Award-winning Art Directors show the fruits of creativity + collaboration

"We know that photography can ignite, inspire and change the world." — Andrew Saunders, Senior Vice President, Creative Content at Getty Images


With each of our art directors winning industry awards this year, it's the perfect time to highlight how they work with photographers to craft stunning imagery.
"Great content is at the heart of our business" said Andrew Saunders, Getty Images Senior Vice President, Creative Content. "Our Art Directors work with our photographers to bring original ideas to life, through innovation, trend analysis, bespoke shoot planning and on-set art direction. That is all apparent in our multi-award winning photography.
"We know that photography can ignite, inspire and change the world — and our team of Art Directors is fundamental to how we develop that imagery. Their passion and expertise enable us to exclusively represent the best imagery in the marketplace."
Meet our award-winning team:

Gemma Fletcher

Name:1. Gemma Fletcher, Senior Art Director
Award received: American Photography 31 annual award book
Photographer: Mads Perch, 509202317
Series title: ‘Moving Time’
"Exposure in the right places is key to a young photographer starting out. London-based Danish native Mads Perch getting into the American Photography annual is a great growth opportunity for him to show his work in the US market. This project was a brilliant collaboration and has gone on to win several awards this year putting Mads on the map.
There is always lots of debate about the value of awards, but in a culture where imagery is in abundance, it’s useful to have organizations draw attention to the projects and photographers who are creating interesting work."

2. Lauren Catten                          

Name: Lauren Catten, Art Director

Award received: PDN 2015

Photographer: Henrik Sorensen, 498071419

"We put in just as much effort as advertising teams for these conceptual shoots so it’s wonderful to see that identified and rewarded. Henrik always works with high concepts and I wanted to produce an idea that would enable to him to play with different techniques to keep the shoot fun, but also translate a strong conceptual presence to make sense to customers in the stock world."

3. Masa Kobayashi

Name: Masa Kobayashi, Senior Art Director                 
Award received: PX3, Fine Art Collage – Silver
Photographer: Hiroshi Watanabe, 528912755
"Originally, I was discussing with Watanabe appropriating Joan Miro’s paintings by taking multi-colored aerial shots of people on the beach; however, Watanabe preferred the work of Piet Mondrian and was keen on producing a simpler execution. The result didn’t end up looking like appropriation by any means, and the final results were much stronger than I’d imagined."

4. Guy Merrill

Name: Guy Merrill, Senior Art Director
Award received: PDN
Photographer: Nick Dolding
Image title: ‘Cut up 19’, 507179511            
"Creative photographers often work in isolation; awards help to create a conversation and get people properly looking at the fantastic work out there."


  

5. Amy Lehfeldt

Name: Amy Lehfeldt, Senior Art Director
Award received: PDN 2015, Stock Series
Photographer: Thomas Barwick, 511153417,511153387,511153425,511153443, 511153437,511153419          
"This image is from the series shot on an organic farm where young adults come to do an apprenticeship and learn the old farming practices. What I love about these images is that it’s raining but the ‘harvest’ goes on rain or shine. It was actually raining quite hard for the Pacific Northwest, so we were outfitted in rain gear, and the photographer had an underwater housing to protect his camera."

6. William Bon

Name: William Bon, Senior Art Director
Award received: Graphis Award Photography 2015, Silver
Photographer: Nisian Hughes, 494402527, 494402501, 494402509
Series title: ‘Drawn Out’                           
"Nisian Hughes and I had the idea of people illustrating what they actually want to be. I came up with the illustration concepts and ideas we’d cover, while Nisian pulled together the production and crafted the lighting. We found Hana El-Assad to work with, and she was able to take my storyboards and bring them to life on the talent. It was really a team effort on this one."