My photography is being exhibited!

[thewayne]

A few weeks there was an international event called Photo Walk. Locally there was a group in El Paso, and I went with a group of friends. We all had a lot of fun and I got some good shots. They're going an exhibition, you could submit an image that was 12x18" and pay $35 per print, and you get the print when the show is over. So I submitted three.


Of the three, this is my favorite. And it's not being shown. They don't like the fact that it's such a narrow image, even though it's within the print parameters. And if you were to crop the image and cut off the clouds, the image sucks and loses all impact. Oh, well.


I really like this image, catching the guy leaning against the wall really makes it for me.


This one I think is kinda cool, but not as good as the first one.

Regardless, it'll be interesting to be in an exhibition. Even if I don't get to show the print that I want seen.

Comments

[moiraj.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic. Congratulations!

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I only wish they'd printed it, I'm confident they're going to have other prints on display that also aren't full frame. I will be able to print it and matte it eventually, I'm just not sure when.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to agree - the first one really grabs me, whereas the third's more something interesting, worth looking at. How frustrating! I suppose if they insisted, I'd offer to crop off some of the bottom instead, around the top of the pillar close-ish to the camera.

That's something that struck me, of course, when it came time to get my prints site ready - what aspect ratio(s) to offer! Digitally, of course, it doesn't matter - any's as good as any other, within reason. (As it turned out, I settled on 3:2 for most of them. It's curious, how long it can sometimes take to find just the right crop, so the elements feel balanced, and there's nothing showing through of what's been excluded, like a stray twig)

In any event, hope it goes well! I'd love to have my work exhibited. Really a matter, I suppose, of sniffing out local-ish galleries' sites, and contacting the curators, to find out if there might be interest, perhaps as part of a broader nature/wildlife exhibition.

Will they be offering to sell that print, or copies, or is it purely for viewing? Beer bought with photography proceeds would surely taste all the sweeter. ^_^

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It turns out that all of the images were printed on metallic paper, which looked really good for mine (a friend was hoping that the color on his print would pop, and it did not) and that all of the images were mounted in wood frames, all the same size.

There was a little that could have possibly been cropped from the bottom, but not enough to make a difference, I think some of that foreground is needed. The reason why the image was so tall is I shot it with a 24mm to get as much of the image as I could, so the building was elongated and falling backwards. I used Photoshop's perspective alteration to straighten it, which also compressed the clouds linearly and made them much more interesting, and had to crop it to these proportions. (maybe I'll post what the uncropped image looks like after the perspective correction) During the shoot I only had my 24-105 kit lens, I think I'll be going back to El Paso this Saturday and maybe my wife will indulge me and I can see what my 17-40 will produce, though it's doubtful that the clouds will be cooperative.

Thinking about cropping, before I learned how to cut mattes I frequently printed full frame. I had a special easel that maintained the 35mm 3:2 aspect ratio and banded out, compared to the classic 8x10 easel with the 4:5 ratio, which was perfect if you shot a 4x5 view camera or even 120 roll film with its 6x6cm image. I've also used sliding easels where you could vary the crop on the print all over the place, but I didn't care for those as it was easy to be inconsistent with them. I preferred printing it at 3:2 and then doing the crop with cutting the window on the cover matte. Speaking of which, I need to remember to buy some more mattes when I'm in Phoenix next weekend. I could buy them online for less, but I like supporting my fav camera store, I've been buying there for 35ish years.

This show was at the Consulate General of Mexico (they had some AMAZING musicians there!), and it was just an exhibition with no sales, though apparently there are at least one or two more shows to follow before the prints are sent back to us. The organizer speaks very little English and I effectively don't speak Spanish, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Great stuff! I do like the crop on the first one, it makes for a really interesting composition. And you're right, the B/W does make the sky look ominous! I almost never change the aspect ratio when I crop, I should try doing that now and then.

I like the third one too, the B/W treatment works well and it's a very cool blend of contrasts and textures and shapes. Almost abstract, and yet what could be more concrete, literally? :)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

The crop is actually inadvertent: the original shot was at 24mm to capture everything, and the building was falling over backwards. I used Photoshop's perspective tool to bring the building more vertical, and this was the minimum crop that cut out the triangular lines from the tool.

I also like the third one, it's actually the first building's right side, largely in shadow because of the brightness of the left side.