Publishing/ Exhibiting

[Simon_5087]

Hello
I'm a english art graduate who saw the light and took up photography. I want to know if anyone has any tips on getting photographs published or exhibited, my photo's are more in keeping with contemporary art movements than 'commercial/ docu/ hobby photography.

Thanks

Simon O'Donovan

[Mark Sawyer]

Start by creating a cohesive, finished portfolio of substance. Write an artist's statement you can live with. Only then start showing your work by appointment or at appropriate events (such as the recent lf conference) to publishers and gallery owners. Enter group shows, publish in magazines and journals. Network. Brown-nose. Don't sleep with the publisher's wife, and if you sleep with his daughter, be ready to marry her. Never get caught picking your nose at an opening.

Meanwhile, debate in your own mind whether publication and exhibition are the ultimate goal of your art. Question whether it is worth a lifetime of work for fifteen minutes of fame in a niche market some years down the road.

[paulr]

Assuming you have a body of work that you're ready to publish or exhibit, the next step is to find publications and venues that might be interested. It's a lot of work. You can narrow down your choices early on using some common sense .... cross off galleries that only show 19th Century work, cross off documentary publications if your portfolio consists of staged fetish pictures of nudes and sheep ... that kind of thing.

One shortcut is to go to a festival like the one in Arles, France, or Fotofest in the states. At these events you can show work to many curators, publishers and collectors in a short span of time.

Otherwise, it's a one-by-one task of contacting venues, finding out if they're looking for new work, and submitting slides or digital images according to their rules. The artists I know with the most success at exhibiting and publishing are the ones who invest the most time in getting their work out. It helps a lot to be less lazy than I am.

[bob carnie]

Mark
never thought that picking ones nose would be a deterrent. thanks for the advice and laugh(made my day)

[John Kasaian]

Of course if you land a gig as a Nevada Brothel Event Photographer, you'll get well paid for NOT publishing your photographs! ;-)

[Duane Polcou]

Move to L.A. Shoot porn. Go by a monosyllabic monaker. Become the black sheep of your family as they ponder how such a bright young mind could have gone so wrong as to become a photographic bottom feeder. Tough it out for twenty-five years. Release a retrospective book with an avant garde Euro publisher. Be seen in public carrying an offensively small dog. Wear a suit jacket with a "The Clash" tee shirt. That should sell you a few prints.

Oh wait, that's what I'm trying to do.

[Simon_5087]

Mark-

Are you sure it's better to brown your nose than to pick it at an opening?

Simon

[Mark Sawyer]

"Are you sure it's better to brown your nose than to pick it at an opening? "

Depends on what you're after. If you want to get published and exhibited, well, think of it as "sepia-toned..."