–2005.

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah, two magazines in … what’s that? 25 years?

Sean Plottner: About 25 years, quarter of a century. You’ve also done a fair bit of consulting and work at other places. We’re talking to you, from Palm Springs?

Laurie Kratochvil: Yes, Palm Springs, California.

Sean Plottner: And I believe you’re enjoying your post-magazine life out there.

Laurie Kratochvil: I am really enjoying it. I’m still working a little bit. I just did a book that came out in November on vintage fashion in Hollywood, in this old vintage shop, and I’m definitely enjoying my time off, but still available for interesting projects.

Sean Plottner: Terrific. So tell us what, what originally drew you to photography and publications.

Laurie Kratochvil: Born and raised in California. I was living in Newport Beach and going to high school. And a friend of mine’s sister needed an assistant to come and work in the office, just basically a gofer to file and run errands and things like that.

It was called Bond Publishing, which was subsequently bought by CBS publications, and they published Road and Track and Cycle World magazine. So that was really my first magazine experience. And I was like, I don’t know, 16. And I just really loved the people and I really liked the excitement of seeing the magazine that was produced at the end of the day and it really got me very interested.

I was always looking at magazines. My mother had a lot of magazines, so I was very interested in that. And then my second job after that was at the LA Times and I worked in the library. I was one of two people who managed all the prints and negatives of the newspaper photographers.

And then I got completely addicted to news, because at the newspaper it was so great. At the library, whenever anything would happen, the reporters would run in and they would want clips pulled. And so we were always the first ones to hear the news. And so that really interested me. And so now I had two jobs in photography, so the resume was just starting to build

Kratochvil behind the scenes with Keith Richards

The next job, I was married at the time and my ex-husband [the Czech photographer Antonín Kratochvíl] was getting a lot of work, and so I quit my job and I started repping him. So I was meeting a lot of clients, mostly in the record cover business and magazines in LA. And after we split up, I got a job at A&M Records, in LA and I managed the photo studio.

It was always kind of admin stuff, but a friend of mine, Mary Shanahan, was the art director at Rolling Stone, and they had moved to New York, and she used to call me and ask me to help out on shoots in Los Angeles. So I was working with Annie [Leibovitz] and I was helping her with production shoots. I think the most famous one was when I found the hotel for the Blues Brothers cover, and I was there at the Blues Brothers cover shoot where she painted their faces blue.

They did not want to do that shoot. They were like, “We’re not doing that. We’ll do other things, but we’re not doing that.” And she kept asking them over and over, and finally at the end of the shoot she was still begging them and she said, “Okay, I’ll do it, but I promise it won’t be used on the cover.”

Sean Plottner: Yeah right.

Laurie Kratochvil: I was there. I saw it. I heard it. And guess what the cover was? Them with their faces painted blue. They didn’t talk to her for a while. But anyway, I was doing a little bit of freelance, working at A&M Records and at one point Mary said, “I really think you should come to New York and be the photo editor at Rolling Stone.”

And I was like, “I don’t really know what a photo editor does.”

And she’s like, “Yeah, you do. You’re already basically doing it.”

So I moved to New York and I started working at Rolling Stone. For me, the thing that was important about the time that I went there was that Annie was just leaving the magazine after working there since the beginning in ’67 or whenever it started. And she was basically the staff photographer and she had her choice of whatever job she wanted and she was shooting all the covers.

So all of a sudden I became the photo director. And Annie was leaving and going off to Vanity Fair. So it was an incredible opportunity, but really scary at the same time because how do you replace Annie Leibovitz? So that got me to Rolling Stone, and now I had that title and I worked there for the next 14 years.

Sean Plottner: Annie went on to photograph Graydon Carter for his passport photo, as we have learned from Graydon’s new book.

Laurie Kratochvil: No, I think Tina was there. I don’t think Graydon was there yet. I only say that because I’m reading Graydon’s book right now.

Sean Plottner: Oh, okay. Okay. So nice quick graduation from pictures of Camaros and Mustangs to celebrities and musicians.

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah, well we were doing rock stars at A&M Records—Peter Frampton and Chuck Mangione. It was the same thing but I’d never worked in a magazine before. I had been a gofer to a magazine, but I’d never been in charge.

The very first cover I ever shot—I hadn’t even moved to New York yet—was Gary Busey when he played Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story. That was my first cover.

