It takes a village to raise a project. Artists, photographers, retouchers, designers, programmers, editors, musicians, engineers, animators, assistants, managers, directors, publishers, producers, and, yes, even clients have to be able to look at a job, communicate their ideas, and add their spices to the stew. This sort of manifold digital workflow has become so common there's a new catchphrase for it: network publishing. The idea is that the work of so many people requires sophisticated, specialized tools that fit together like pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Clearly, this is an inevitable and, I would argue, positive trend. But it raises the question: In a world increasingly dominated by multiperson publishing, what is the role of the lone artist? Where does he or she fit in?

Figure 1

For the answer, I turn to Michael Elins, a Los Angeles-based independent artist. He's a network publisher, but with a difference: he represents all parts of the network. He designs the piece, he hires the models, he shoots his own photographs, he assembles the compositions, and he paints and clones sculptural details to create the final image (see figure 1). What programs does he use? "Oh, it's all Photoshop." Here, then, is a network publisher, not from the standpoint of applications or human resources, but by virtue of the different hats he wears and the wealth of elements he pulls together. "When I do artwork for magazines, they'll credit me by saying 'photography by,' or 'image by,' or sometimes 'photo illustration by.' I don't think the commercial art world has yet come up with a name for what I do. It's not a photo, it's not a painting, it's not an illustration. It's a different animal. I think of it as a window into a whole world where photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles--they all come together in Photoshop (to see how Elins transforms images read the sidebar, "Michael Elins' Photo Painting Technique)."

"That all sounds pretentious, I know. But when I started out, I thought it would take a group of people to do this kind of work. I think we're on the verge of something here. When Gutenberg invented movable type, he had no idea what was coming, how much it would change the world, how much power it would put in the hands of the individual designer. And that's where we're at with network publishing. We're at the very beginning. We're writing the book as we go.

"When this synthesis of digital photography and digital illustration really hits on a professional and fine-art level, it's going to completely transform everything. Each of us who is doing it will help to invent our own kind of language, and then we'll be able to come up with a name for it." Whatever it is, let's hope it sounds better on a business card than Freelance Photo-Illustrator.

History and Development
No matter what you call Elins' job, he's frightfully successful at it--and he's an artist whose first brush with Photoshop was version 5. "I'm an illustrator by trade. Up until recently, drawing and painting were what I did. I was a freelance illustrator for 11 or 12 years (see figure 2). In fact, the whole reason I moved out to L.A. in 1985 was because I wanted to illustrate movie posters. (See Elins' poster for Lord of the Rings.) I became pretty good at it, but illustration was at the low end of the totem pole. It wasn't what it used to be in the 1970s; there weren't many big illustrated advertising campaigns. It had become a second option: if they couldn't get photography, then maybe they'd do illustration."

Figure 2