Doing prep for fotofest in two weeks. I'm in the first Meeting Place session. Three more to follow. We get four reviewers per day, 20 mins each, plus a table at an artists evening to lay out our stuff. Presently working up 30 notebooks with three portfolios in each. The three are The Blackfork Bestiary, Magic & Logic and Shiprock. Each reviewer gets a notebook plus some extras for whoever else I pick up. Plenty of business cards as well.
Has anyone found these events to be valuable in term of sales or career development? They *seem* like they would be but I never actually hear of anyone citing concrete results from the effort. Anyone?
--Darin
I have never been to one, but a friend of mine has really gotten a boost from them-inclusion in nuwerous shos across the country because of them.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
I was in Houston for the 2000 FotoFest, it was an invaluable experience in terms of career development.
You have to pack your work in a way to allow for them to touch it, edit it, mix it anyway they want/can.
It is important to read about the reviewers, learn what they are looking for, respect that above all, and if possible ask them specific questions so you get the info you are looking for. Some are there to offer oportunities, some are there to offer advice, but most are there to question you and your work and to learn about you.
My stuff for sale is here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r7owuacla...Ac74wBbEIUWrUa
Finishing touches on 31 1/2 inch notebooks done showing three portfolios. Print portfolio ready, though I am taking my spotting pens. Printed out my list of curators, got everyone I wanted starting with a private collector, Rixon Reed from Photoeye, Elizabeth Avedon and then Jessica Johnson from George Eastman House. Nice opening day.
The show at Old Jail Art Center opened last weekend and the gallery handout they printed is in the notebook. Tomorrow is pack up and Friday travel day.
One image, in my still life series, is controversial enough because of the subject matter- (Whitetail deer embryos), that I texted it around to extra brains around the country to see what the consensus was. I'm interested in showing an image that's a little unsettling. I think. A little buzz is good but I don't want people screaming for the doors. The jury is split, so I'm not getting much help. I show my work in waves- first six mats and talk about the concept, then the six best under the earlier photos in the mats. Just when they think they have seen it...I start pulling prints off and show the best of the group. Sounds hokey but I have made people stand up across a table with the second group.
Still deciding. Always a lot of moving parts.
Just back home up in the Blackfork decompressing after a very intense four days. First two guys I met when I walked into the hotel lobby were Jeff Graves and Ron Johnson from the Denver area and this forum. We added Yukari Chikura and Chris Schmeltz and that was our road family for the duration, hanging together, eating together and checking in after splitting up for different events.
The hotel was nice but pricey in every respect over the room rate. 30 bucks to park, no wifi without a supercharge, lousy service in the lounge at night and 20 buck breakfast. Jeff finally discovered the quesadillas for 11 bucks on the bar menu and we lived on those. Yukari got sworn in as a native Texan as soon we taught her to say "Quesadillas, Ya'll."
The set-up was: an area with tables to wait and sort outside a conference room. They had Dave Wilson running the doors and the clock. Dave would announce the time, "9:00 session starting". Give a five minute warning. Two 20 minute sessions and then a 10 minute break. Broke also for lunch. Things happened and people left and there were extra sessions you could claim as soon as the 20 minute session started, so you could get a few extras. Day ran until after 4:00. I cut my portfolio down and showed about 12 images of two series: The Blackfork Bestiary and then Magic & Logic. I pared it down so that I finished early nearly every time, without rushing, and never made a sudden move or frantic gesture. "Talking faster doesn't help." Only occasionally did I have to bump someone late off the table, and always did so with courtesy and a smile. Four reviews a day minimum though I had as many as eight. Several reviewers came to me and asked to see work once the buzz started. This was the first session of four, so they will get streamlined as they go on.
Clint and Joan looking over Magic & Logic in an extra session.
Wolfgang Volmer tells me something I didn't know about my daughters hand. Exactly what I came for.
Steven Bridges sorts it all out. Cargill in the background.
Yukari Chikura in a session.
The incomparable Clinton Cargill lays it out on the "Murderer's Row" side of the review room. They were fair, but could be tough. Cargill used the phrase, "The perversion of a line," while talking about a Ron Johnson ladder shadow that he loved. I nearly fell off my chair going for pen and pencil.
Vollmer was talking, (smart and experienced guy who was saying several interesting things), and all of a sudden out of the usual nowhere I got a very intense idea of cards dancing on the end of a bone. Just took a half second, like stepping through a thin shadow but very distracting. I love the masticating and savoring of a new idea and I had no time. Was in the present with Vollmer.
Now in the studio with bone and cards and light, sorting out the incarnation. Crazy. That switch flips as it wants. You can make it flip more, or dull it out and make it flip it less......but as much as I grope around I can't seem to actually find it.
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