Show Planning

My first art fair is in two weeks, and here are some thoughts that have passed through my mind as I prepare:

- Even doing a moderate number of shows per year takes a lot of time. Just planning, re-planning, researching what changes to make, what equipment or supplies to buy, whether to change things or keep them the same, etc., etc. Looking for the best prices on certain items. This all takes time. Therefore less time for: family, photographing, housework, photographing, etc.

- In selecting images to print for the show I routinely go through older photographs to look for gems that I may have overlooked. I usually find a few, and that may not have happened if I didn't have a reason to go back through the archives. So that is a good thing.

- Selecting prints for the show is a difficult process. I have made a lot of photographs that I think are pretty good, but I realize they may not appeal to a general audience. So I have to choose images that I think may have universal appear. Well, not totally universal, but they at least should sell a few copies through the year. I have made some great choices and some not-so-great ones. Hopefully this year will tend towards the better ones.

- And the last point leads to another ... that doing a small number of shows is tough on inventory control, which directly affects profitability. If during the course of the year I try printing 20 new images and do only a handful of shows, but only 10 prints sell, then I'm stuck with 10 prints for the next year. Or maybe I'm just not sure if they were good or not, since there were so few shows to judge with. But if I do more shows then at least the "dogs" have a better chance of selling and I can quickly retire poor-selling images and work in better pieces to replace them. So doing fewer shows limits your ability to "move merchandise", good and not-so-good merchandise alike. Moving good merchandise is not the problem, but you have a harder time moving the "other" stuff as well.

- Planning for a successful year in a tough economic environment is ... well ... tough. Knowing that sales might take a hit means producing works that out-sell the competition, lowering prices, offering different products, or any number of other measures. Each measure is time-consuming and potentially costly, so as in any other business I have to weigh the potential risk-vs-reward. For example offering smaller prints is not very costly up front, but by doing so I may hurt sales of my larger prints. And lowering prices may increase the number of sales, but the overall revenue may not rise much if at all.

Hopefully I'll see you at one of my shows this year.

Dogwoods

I love dogwoods. The color of their blooms are bright. The individual flowers have a great, strong shape with beautiful detail, especially the pink blooms. The trees typically look very balanced and clean, not messy.

But photographing them can be a challenge. As I was working a grove of dogwoods and I was constantly thinking about what the final image would look like and what feeling it would have. Shooting the trees from a distance would require a very unique composition or else it would look mundane and boring. Shooting the petals up close is always a challenge with flowering trees because getting a clean image without a mess of branches, leaves, and flowers is tough. I could always break off a branch and do a clean shot with a nice blurred background, and that would have been OK, but I also liked, in some way, having the tree involved.

I made a few nice images, one of them below. It is a fairly simple composition, with the large tree behind the pink dogwood providing some contrast for the pink flowers. It is not a perfect shot, but when I make a print of it I think it will hold its own hanging on the wall.

Foxy Update

The foxes at Tyler State Park have become very popular with local photographers. It is unusual for a den to be so close to the road and easily accessible. I only have a 300mm lens at the moment and I was able to get some very decent shots. Someone with a 400 or 500 could do very well with these little guys. Although such a big lens is not in the budget for me I am about to get a teleconverter to get me a little "closer". Hopefully these guys don't grow up too fast.

Family Fox

I was out for a late-day shoot, looking for flowering trees or other signs of spring. I had spent a few minutes shooting a tree at a local high school, then made my way to Tyler State Park to look for more. I didn't expect to find much there, as my observations have shown that flowers and flowering trees typically require personal care and are usually on private property, and rarely in local public parks.

So I drove in one entrance and not seeing anything of interest I made my way out to the main entrance. In the adjacent field I saw the shape of an animal, and I quickly realized that it was a fox. I had seen foxes in this park a few times, but this fox was only 20-30 feet from the roadside. And as I got closer I realized something even more amazing - this was a mother fox and and it was in the process of nursing four young fox pups.



I stopped the car and quickly changed lenses, and I was able to capture a series of images that I would have thought was improbable. After a minute or two of nursing the mother fox became aware of my presence (and the line of cars behind me, wondering what was going on).





After a short time of nervously examining her surrounding, and wondering if there was a threat to her family, the mother separated and walked a few yards up the hill, while the pups remained, content to play with each other.



But the mother did not go far ... she was in constant visual contact.



The pups continued to play for a while, and as the daylight subsided I was content to have been allowed to experience this wonderful private activity of these wild animals.

Showing Improvement

In my previous post I mentioned that every winter, in which there are usually periods of photographic dormancy, I consider the possibility of changing the direction of my work. In a similar vein I also review how and what I present at the various art fairs and shows throughout the year. I don't do a tremendous number of shows, mainly because of personal time constraints. But I am very critical of myself. I did not start my art fair participation with a large investment, so it is a gradual process of improvement for me.

Here are a few things that I will be working on for this year's shows:
- Better quality of frames
- Better selection and presentation of notecards
- Better method of transporting prints and frames
- Better signage
- New images

Each item is pretty self-explanatory and is geared towards either making my shows a better success financially, or streamlining the set-up/breakdown process without risking damage to my product.

In addition I have changed my schedule from previous years. I have kept the shows that have performed well for me and I have replaced the rest with shows that I believe will be a success.

This is a never-ending process. The art-fair circuit is becoming more difficult every year, with entrance fees going up and attendance (generally) flat or going down. And 2008 promises to be a rough year with the economy hitting a rough patch. We have to constantly look for areas of improvement. Unless an artist is very successful we cannot simply repeat the same process every year.