Sean Plottner: So what is the role of a photo editor or a director of photography at a magazine like Rolling Stone? I often think of photo editors as unsung heroes who don’t get a lot of credit. What was your role?

Laurie Kratochvil: When I first started at Rolling Stone, I was the photo editor. That was my title. The first art director that I worked under was Mary Shanahan, she hired me. But at that moment, Bea Feitler was actually working at Rolling Stone. She had been brought on as a consultant. So I was working for Mary and Bea.

I wasn’t doing the covers yet. I think Mary was still pretty much doing the covers, but shortly after that I started doing them and really my role there at that time was finding new, great photographers that could really shoot covers.

That’s really the most important thing at the magazine. Even though the inside pictures are ultimately much more interesting and have a lot more design, the cover is ultimately the most important thing. And the way I looked at it is: “I’m going to call the photographers that I love. And if they say ‘yes,’ that’s great. And if they say ‘no,’ that’s okay too.”

So I started working with Albert Watson. And I started working with Herb Ritts. And I worked my way up. I mean, Everybody wanted to shoot for Rolling Stone. I didn’t realize the power until I started calling people and everybody was interested. Pretty much everybody. It took me a while to get Avedon to shoot anything.

But, yeah my work there was going to all the meetings, talking about what was coming up in the issues, doing homework on people, deciding what photographers would be good, and then setting up the shoots, all the production and all that mishegoss with the managers and the publicist and all that.

And then going on the shoot, making sure that we got the cover, got the pictures. And then bringing it back in and editing the film, and then going over the film with the art directors, and possibly, Jann. Not always Jann, but sometimes Jann. My favorite line at the light table is after they look at the work and they go, “Are these the best pictures?”

And I’m like, “No, the best pictures are in the second drawer in my office. I didn’t bring them.”

Anyway, that was always happening. And the worst was when Jann didn’t like it. And he was like, “We want to reshoot it.” Because in those days, having to reshoot something, it’s bad enough when you’re calling the original photographer, but it’s really bad when Jann doesn’t even want you to shoot with the photographer that shot the work that’s getting killed.

Sean Plottner: Well, a reshoot isn’t even always possible, is it?

Laurie Kratochvil: No, no. Not at all. Yeah. Usually not. But again, I didn’t do that many reshoots. I would say in the whole time I was at Rolling Stone, I maybe did five or six reshoots. And some of those were when the subject didn’t even show up.

I remember Terence Trent D’arby was an hour late, and then he was two hours late, and then he never showed up. He just never showed up. But also what was interesting about Rolling Stone was we did celebrities, but we also did photojournalism. And we even did photo-illustration type work for fiction.

And they did a lot of illustration. But we also did photo-illustration. So it was really fun because we did a lot of different things. And Jann had really good taste. He hired great people. And he knew when he had something good. He was very well-rounded in that way.

“You have photographers who ‘make’ pictures, and you have photographers who ‘take’ pictures—and some are not that flexible and others are really good on the spot changing up things.”

Sean Plottner: Take us to a Rolling Stone photoshoot. A typical one, if there is such a thing. Who’ss there and who the hell is in charge?

Laurie Kratochvil: I’m in charge. Different magazines work in different ways. At some magazines the art director will work with the photo editors. At some magazines, the photo director doesn’t go to any of the shoots. And in some places the art director or the creative director will sketch out the cover he wants, and it’ll be done from a drawing. That’s a different kind of magazine.

That’s not how Rolling Stone worked. Rolling Stone, I would say because of Annie, always had a very strong photo department. It was a bone of contention because we had a room full of really great designers and they never went on the shoots. They didn’t have input into what we were going to do.

Before the shoot, you would do your homework and you would talk to the photographer and you would come up with some ideas, but you have to be ready to throw all those ideas out the window and just make a good picture.

And sometimes you have photographers who make pictures, and you have photographers who take pictures, and some photographers are not that flexible and other photographers are really good on the spot changing up things.

And, so at Rolling Stone, it was generally sometimes the writer and the photo editor. That was pretty much it. And the manager and the publicist. And then the photo crew and the hair and the makeup. The less people the better because the person is more comfortable and the publicist doesn’t get in the way.

And in the early days, the shoots were pretty small, but once we got into the eighties the shoots became big productions. And like I said, different photographers shot—Albert Watson was very direct. There weren’t any ideas behind his pictures. He just had fantastic pictures. They were very raw, they were very strong. But they weren’t idea oriented.

