A Co-op Photography Art Gallery in Charlottetown?

When I’m in Halifax, I try to stop in for a visit at the ViewPoint Gallery on Barrington — a shared street level gallery space operated by a hand selected membership. It’s kind of like an advanced photo club and part of me is slightly jealous a similar concept doesn’t exist in Charlottetown.

I was recently invited over to Truro to speak at a morning seminar to the ImageMakers Photography Club and took the opportunity to keep going into downtown Halifax to attend the opening reception of a show at ViewPoint sponsored by Atlantic Photo Supply. Photographers from around the maritimes of all skill levels showcased 155 powerful images in commercial, wedding, portrait and fine art categories. The basis of the show was to celebrate the expansion of Atlantic Photo Supply.

If you are in Halifax before June 3rd, this months display at ViewPoint is a collection of infrared images by the always popular Eric Boutilier-Brown. I’m going to miss it but was lucky enough to be in Halifax for Eric’s previous two shows Frozen Light and Symmetry in Stone. I would like to point out this one single image “The Gift” and it’s description. The photographers in the crowd will enjoy the technical specs.

Today’s Image – The Power and Importance of the Buoy

Here, I am playing in the water at North Rustico (N 46 27.362 W 63 17.408) trying to frame and illustrate the role of the red and green buoy that fishing boats must enter and exit between. On either side is shallow and lined with unforgiving rocks.

In a world gone digital, are prints archival?

Now that I’m committed financially to producing my own fine art prints (I’m giving some away via facebook btw – spread the news), I have participated in many friendly debates about the file vs the print and how several photography studios still consider the print the be all and end all of preserving memories. So many studios still refuse to sell files but those same studios may also be trashing the files after only a few years. So my question for everyone that shoots for clients, either it be portrait, commercial or weddings, if you do not offer the sale of files, do you archive them forever?

With the level of photo restoration happening today fixing water damaged or sun faded prints of grandparents at young ages – there should be no reason to have this problem with the images being made today 50 years from now. The general public is smarter and more aware of managing their digital life and unlike the negative which was also analog, a digital file is much easier to duplicate and archive properly. And also unlike a painting, the ability to reproduce more prints is an artificial limitation. With each year that passes, printing technology advances and improves. What is possible today was not possible 10 years ago and oh, how I wish I could simply reprint prints made 50 years ago.

So before you create that sales pitch for you website on why “hire a professional photographer” with the standard bullet points — are you making a long-term product or a short-term one? And if you are the client hiring a photographer, are you hiring to create a print/image for the short-term or the long-term?

Whether the business model fits it or not, digital files are here to stay but let’s not confuse this with the validity of a print. The print is still the standard for presentation and enjoyment but it is no longer the best method of archival. The print may have the most value today but the file has the most value 100 years from now.

And before you argue that files will be lost or hard drives will die — you can argue all the same points about taking proper care of prints. It only takes a single accident to destroy a piece of art. The big difference is that you can’t back up a print even if you wanted to.

Today’s Image – I’m Now Making My Own Prints

Before transitioning to photography in 2001, I grew up with pencils, brushes, inks and paints. I keep saying artist first photographer second but there is something missing if your work never makes it to paper. And since going digital, I have printed so very little. Now after all these years, I *think* my work has matured enough to be worthy of paper again.

Why have I printed so little until now? For starters, you send your file away, and a week or two later, a package shows up in the mail. To some degree, it’s not really your product at all. It’s a product of the lab created with your artwork. If there is a mistake, you reorder and wait another week. And for low volume printing — shipping is expensive. The second problem is that labs charge a very high premium for art paper which is what I’m mostly interested in.

That’s about to change because I’ve setup my own little home printing lab. It started with the use of a friends printer a couple months ago that has ultimately led to buying one of my own. Which means, reasonably priced open edition signed collectable prints on archival heavy weight papers are coming soon.