Getting Back Out Again

Winter was a little disappointing this year (so little snow), so I am very glad to see spring arrive. While I sat inside, doing very little photography I contemplated many things. As always I think about going in a different direction with my work. Over the course of a few months I view hundreds if not thousands of images, online and in print. I am constantly impressed by the originality and quality I see in other people's work. My tendency is to get a feeling of mediocrity, especially since I am unable to do much work for myself.

Although someday I will probably take a course change, I still feel like I have a lot of work to do on my current course. In my resurgent years of photography, starting about 5-6 years ago, I was enamored with digital equipment and relied on my own innate ability to make nice, technically acceptable photos. For much of that time I was merely producing a lot of "pretty pictures". It is only in the past 2-3 years that I think I have moved past that phase, albeit at a slow pace, and begun to challenge myself to make images that are many things: pleasing to look at, technically superior, and meaningful at some level. So for this reason, and others such as the fact that I really enjoy outdoor scenic photography, I will continue for some time perfecting my skills in the same arena.

The following image was made this weekend at Ralph Stover park in Bucks County. I am really pleased with the composition, the shapes and forms of the moving water, and the color tones. When I arrived at the park around dawn the hills around the creek kept the surroundings in flat, uninteresting light. When the sunlight began to hit I was rewarded with some beautiful tones and colors. Enjoy.

Single Snowfall

This winter has been relatively mild in the Philly area. Temperatures have dipped below freezing a few times, and we have gotten some rain, but the combination of cold weather and precipitation has been few and far between. So I could not pass up the opportunity to try and capture some compelling winter shots. Since we're almost into March I don't know if we'll get another significant snowfall this winter.

The "ideal" winter conditions are often hard to come across, especially for part-time photographers with day-jobs. If it's a weekday then after shoveling the driveway I'm off to work. By the time I get the chance to grab the camera and get out and shoot more often than not the snow has blown off the trees and/or rooftops, or the sun is out causing super-high contrasty conditions.

The other problem is simply one of mobility. I like to capture the scenes when they are mostly un-touched by man, wind, whatever. But that means getting out soon after the storm ends, but the road conditions are usually less than ideal and the plows are still roaming, causing additional headaches.

Yesterday there were only a few inches of snow so the road conditions were not that bad. The sky was still overcast, creating even light, but there was a light rain most of the day. That did not affect the snow too much in the scenes, but it made my job harder by trying to keep the camera and lens dry.

I did manage to capture a few nice shots, like the one below. Before long it will be spring and the snow will be a distant memory, unless you have a nice snow scene hanging on your wall.

Philly Oasis

On a short photo trip in Philly last weekend my first task was to find parking. I always avoid the parking garages because I know there are a lot of parking meters in the center city area. But in the area I was interested in, the historic "Old City" area north of Market Street and east of 8th Street (I don't really know the boundaries but this is a good approximation), I was having a hard time that day. But after driving in circles for a few minutes, and accidentally taking a short round-trip to New Jersey across the Ben Franklin Bridge, I found parking in what I call a little "oasis" in this area.

Now for people who live in that area I'm sure this is no surprise, but it was for me. This area is clean, not very busy with traffic, and with a bunch of free parking. The oasis lies between the Vine Street Expressway and the Ben Franklin Bridge, between 6th and 2nd Streets. Check out the Google Maps view of the area.

This beautiful historic church, the St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church, is the main icon in this area, although there are a number of other churches in this small area. There are lots of cobblestone streets as well.

It's a little tricky navigating this oasis because of the surrounding major roads and the one-way streets, but once you get familiar you can get through with few problems.

Newtown Study

I have a confession to make. I live near Newtown, Pa, a quaint old town in the middle of Bucks County. It has a lot of historic buildings and a nice main street. A great place to live.

But I simply cannot get inspired when I attempt to photograph this town. I often return to Newtown with the intention to overcome this deficiency of mine and to make some great images. But I usually leave disappointed. I don't want to simply document the historic buildings - I want to create interesting and unique compositions. I believe the town is so simple (not a detriment) that it does contain many eye-catching features that can be used as main subjects.

The following series of photographs are from a recent shoot that I think yielded some nice results. One feature that I have always like, even though it is not viewable along the main street, is the rear of the Newtown Hardware store. It is an old brick building with a rusty old fires escape and a smattering of windows. When I visited Newtown on this trip the sun was setting and it produced some really nice colors and shadows on this building.

I hope you enjoy them.

A Little Different

It's January and without snow this time of year yields few opportunities for scenic images, at least in my part of the world. The trees are bare, the skies are often dreary, and there is little color anywhere. Let's just say it is a "challenging" photographic environment.

I was out a week ago on the Washington Crossing bridge in the pre-dawn hour on a chilly morning. I was hoping to catch some nice morning light along the Delaware River. The cloudy skies worked against me, but as I walked along the bridge I was taken by some of the nuts and bolds holding this old bridge together. I liked the simple forms and shapes. And with the frost adding a bit of interest I just couldn't help making a few images of these things.

The image below is one example that I particularly like. It's nothing that I expect to sell (I may only make a print for myself) but I think it is a good example of simplicity that is so important in photography. The main subject is obvious, and I worked to get the threads in focus while throwing the background out of focus, since the background included the metal grating of the bridge's roadway.