Mark Seliger, on the other hand, was very much about ideas. And in the eighties it was very much about production of photographs. So it became a different kind of photo.

Sean Plottner: Were those more likely to be well-planned in advance and then actually executed?

Laurie Kratochvil: Yes.

Sean Plottner: Successfully?

Laurie Kratochvil: It depended on who the artist was that you were photographing. Some people would come up with ideas and they’d have everything ready there. Some people, we would share the idea. Annie would share a lot of the ideas. But as the publicists and the manager at the record companies got more involved, photographers pulled back.

So it just depended on who you were shooting. And sometimes I would choose a photographer who I thought would get along with the person, and sometimes I would choose a photographer that I thought would push things. I just mixed it up a little bit.

I’ve heard that I’ve been accused of having a five card Rolodex. Because I didn’t use a lot of different people. I did have my stable of photographers that I developed and worked with. And about halfway through my tenure there—I had a drop off policy on Wednesdays for portfolios—and it was Wednesday, I was looking at the portfolios, and I opened up this one book, and I just couldn’t believe how great the pictures were.

So I took it back to the front desk and I said, “When this photographer comes in, let me know. I definitely want to meet him.” And it was Mark Seliger. And Mark became the second photographer to actually have a contract with Rolling Stone. And I worked with him a lot. And it was really fun.

I mean, Mark was the kind of guy that either he would have a really big production, or—one of the shoots I always remember was when we were shooting Dana Carvey. And Dana Carvey came into the studio and Mark had brought, like, a fish bowl of goldfish. So we had a bunch of goldfish. And he asked Dana to put one of the goldfish in his mouth and just let it hang out. And Dana was like, “If you guys do it, I’ll do it.”

So Mark and I put goldfish in our mouths. And Dana did it. And that’s been one of my favorite covers. I just think it’s so funny, his humor was simple but really funny. Mark was fantastic. And then he went to Vanity Fair.

Sean Plottner: And Mark is the subject of a previous podcast of ours. Listeners can find it on our website in the archive. Did you ever come back from a shoot you thought you’d scored, you had it, and it was something that actually wasn’t going to work or was rejected for some other reason?

Laurie Kratochvil: No, I pretty much knew. You pretty much have the feeling. In those days everybody was shooting Polaroids, so you did have that Polaroid to look at. And we had a little cover cell that we would put over the Polaroids. So you had a pretty good idea. If the shoot wasn’t going well, if the person wasn’t giving anything, you knew it.

Sean Plottner: Yeah. Well, on the eve of a shoot or the morning of a shoot, you’ve got everything set up. You’re the one in charge. What’s your emotional state—what’s it like going into that?

Laurie Kratochvil: Nervous. Anxious. And one of the things that always happens you get more anxious as you’re there because they have to come for hair and makeup. And that takes forever. It especially takes forever with women.

I have a funny story about waiting and waiting. We were shooting Guns N’ Roses, and I remember beforehand the publicist called and she said, “Oh, I’m calling about the food.” And she’s like, “Okay. Slash wants Chinese food and Axl wants sushi.” And, like, all five of them wanted different stuff to eat.

But they started arriving and it was getting late and Axl was not there yet and we were shooting at the studio that had a private driveway, so you could drive the car into the studio up a ramp, and bring the car right in.

So finally after five hours of waiting, Axl arrives and the limo comes up the driveway and parks. And the engine shuts off. And we’re waiting. And we’re waiting. And we’re waiting. And Axl was in there, at least an hour before he came out. And when he came out, two women came out right behind him.

Sean Plottner: Did you ever find yourself having to bark at any subjects of your photo shoots?

Laurie Kratochvil: No. No. I wouldn’t do that. Maybe some photographers. But no, not really. Because I would let the photographers do the kind of work that they do. I mean, That was one of the reasons why photographers like to work with me, because I didn’t force them—I don’t know better than the photographer how to do the picture. I know what I like and I can tell them when I’m there. I know if it’s going well, but I gave a lot of freedom to the photographers.

My decisions were made when I picked up the phone and called them. That was when I would make the ultimate decision. And yes, we would talk about the person or we would talk about, Could we do black and white? Should we have an idea or should we just photograph them straight on ?

One of my other favorite covers that we shot was with Albert Watson, and it was Eric Clapton. And it was just a few weeks after his son had died, had a terrible, tragic accident. And Albert did the cover and it was just a profile—not exactly a profile, three quarter length shot—of Eric. And it was really simple and it was so powerful.

