Post photo la

After a relatively intense day last Friday at photo la, I guess it is not unusal to have a  little post event let down. I had provided a quick assessment as an update with my earlier post, but now I am in the mode of prolonged post-event reflection.

One take away: be true to myself. There are a number of very divergent photographic modes, beyond the basic window and mirror analogies. It is easy to become entrapped by what appears a popular trend and to mindlessly chase a ghost like muse in the hopes of gaining fame and recognition.

I have an interest in the urban landscape as a reflection of society itself, perhaps creating an even stronger indirect portrait of the people who make up the culture and society. But I are still dealing with masks, fabricated stories, built with wood, brick and stone. And over time, the reality does begin to poke through, in how the environmental mask is cared for and attended to.

I also found a kinship with Titarenko and his metaphoric photographs of the Russian culture, which incorporates the ideal of Hope of the Russian people. His larger body of work, which is developed over time with mutliple photographic series and incorporated in his book, provides a fasinating observation of the last decade experience of the Russian society.

It has been remarked on many occasions that it is impossible to obtain an historical perspective while experiencing life in the current times. So you do the best you can to observe and photograph what you feel are relevant situations.

But even Titarenko stated that he then adds in his own perspective and take on the events on which photographs. He does this by how he selects his photographs, develop and print the resulting images, to imbue them with something extra to help make a point, and then how he sequences them to be experienced. His photographs are not pure objective documentation, but a creative & subjective  interpretation of his experiences.

More food for thought, an expansion on ideas, alternative perspectives, which are good reasons to attend such an event.

Best regards, Doug

Friday at photo l.a.

At the moment, I am making plans for a day in Santa Monica and at photo l.a.  Laura Russell and I are meeting for morning coffee to put finishing touches on the workshop at her gallery in March.

Then I want to head over to Bergamont Station in Santa Monica for the rest of the morning to do some gallery walking and potentially collect some material and information to write a gallery exhibition reivew. And the momentum is building for the collaborative blog Photo Exhibit. We have someone covering London, Tokyo, SF, San Diego, Denver, Austin/Centeral Texas and now a reviewer pending for the Netherlands. Very nice.

Then over to photo l.a. for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. It will be a busy day, as I have a couple of books to read and prepare my reviews on site, as the Bruce Davison limited edition book by Verso Limited Editions is $12,500, so no review copies available for that one! And there are a bunch of folks that I have been in email contact that I now hope to put a face with the name.

I had really hoped to attend this local event last year, but as some of you might recall, I had a paying gig in Shanghia, so you just gotta follow the money trail, eh? And the personal photographic series that I had a chance to develop in China is pretty impressive (well, at least to me).

Anyhow, it will be a full day and hopefully I will see some of you there as I walk about. So give a shout if you spot me, eh?

Best regards, Doug

Okay, what to look for; blue jeans, tennies, Hawiian shirt, glasses, grayish hair & looking cool.

Update: Photo l.a. was photographic exhibitions on overload! What a great time. I met with Laura in the morning and did some brainstorming on why certain things occured in the second edition of the Sharpening book, such as some wierd typographic things. Overall, she really liked the use of the Blurb ICC color management when we compared images in the book to the actual print.

Then I did a quick tour of Bergamont Station and saw the tail end of the Michael Kenna exhibit at the Craig Krull Gallery, the ongoing Lilian Bassman at the Peter Fetterman Gallery, the pre-opening of John Divola’s Dark Star exhibition at the Gallery Luisotti Gallery  (leverging my writing for Photo Exhibit) and then helping with the unwraping of the Malone Mills photographs for her Orb exhibit at Frank Pictures (also leveraging my writing for Photo Exhibit). So I have some exhibition reviews to write and publish on Photo Exhibit.

Then over to photo l.a. for at noon for the rest of the day. I ran into a bunch of friends from the Photo Exchange and we had a wonderful & teasing lunch together, but I ended up walking most of the show with my buddy Paul Mounce. Who seemed to be very patient (and wondered off to continue looking at photographs) when I stopped to review a book or interview a photographer for The Photo Book. Photo l.a. is a teaser show, with most galleries bringing and exhibiting only a couple of photographs for most photographers they represent. So a lot of photographs, but limited in number.

The rumor was that certain galleries were laying claim to specific photographers and letting other galleries that also represented the same photogrpher know that they were going to be the only ones who should exhibit that photographer at the show. Interesting back room stuff that I just did not want to get into.

Overall, a great experience, but the take away was that with some exceptions, most of the photographs that were exhibited were the classics, not a lot of which were pushing the contemporary edge, such as Chris McGaw at the Duncan Miller Gallery booth.

Most interesting experience for me was to meet,  interview and discuss the exhibited photographs with the Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. His metaphoric photographs utilize longer exposures of people and places to provide a sense of time and experience. A shared concept and one that I have connection with, but a process that Alexey has been consitently using since 1992. I will be expounding more on this later this month when I review his book Alexey Titarenko: Photographs, published by Nailya Alexander Gallery, on The Photo Book.

Best regards, Doug

Photograhic POD Book Workshop in Portland

Laural Russel at 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon, has just formally announced my workshop for Developing a Photographic Print on Demand (POD) Book, which will be a one-day workshop on Sunday, March 15th at her gallery.

You can find out more information about the workshop and complete the registration here.

