The 12 Best Editorial Photographers in Atlanta

With his palpable commercial style and approach to photography, Jason Hales may not be your choice among Atlanta editorial photographers if you want a street photojournalist look-and-feel. But editorial needs and tastes vary, and Hales wows those who seek out crisp, bright, and well-conceptualized advertising-quality imagery for their publications.

Some of his technically perfect and clean images are meant to jump off the page and grab you, while others perform a more supporting role. His portfolio shows Hales is a creative master at both.

Among the Atlanta editorial photographers we’ve seen, Jeremy Harwell’s specialty is the most unexpected: weddings. With his wedding pictures appearing regularly in numerous publications, including Martha Stewart Weddings, Bride’s Magazine, and even The New York Times, Harwell probably didn’t expect this career evolution either.

After getting his start as a newspaper photojournalist, he became a portrait photographer, then Creative Director at Ralph Lauren. Now he’s considered by both Martha Stewart and Condé Nast Brides as one of the top wedding photographers in the nation! Look through his portfolio, and you’ll see why.

In a photography career spanning more than a quarter of a century, Stan Kaady has had ample opportunity to impress his advertising, corporate, and editorial clientele with his dynamic style. As we can immediately see while going through his work, Kaady isn’t averse to taking advantage of what technology can deliver.

In fact, he has a proclivity for stark contrasts and intense colors and highlights that result in high impact, dramatic images. With a magazine client list that includes Forbes, Time, and American Lawyer, Kaady’s vision clearly works, even with the traditional and conservative.

Whatever path his photography career takes him, Atlanta editorial photographer Nick Burchell always goes back to what has driven him from the start, “the personal side of documentary photography”. The man just simply loves “creating work that tells a story”.

That’s plenty evident in his portfolio, which is filled with photographs covering a wide variety of subjects. Most look handheld, lit naturally or by available light, a look that imparts a true-to-life quality that just draws you in to learn more about the real stories he has captured.

An advertising and editorial photographer for nearly two decades, Fernando Decillis’s portfolio screams, “busy real working professional here”. And that’s even before seeing his impressive list of big-name clientele, including Smithsonian, Time, and Vanity Fair.

His editorial work largely takes a documentary approach, but with consistent quality. It makes you wonder how photographers of his caliber always seem to capture the cleanest, crispest on location images, all while looking completely natural, regardless of the environment and available light. Needless to say, Decillis’s work is a marvel.

Food photography is Kathryn McCrary specialty. She happens to be so good at it, that her images appear frequently in many nationally-recognized publications, both print and digital, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and USA Today.

Key to her images’ appeal, we think, is McCrary also happens to be a lifestyle photographer, where real life is packaged with visual appeal. Her food pictures embody similar qualities: perfect professional presentation, but also so appetizingly real that looking at them on an empty stomach is risky!