And that was typical Albert. I guess the three photographers that I used most often were Herb Ritts, Mark Seliger, and Albert Watson. Frank Ockenfels is another photographer who I would count on to do difficult shoots because he always gets the picture.

Sean Plottner: Who shot Tina Turner?

Laurie Kratochvil: Steven Meisel shot Tina Turner for us. The picture that’s on the first Rolling Stone photography book of Tina Turner is by Stephen Meisel.

Sean Plottner: Okay. Is that the one where it looks like she’s jumping?

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah.

Sean Plottner: Great shot, I thought.

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah, he was amazing. We worked with him right before Madonna did her book. We did a big shoot with her at Nell’s, this nightclub that was down on 14th Street, and that was the precursor to her book because he did this amazing picture of her sitting in a chair holding a drink with her legs and drinking from it. And, really great photos. He was really good.

“As the publicists and the managers at the record companies got more involved, photographers pulled back.”

Sean Plottner: Was she literally jumping for that picture?

Laurie Kratochvil: She was dancing.

Sean Plottner: She was dancing. Yeah. Just such simple but great energy in that.

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah, and I think, you know, I definitely Annie started that, but the covers are really posters. The covers have to be strong with energy and very recognizable when you’re walking by the newsstand. Those were the days of newsstand covers.

Covers are, I can’t say they’re the least interesting thing to shoot because they’re not. They’re a challenge, but some photographers really know how to shoot covers and others just don’t.

Sean Plottner: Yeah. Well, another one that seems very much a poster was “The Hot List.” Some of those—Herb Ritts did Cindy Crawford—were you there for that one?

Laurie Kratochvil: No, not, I was not there for that one. Cindy Crawford was actually my last cover. My first cover was Gary Busey, my last cover was Cindy Crawford. We did do shoots with her. But funny things happened at Rolling Stone. Like at one point the ad people on the business side wanted to sell fashion, so we had to start doing fashion.

And that was kind of a joke because nobody there was really prepared to do fashion. We hired Joe McKenna. And he was the fashion director and he knew how to do fashion. We went through different stages of trying to get more advertising in the magazine, even though they had a lot of advertising.

Sean Plottner: Did you have your own set of rules in any way for a photo shoot?

Laurie Kratochvil: No, not really.

Sean Plottner: Are there any rules for making a great photo?

Laurie Kratochvil: No. I think it’s just instinctual. I think it comes from inside. I would say that photographers that have a history, that know the history of photography or know the history of magazine photography and are inspired by other photographers.

Sean Plottner: Earlier you referenced your former husband, Antonín Kratochvíl. And you told me that through him you really delved into and got a better understanding of photography.

Laurie Kratochvil: Of photojournalism. Yeah, photojournalism. But not covers. But we lived in Holland. We lived in Amsterdam. And he was always showing me the work of all the great photojournalists. Magnum was the highest-level agency that you could be with.

And we did have photojournalism in Rolling Stone, and I did bring [Sebastião] Salgado. I met Salgado and brought him to Jann, and we did work with him under contract for a while. Also Mary Ellen Mark. And I worked with some great photojournalists. And that was the other side that I really loved because that was more gritty. It was usually black and white.

We did a story on a boy and his pitbull in Philadelphia—just really different kinds of quirky kinds of things. I loved working with Mary Ellen and I had a really good relationship with her. Rolling Stone was able to give me a nice, wide berth in terms of the kinds of stories that they had.

That’s why it was so interesting to come when Annie was leaving because it was wide open. But I did know what they were used to. And I also think it’s interesting—I made a little list because I was interested in all the different art directors that I worked with. Can I tell you who they were?

Sean Plottner: Please! Name the names!

Laurie Kratochvil: Okay. I am naming some names: Bea Feitler, Mary Shanahan, Raul Martinez, Derek Ungless, Stephen Doyle, Fred Woodward, Gail Anderson, Deb Bishop, Jolene Cuyler, Carla Frank, Rip Georges, and Paul Roloffs. And I think there was more, but I worked with a lot of different art directors and they taught me so much. And also, a not great picture, or kind of an average picture, would come in and those designers would make that picture sing.

I remember one picture that Herb took of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the beach, and he had this big inner tube, and I think it was either Deb or Gail—I think it was Gail—she incorporated that big inner tube to be an “O” in the title. They just did magic things with the pictures. They made the pictures better. They definitely made the pictures more interesting and better. So thank you to all the art directors I worked with—really amazing people. And I learned a lot from them.