It should be a lot of fun and very informative. I will have samples of my books, including the artist proofs and discuss why I made the subsequent changes and how I ended up with my final version. As a result of my web-journal The Photo Book, I will also have a bunch of recently published traditional published books, as well as the best of the POD books, including a copy of Beth Dow’s In The Garden, the 2008 Grand Prize winner with Blurb.

Additionally, the workshop will be occuring during the exhibition of the POD books from the Photo+Book juried competition at the gallery (which you can still enter until the end of January!!)

I will be covering the following topics during the workshop; Establishing the purpose of your book, POD vs traditional book publishing, POD options, parts of a book, book design & book dummy, editing,pairing & sequencing your photographs, POD templates, words & fonts, color management & output sharpening, production proof, and marketing your book. Whew! Yes, a lot of ground to cover, but we will get ‘er done!

Although the gallery is on winter break for the month of January, you can still register for the workshop. And of course, if you have any questions, leave me a comment.

And you can take this workshop just in time to prepare youself to participate in SoFoBoMo 2009!  SoFoBoMo, also known as Solo Foto Book Month, is when you take 30 days to complete a photographic book project.  You start taking the photographs for a book (no cheating, you can’s use photographs before you start your 30 days), creating at least 36 photographs, and then developing and producing the photographic book. At the end of 30 days, you have a finished book. (Which is your own personal prize for participating)

 So if you are interested in either my workshop or SoFoBoMo 2009, check them out;- )

I hope to see you at Portland in March…

Best regards, Doug

New Year Goals – 2009

At the beginning of the year, it seems like it is always a nice idea to think ahead about what you might want to try to accomplish and establish some goals. Being a project guy, I find if you have at least a idea of where you want to go, you usually have a better chance of getting there.

But first, how did 2008 meet my goals for the year.

The biggie was getting my series In Passing published in LensWork magazine last January, which was a huge validation of what I was trying to accomplish. Next was getting In Passing published in a book, with a false start as an intermediate size softbound Blurb book, but getting it right with the second edition, with an imagewrap cover, large format, hardcover by the end of the year. I would like to have the series in an exhibition, but that is probably a roll-over goal for 2009.

The big unexpected event for 2008 was probably the participation in SoFoBoMo with the publication of my series as a Blurb softcover book, Places Amongst Us. Although that book is now out of print, I did learn a lot from it, and the series is still quietly in development. The bigger surprise for SoFoBoMowas the publication of a second book during the event, my POD Sharpening book, a technical how-to, which was a child of necessity. Yep, I am an engineer, and I did not like the initial soft printing of the POD process and I was resolved to figure out a fix. Now I have published the second edition of the Sharpening for POD publishing. Nice. And SoFoBoMo 2009 is now soon upon us, so I need to decide if I put that on my agenda.

One of the nice things to develop in 2008 is the pending workshop on how to develop a Photographic POD Book in conjunction with the 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland next March 15th. That has now been formally announced and the link to the workshop is here.

I had the chance for one last trip to China last year for another three weeks, during which I finally start to connect visually with what I was experiencing. And I was fortunate to have a freak snow storm occur just before leaving, which added another visual dimension to my experience. Wonderful. Although I have spent most of the year developing the subsequent series or two from China, I am learning more about myself. The Critical Mass rejection of my series Re:Development was a disappointment, but again, I learned a lot from that experience as well, and make some new acquaintances in the process.

I also started three new blogs, what was I thinking?? The first was easiest, just to publish about what exhibitions and events about the group of us photographers (the Photographers Exchange) who meet monthly at the Irvine Fine Art Center, Irvine, CA. The meeting is open, at 6:30 p.m., third Thursday of each month, so if you are in the area, drop in or leave me a comment for more information. We show prints, talk about photographs & the reasons behind them, exhibitions and there is absolutely no judging. So if you need a ribbon or gold star, this is NOT the place for you. I also started the Photo Exhibit, more below, and the The Photo Book, which I am enjoying and plan to keep blogging about.

2008 was also the time spent doing this, blogging my thoughts and images, subsequently developing some closer relationships with a lot of folks that I would not have otherwise met. And someday, I might have the chance to meet some of you in person.

But okay, so what about 2009?

Well, I have hinted at a couple of items already; exhibiting In Passing, continuing the development of Re:Development and another series from China, participation in SoFoBoMo 2009 (only ONE book this time), and leading the one-day workshop at the 23 Sandy Gallery.

I hope to attend the Photo l.a. in a couple of weeks, maybe get up to Photo s.f. later in the year, and the Palm Springs Photo Festivalat the end of March. Those events will also be additional blogged about in a couple of other ventures I started in 2008, The Photo Book and Photo Exhibit.  FYI, the Photo Exhibit is now a collaborative publication and if you are interested in becoming a regional photographic exhibition reviewer, check it out and then let me know your interest.

And to continue photographing, developing my series into books, prints, exhibitions and publications. Taking it one day at a time, appreciating what I have and who I share it with. I hope to continue with the Photographic POD Book workshops and I am receiving some more interest in other workshop venues, so if you have or know of an opportunity, please let me know.

So like the photograph with this post, there are some dark (economic) clouds out there and they do have a slightly silver linning(okay, lets go with “making lemonaid from lemons” analogy), but the sun is shinning through (yes, I take that to symbolize Hope), and in the back ground you can see the blue sky. The water is calm at the moment, hopefully not the calm before the storm, but peaceful and reflective.

Best regards, Doug