Bruce Barlow
25-Oct-2008, 15:58
Wow. What a trip. Take six crack photographers, turn them loose in a highly photogenic setting, make enough logistical arrangements to ensure decent lodging and good food, and watch how much fun you can have. Ask them to bring prints to show, and prints to swap. Spend a week together. That’s what just happened at the First Invitational Fine Focus Workshops Rock Fest (‘cuz we photographed mostly rocks, get it?).
We remembered our dear friend Ted Harris with raised glasses, funny stories, and missed turns (we used to affectionately call him “Wrong Way Harris” based on his sense of misdirection). We missed him keenly, but felt he was with us, looking over our shoulders and whispering to us to work hard and do our best.
We did this last week in Maine near Acadia. We spent our days photographing at such places as Schoodic Point, Otter Point, Stonington, and Pemaquid Point. We were blessed with mostly great weather and light. We looked at each other’s work in the evenings, and were deeply impressed by its quality. We swapped prints in a 3-round Yankee Swap, where even if you didn’t get exactly what you wanted, the work was so strong that no one came away disappointed. One member, happily for the rest of us, misinterpreted the directions and made a selection of gorgeous platinum prints and gave one to each of us. Thank you, Peter.
And we’re all are on the hook to send a print of our best work from the trip to the others, too. I’m eager to see how these guys saw those places. And those pictures are going to be whoppers because we all worked really hard.
And they are wonderful people: smart, funny, congenial. One couldn’t ask for better companions.
I encourage you to try to put something like this together with photographer friends of yours. It’s well worth it. If you want help or advice, feel free to contact me.
We remembered our dear friend Ted Harris with raised glasses, funny stories, and missed turns (we used to affectionately call him “Wrong Way Harris” based on his sense of misdirection). We missed him keenly, but felt he was with us, looking over our shoulders and whispering to us to work hard and do our best.
We did this last week in Maine near Acadia. We spent our days photographing at such places as Schoodic Point, Otter Point, Stonington, and Pemaquid Point. We were blessed with mostly great weather and light. We looked at each other’s work in the evenings, and were deeply impressed by its quality. We swapped prints in a 3-round Yankee Swap, where even if you didn’t get exactly what you wanted, the work was so strong that no one came away disappointed. One member, happily for the rest of us, misinterpreted the directions and made a selection of gorgeous platinum prints and gave one to each of us. Thank you, Peter.
And we’re all are on the hook to send a print of our best work from the trip to the others, too. I’m eager to see how these guys saw those places. And those pictures are going to be whoppers because we all worked really hard.
And they are wonderful people: smart, funny, congenial. One couldn’t ask for better companions.
I encourage you to try to put something like this together with photographer friends of yours. It’s well worth it. If you want help or advice, feel free to contact me.