“One of the reasons why photographers like to work with me—I didn’t force them. I don’t know better than them how to do the picture. If it’s going well, I gave them a lot of freedom.”

Sean Plottner: Is there a role to play for people with your talents these days? Print magazines are gone by the wayside, but are there any roles for photo editors out there? Everybody’s got their camera. Everybody’s taking pictures. Everybody thinks it’s simple.

Laurie Kratochvil: There were magazines where the photo department had a different place at the magazines. Like I can tell you, Time and Newsweek and Rolling Stone and certain magazines had very strong photo departments that dealt directly with the editors at the magazine and dealt with the writers.

And then other magazines, maybe smaller magazines or maybe like Condé Nast, I don’t think the role of the photo editors at Condé Nast in those days was very strong. The creative directors were over the photo department. And what happened was the art directors wanted more involvement in the photography.

And I think that it was probably easier for the editors to deal with one art director than it was to deal with an art director, a photo editor—I think it was a little bit, not confusing, but a little bit antagonistic. I would say that it was maybe a little bit antagonistic.

And I know that the really great designers, they didn’t really go to shoots. They wanted to learn who the photographers were. They wanted to work with the photographers. So things started changing. And also the business side of the magazines got more powerful. Because it was all about advertising. And of course, at a place like Rolling Stone where it’s owned by one person who’s the editor, he listened to the business side.

I know that there’s still photo editors, but there’s not a lot of directors of photography. I think that they come under the umbrella of the art department now, and I know a lot of people retired or got out of the business or they eliminated that position as time went on.

And now the title of photo editor, not in every magazine, but in a lot of magazines, is really a technical person who crops pictures and sizes them. It’s more of a production role. But that’s not true of every magazine. Look at The New York Times. They have an incredibly strong photo department and other magazines.

Sean Plottner: I don’t want to ignore InStyle. Quite a different magazine from Rolling Stone. What was it like shooting those covers, which pretty much fit a template, I would say.

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah. It was interesting because when I first started there—I started working on the test issues there. I was there very early on. And Martha Nelson, the editor, had come from People magazine. And they started testing issues and they had portraits of people on white. And they decided that was the way that they wanted to go.

And yes, it was definitely a template. It was head and shoulders and maybe down to the waist, but very seldom full body. And it made it easy to know what they wanted but it was boring. You know? But the magazine did really well. I remember, like about a month after we started it up, the New York Post called us “the suck-up magazine.”

But something interesting about InStyle was when we first started they didn’t even do head-to-toe photographs in magazines, like the fashion magazines. They weren’t calling out every single thing that the person was wearing. And we were the first magazine that started showing head-to-toe people.

But the covers weren’t interesting. They weren’t that interesting. You would go into the shoot and get the cover done and then move on to the inside. We did a lot of travel stories. We traveled a lot with that magazine, so the inside was somewhat better, but conservative.

Sean Plottner: Well, yeah. And the covers had a strong, branded identity.

Laurie Kratochvil: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I remember we’d have these viewings at the light table, and it would usually be the art director, myself, Martha, and usually the editor that was working on the story, and sometimes the production manager. And we’d put all the work out on the light table and Martha would come in and she’d lean over and she’d look at it, and she’d look at it, and then she’d look at me and she’d go, “This is a hard one.” That was her expression.

And it’s like the slightest thing. Like, “Oh, I don’t like the hair.” If she didn’t like the hair, it ruined the whole cover. If she didn’t like the makeup, it ruined the cover. If she didn’t like the clothes, it ruined the cover. So any one of those things, or a combination of those things, she wouldn’t like the cover.

She was very particular about the covers. And I couldn’t believe how much drama they were—for the art directors, the design directors too. Just the type! I mean they must have done 200 versions of type and words.

Sean Plottner: I’m sure somebody somewhere had numbers on whether redheads, blondes, or brunettes sold better, too.

Laurie Kratochvil: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I’m trying to think of some of the cover rules. Obviously dark is not good. Light is better. Oh, brown—don’t use brown. Don’t use yellow. Over the years it’s been many cover rules.

Sean Plottner: Well that’s why I really liked hearing your take on the rules of a photo shoot. Have you ever been a photographer yourself? What kind of a photographer are you?

