Looking for the perfect image for your cover, documentary, book or exhibition?
Do you need to handle the permissions and negotiate the fees for the images in your next project?
Do you need to select the visual material for your productions with a professional eye?
You’ve come to the right place
I am an expert photo editor with experience at Spain’s leading magazines, websites, digital platforms and publishing houses. Tell me what photo you are looking for and I will find the best options to fit your budget, with all rights fully cleared. Share your raw material with me and I will prepare the selections you need, tailored to your goals.
Latest featured work
My clients
How can I help you?
Book covers
Finding a single image that captures the content of a novel, a biography or an essay is one of the most beautiful and rewarding challenges I face in my day-to-day work as a photo editor.
Rights management and fee negotiation
Copyright, reproduction rights, image rights, special permissions, rights-managed licences, “royalty-free” licences, dealing with photographers, museums, archives, agencies, foundations and estates… Image management is a complex world full of hidden corners. That is why experience in the field is essential to avoid any loose end that could lead to problems or legal claims. If you want to use images, managing them properly is a must. And who better to entrust that task to than an expert?
Magazine covers
During the 15 years I worked at the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair, there were quite a few issues whose cover was a photo that had not been commissioned: historical photos of present-day figures, recent photos of people who were impossible or very hard to shoot, and even photos of people who are no longer with us.
First, the practical definition
A photo editor looks for the best image, or set of images, to illustrate the cover of a book, a newspaper or a magazine, an online article, a feature or news story, a documentary, the opening credits of a series (my favourites are those of Modern Love), the marketing campaign of a bank or of the dental clinic around the corner, or any story or message, editorial or advertising, that someone wants to convey (and does not want to, or cannot, produce).
Images are sourced from the agencies that manage historical, creative or stock photo archives, as well as news and current-affairs photos. Also from photographers’ personal archives, from magazines, newspapers and websites, newspaper libraries, library collections, the archives of film production companies, town halls or political parties, and even from the shoebox of jumbled photos belonging to the grandmother of the story’s protagonist.
Once the perfect photo is found, its rights are checked and cleared, a fee that is fair to both sides is negotiated, the file is received at its best quality, it is published and, of course, credited. All of this while meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets and respecting the visual language and culture of each publication or client.
And now, the romantic definition
(and my favourite)
It was written by John G. Morris, the picture editor par excellence, in his wonderful book Get the Picture: A Personal History of Photojournalism. Morris began his career as a correspondent for LIFE, then selected and edited the best photos by Robert Capa and Cartier-Bresson at the Magnum agency for twelve years, was picture editor of the Washington Post and ended his career as picture editor of The New York Times ). This is how he defines the picture editor’s craft:
“The picture editor is the voyeur of voyeurs, the person who looks at what photographers have seen from the untouched realm of contact sheets, proof prints, yellow boxes of slides and, today, the pixels on the screen. Picture editors find the representative image, the perfect image, the one that others will see, perhaps the whole world.”
Who is EditoraGrafica.com?
My name is Sara Ocón and I was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the late 1970s.
I am a passionate photo editor, albeit by accident.
A journalism graduate, I love telling stories through images.
I search for and find photos. I select and edit raw material.
I manage publication and exhibition rights.
I love what I do.
Contact
Write to me and tell me what kind of image you need or which visual project I can help you with
Thank you!
