Jury 2010
Andrea Verdone
DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR, WOMEN'S HEALTH (USA)
After an afternoon of rummaging through keepsakes with her mother, Andrea Verdone, deputy photo editor at Women's Health, realised that photography saves the past from being lost forever. "I think I was in sixth grade, and my mom was going through a box of stuff in the garage, stuff from her childhood. There weren't a lot of photos," she recalls. "I remember asking her questions, and she said she couldn't remember a lot and wished she had more photos. Ever since then I've been in love with photography."
A semester abroad in Florence, Italy, during her college years at Reading, Pennsylvania's Albright College is what took Verdone from shutterbug to serious photographer, and her tastes since then have shifted from merely cementing personal memories to using images as a way to spark the intellect.
The Jersey-native took her abilities behind the scenes to photo editing in 1999, when she accepted an internship with Elle, has been working in New York City ever since, on staff with such publications as In Style and Lucky before coming on board with Women's Health in October 2005.
Making the transition from photographer to photo editor was a natural one for Verdone, and being part of the production process is something she wouldn't trade for anything. "Being an editor opens your world up to all these amazing talents we have. Every photographer you meet is so different; I always feel like I’m seeing something completely new. There's nothing more impressive when you're flipping through someone's portfolio than to see an image that makes you stop, whether it's an emotional moment or physical. In sports photography especially, I just love those fast shutters and getting that great action."
