There are people who understand you well enough to challenge you but in that if-you’re-not-pushing-boundaries-you’re-not-doing-it-right kind of way -- people you ultimately trust to have your back and your best interests at heart. Kate Chase, my friend, former rep and now producer, is one of those people.
In PDN's March issue, the magazine highlighted Cade Martin’s impressive ad work that he had done recently for Tazo Tea and Starbucks. As the main feature, it's only natural that one of those images ended up on the cover of the issue (pictured above). Not everyone, however, was as thrilled by Martin's work as PDN.
Photographer Rodney Smith has covertly spoken out about the cover on his blog. In a post titled "The Real Thing," he calls the image an imitation, and wonders why PDN would choose to applaud work that is, as he puts it, "by it’s [sic] very nature ‘second-rate.'"
Take a look at the portfolio of Washington D.C.-based photographer Cade Martin, and you'll feel like you're looking at movie stills from an upcoming live action Alice and Wonderland film. His beautiful, dreamlike photographs have themes of grace, beauty, repetition, and light.