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Under the Heat (with Honest Image Critiques)

We live in a world that’s politically incorrect to be negative. In this world where we can do no wrong, you’ll often see complaints among photographers about how Facebook and Flickr, etc are a celebration of everyones work. It has the maximum encouragement because every single photo is the best and those that break that trend are looked down on. Which is totally fair because it’s all personal preferences. There is a reason there is no dislike button. It’s how these sites were designed to work. Negative commenting just looks bad.

So I’m not suggesting this type of commenting is wrong and the support is needed but if it were all true, we’d all be fantastic and if we were all fantastic, how does one feel the need to improve? Finding critiques is hard and receiving qualified critiques is even harder. The two local competitions that I know of are held by the PPOC and PEI Photo Club. While at different levels, the live judging is a great experience to watch. You can learn so much even on the prints that are not your own. And whether I agree with the comments or not, I want to hear the negatives just as much, if not more than the positive ones. After all, I already liked the photo enough to share it.

For the past two years, I have volunteered my time to help organize the photo print show for the PEI Photo Club and part of the exhibit involves hiring judges to provide constructive reviews for each and every print. Judges range from photographers, painters, instructors, designers and gallery owners. I don’t remember all of the positive comments but I do remember all of the negative ones still 3 years later. They have forever greatly impacted my opinions on the specific elements the comments were referring to.

If you’re local to PEI and that alone is not enough incentive to participate, we have put together a nice little bundle of prizes this year that might possibly rival the generous sponsorship from Think Tank Photo last year. This year I approached all the self publishing educators that I’ve personally bought from and asked for help. I was hoping at least 1 would reply but I’m happy to say all but 2 responded and I feel we have a real winning team of support this year from: Craft & Vision, Kelby Training, The Luminous Landscape, Guy Tal, Bruce Percy, oopoomoo, Jay & Varina Patel, OPC Magazine, Stuck in Customs, flatbooks and Atlantic Photo Supply.

This years show will be opened to the public in downtown Charlottetown from July 9th – 30th at The Guild Gallery. Full details can be found at www.peiphotoclub.com.

Today’s Image – Breathing Warm Light

Made during a Cirque du Soleil parade down Great George Street in Charlottetown, this free to attend parade at dusk was the march to the waterfront for their stage performance during the Summerfest Festival in 2010. This was my most successful image from last years show.

and here are some more of my other entries over the past years.

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Why We Do It

I participate in several photography related groups and the question routinely comes up asking how the so called professional can convince clients that they offer a higher quality product than the so called amateur. Well, for starters, a self labeled professional never means quality so instead of this all too common campaign “Why hire a professional” to generate sales, they should be saying “Why hire me”.

As someone that will take the cheapest route in other industries, it’s all about the perception of value. What makes an art piece in a gallery worth more than those found at the local department store? It’s much more about the ‘who’ or the ‘why’ and less about the ‘what’.

For example: Joshua Bell is a Grammy award winning violinist that sells out concert after concert at $100+ per ticket. The following day he takes his $3 million dollar violin to the subway and plays that same performance again and earns $32 total while all but 7 ignore him. Without the ‘who’, the value is lost and nobody takes the time to see or hear the difference. (reference)

In the world of an artist, what actually defines value? Art has always been subjective and I’ll never understand several museum pieces that cost millions – but it’s worth something to someone. As I write this and look at all the books on my bookshelf or the prints bought for my wall, it’s obvious I spent money based on the name associated with it. Change the author and I never would have considered buying most of them.

This TED talk by Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” is worth the 18 minute investment.

Today’s Image – The Start of a Storm over Bryce Canyon

This is one of those images that has a much more interesting story than possibly the image itself. The weather conditions were the most memorable of my travels.

Patiently waiting high above Bryce Canyon National Park late in the day, the skies were clear with some clouds in the distance and shaping up to be an interesting sunset. I was not expecting how fast a weather system can move in and quickly turn into a snow storm. The high winds were incredible and something I can’t illustrate in a photograph. With the tripod weighted down and the legs spread as wide as they could go and as close to the ground as possible for this frame, I was the only fool not taking shelter. When I did finally pack up and started my route back to our hotel, the skies cleared up just as quickly before dark. Possibly some of the most amazing weather conditions I’ve experienced.