I haven't made many photographs lately. I have several excuses/explanations, but I'll focus on just one here. I have been preoccupied with organizing a series of exhibits for our New Mexico Film Photographers group which meets monthly in Albuquerque.
Our first exhibit was last September at the Juan Tabo branch library on the City's east side up against the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. It was a show designed to be inclusive with no restrictions regarding subjects or framing styles. That turned out to be challenging as all the pictures had to be suspended from wires or pasted on the wall. We hung a couple dozen prints from nine photographers. It ended up looking pretty good and it was a useful learning experience for everyone, including the photographers and the library staff. We had a brief opening ceremony and then adjourned to a nearby pub to celebrate.
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| A friend and Margaret at Juan Tabo |
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| Documenting the event with the Olympus 35rc |
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Celebrating at the pub
(photos from Margaret's cellphone) |
I was contacted recently by the director of the Los Griegos branch library on the other side of town who asked if we might like to do a show there. I was not initially enthralled with doing another exhibit so soon, but got more enthusiastic about the idea after visiting the site and thinking about the possibilities. The Art Wall has a good hanging system and good lighting. There is a table for printed material and a glass display case. We agreed on doing an exhibit in March with prints from the Albuquerque group. While we were at it I also scheduled another show for September at the same location.
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| The Wall |
I have proposed that the group take advantage of lessons learned from the first exhibit. We will require that all prints have standard mats and frames with wire hangers which should make hanging a snap. The March exhibit will be entitled "Film is Back!" with a focus on the What and How of current day film photography. Instead of a poster on the wall we will have info handouts and 4x6 prints for people to take home -- the idea being to better engage visitors with the information about the group and the work of the participating photographers. I am also going to display a number of my old cameras in the available glass case.
For the September exhibit I am hoping to cast a wider net to bring in some work from film photographers from around the State of New Mexico. The title for that show will be "Boxes, Toys and Pinholes; Art from Simple Cameras".
So that is the plan so far. Prior to this I have hung only a few prints at home and I have entered one print in one exhibit since we moved to Albuquerque ten years ago.
4 comments:
How exciting! Who knew you'd be a preparator and a curator one day.
I don't have any ambitions beyond being a volunteer facilitator for the group. I'm pleased I still have the time and energy. I do like the idea of working cooperatively with the public libraries, the original expression of the "information wants to be free" idea.
This is so cool! I've printed a few of my favorite black and white shots and hope to do more this year. I will only exhibit them in my home office though. Good luck with these future exhibitions!
I'm not real interested in hard copy prints and in exhibiting my own work. However, I do enjoy the face-to-face encounters with local film photographers and I have learned a lot over the last year about aspects of film photography that I likely would not have come across otherwise. Contrary to my expectations the monthly meetings do not provide a very good environment for showing people's work, so the exhibits are a way to accomplish that. I was initially hopeful that more in the local group would get behind sharing their work on our Flickr group, but it turns out to be difficult to move people into a new on line site since they have become comfortable with other options.
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