Foto Inter/Cambio conference in Mexico City, October 25-27, 2023

[Scott Davis]

This is the inaugural presentation of Foto Inter/Cambio, a conference whose goal is to foster connections and community amongst large format and alternative process photographers across the Americas and internationally. The conference will be held in Mexico City from October 25-27 in the Colegio de las Vizcainas, Cuauthemoc, Mexico City, and at the Museo Archivo de Fotografia in the Centro Historico. The opening night keynote will be a career retrospective and honor for Julio Galindo, one of Mexico's most recognized alternative process and large format photographers, with a career spanning over 50 years. Our closing keynote will be delivered by Mark Osterman; in a fitting tribute to the season, he will be talking about spirit photography. There will be three days of discussions, presentations, a pop-up exhibit at the Museo Archivo, organized photo excursions (including a night-time photo walk around the Centro Historico), and social opportunities including a print exchange and opportunities for participants to share their own work. There will also be at least two add-on workshops (I'm negotiating a third potential workshop) to be held over the weekend - a copper plate gravure workshop and a becquerel-developed daguerreotype workshop. The workshops will be limited to 6-8 participants, and all materials will be included in the workshop fees.

For more information about the conference, workshops, and activities, or to register, please visit:

https://www.fotointercambio.com

[hallabang]

Thanks for sharing this - looks interesting!!

[Scott Davis]

Thanks for sharing this - looks interesting!!

As things develop, I'll be updating the website. We have some great activities planned, and once we have a few more bits nailed down I'll post the daily schedule. As a benefit, we're working out a deal with the George Eastman School (a photography school in Mexico City, also in the historic center area) for folks attending the conference to be able to use their darkroom to develop film before flying home.

[Monty McCutchen]

Good luck Scott. This seems enriching. Must be a ton of work to pull something so grand off! Congrats.

Monty

[Scott Davis]

Good luck Scott. This seems enriching. Must be a ton of work to pull something so grand off! Congrats.

Monty

It's been brewing as a concept since before the pandemic. We started in earnest to build for this in October of last year, which means it will have taken a year to pull it off once it actually happens. We'd love to see you there, Monty, with your Ebony 20x24!
and I think we might even be able to help out with the wet plate gear to shoot plates that big - there's a photographer down there who has a home-brewed 20x24 camera (and has the workshop facilities to do 8 foot copper-plate gravures).

[Scott Davis]

Wanted to update with an announcement - we will be having a Daguerrian Dialogue - two modern-day practitioners of the medium, one from Mexico (Patricia Banda) and one from Japan (Takashi Arai) will be having a discussion about their practices, how they came to the medium, and why they chose one of the most difficult photographic media to work in. Over the weekend following the conference, Paty will be leading a workshop on Becquerel-developed daguerreotypes - seats are limited!

[Scott Davis]

Additional updates:

The daily schedule for the conference is now posted. There will be some tweaks as we add additional presenters, but the general outline is stable - Foto Inter/Cambio Daily Schedule

We have also added Craig Alan Huber of Veritas Editions as a presenter, talking about publishing photo books. He has also very generously offered to provide a copy of one of his books for the goodie bag for each attendee.

[popdoc]

Stoked- Signing up!

See you there!

[Scott Davis]

Update on the conference:

We held our first press conference in Mexico City today in conjunction with the Museo Archivo de la Fotografia of Mexico City. The Museo hosted the conference today to announce that they were officially partnering with us to host our opening night gala to honor Julio Galindo for his career of nearly 50 years in alternative process and large format work, and our closing night keynote delivered by Mark and France Scully Osterman about the 19th century technique of Spirit Photography, in recognition of the weekend following the conference being Day of the Dead weekend. The museum will also be hosting a pop-up exhibition of work by Julio Galindo, Arturo Talavera, Paty Banda, Mark and France Scully Osterman, and Scott Davis.

Museo Archivo de la Fotografia

[Scott Davis]

Business update/announcement: We now have a limited quantity of Early Bird discount tickets - from now through July 4, get $100 off the overall registration fee. If you have any questions about housing/transportation, please feel free to contact me and I'll provide guidance on where to look. Don't hesitate to book your hotel/AirBnB, as this is on the eve of Day of the Dead, hotel rooms in the city center will be in very short supply. There are plenty of AirBnB/VRBO units available at reasonable prices at this time, but don't wait!