Carl Seibert knows first hand how to make and manage visuals that will be published. A long-time photo editor and photojournalist he earned his stripes on the receiving end of the content marketing equation.
Seibert started out in photojournalism on his junior high school yearbook, using his dad’s Leica M-2, which hung nearly to his knees on its adult-sized strap. That experience, he now reckons, may explain why throughout his career, he’s always handled equipment pretty carefully.
He made photos and covered news at a succession of daily newspapers, beginning in a small North Carolina farming community and progressing to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where over a long tenure he served in a variety of visual journalism roles.
Early on, he concentrated on hard news. In those times it led if it bled – or burned, crashed, exploded, crumpled, or was tragic in some general sort of way. From there, he went on to work in, and eventually manage, the photo operations in the newspaper’s then-new system of bureaus in Palm Beach County. Later years found his focus shifting to work in the studio and aerial photography. In the new century, he became a photo editor, working on the Foreign/National, Local, Business, and Sports desks.
As is not uncommon for newspaper photography department managers, Seibert has been called upon throughout his career to manage the evolving technology of the mechanical side of journalism. He developed expertise in wireless communications long before it was called that. In the early days of digital photography, he earned respect in the industry for his grasp on the then constantly shifting intricacies of the new medium. As analog became digital and the back office functions of photojournalism melded with Information Technology, Seibert began to manage IT projects. He gained a widely respected mastery of Digital Asset Management and workflow optimization. He became a metadata evangelist and tireless proponent for standards-based “do it right and do it once” workflow. Today, he gleefully points out that the IPTC has a “manifesto” on embedded metadata. “My kind of geeks!”, as he puts it.
Internet video is young yet, but Seibert has about as many years of experience managing video as Internet video has of existence. He has assigned, edited and programmed video for a high-traffic website and today produces video for the real estate industry. He can unravel the technical complications of video distribution and advocates for a “voice of reason” approach to video that mirrors his workflow and digital asset management work.