Laurie Kratochvil: I take terrible pictures. Even my Instagram pictures are not interesting. No. But I will admit I’m pretty good at hiring people. I know what I like. I collect photography, I collect a lot of photography. I do know the history of photography and no, I don’t try to take pictures.

“I remember beforehand the publicist called and she said, ‘I’m calling about the food.’ And she’s like, ‘Okay. Slash (above) wants Chinese food and Axl wants sushi.’ And, like, all five of them wanted different stuff to eat.”

Sean Plottner: You do have on your website I think, a “Fun Zone” page—you were doing selfies before they were called selfies.

Laurie Kratochvil: At the very end of the shoot, I would run up to the person and I would go, “Can we take a picture together?” And I always felt a little bit weird about doing that. But you know what? I loved having the pictures. And I would hang like 8x10s in my office. And it used to drive Jann crazy because he was friends with all these people and he didn’t like that I had these pictures with these people. He’d come by and he’d make fun of them—but he also had them.

Sean Plottner: Yes. I could tell they’re after the shoots are over because there’s an intimacy and a friendliness and they’re quite candid. Let me wrap this up by asking you what advice you might give to someone, a young person, who is interested in photography, the visual arts?

Laurie Kratochvil: I think the most important thing, and the longest lasting advice I can give them is to work on their style. First of all, a lot of photographers that go out with their portfolios, they haven’t really developed a style yet. So photo editors get the work, and they don’t really know what they’re going to get.

So I think the most important thing is working on your style and finding a style that you like, that you’re passionate about and really developing that. Because first of all, the pictures are going to be better and they’re going to have more consistency, but also you’re going to love what you’re doing more. So you’re going to be more passionate about it.

So I would say spend more time upfront just developing your style. And the other thing is, you know really—well, I can’t say spend time at the newsstands anymore because there aren’t any newsstands. That’s a sad thing.

Sean Plottner: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurie Kratochvil: God, I used to spend so much money on magazines. It was crazy. I would look, and as soon as I’d see a name with it, I liked the picture, I would call the people. But, really, you have to be incredibly passionate about photography to want to have that occupation.

You have to love it for what it is. Not that you’re going to get a cover of a Rolling Stone, or that you’re going to get a cover of Vogue or whatever. You just have to be passionate about what you’re doing. And that’s probably true in any occupation.

Sean Plottner: It relates to what you said earlier about those who make photographs versus those who take photographs, right?

Laurie Kratochvil: Yeah. Yeah. Both can be very successful. I think that would be the biggest piece of advice. And maybe they teach more business now in school, but they certainly didn’t when I was working. And the photographers, if you were lucky enough to go to a magazine and get an assignment, you better know how to produce it, what you have to do, who you have to talk to. Do your homework.

There’s ways of doing things, and probably really one of the most professional and user friendly photographers that I ever worked with—Mark Seliger is very good—but Art Streiber, his work was always presented in such a wonderful way with full captions. Working with Art, he took a lot of the hard work away.

A lot of photographers are like, “I take pictures. I don’t do admin stuff.” But you have to do that. You have to work in the business and know how to behave in the business and how to make a photo editor happy with your results. You can’t just turn a bunch of pictures in. You have to be involved in that part of it too.

Sean Plottner: Anything else you’d like to say about your career, about life?

Laurie Kratochvil: I’m very interested in this podcast. There’s a lot of different kinds of people that do it. I think it’s really interesting and I was asking myself, “Is print dead?” And I don’t think it is. I think it’s changing. If you go to the newsstand, there’s a lot of specialty magazines, vanity magazines, and I just think that it’s so much more interesting to hold a magazine in your hands. And I have faith that magazines are going to exist.

Sean Plottner: Well, good! That’s optimistic. And I tend to agree that the print magazine business model may be dead, but print need not be dead.

Laurie Kratochvil: I think the business side kind of killed magazines, because it became more about the advertising and they had more power and it just changed it.

Sean Plottner: Yes. And you have just joined the chorus of voices on this podcast who pretty much are all in sync. We’re still looking for the magic way to resolve this and have a brand new magazine business.

Laurie Kratochvil: I worked with Roger Black on a digital magazine company called Nomad Editions, and I was so optimistic that it was going to work. This was, gosh, more than 10 years ago [Launched in 2010 -ed] and it, they just didn’t fly. One of the things I think is most interesting about publishing is what Deb Bishop is doing at The New York Times. She’s turned her section into a must see.

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