Art shows, markets, selling art

I feel fortunate to have years and years of selling experience through my purse business because it's helping me broaden my thinking when it comes to photography.

When I started as a photographer, there wasn't an easy way to make reproductions. You just printed your work and that was it. Time consuming and expensive. Now, with fancy computers, scanners, printers, the internet... it's wide open. This is good and this is bad. While it expands the possibilities for those of us who need affordable outlets to produce art, it also means that anyone can do it.

My friend was talking to me the other day about how photography is a hard area to be in because now everyone has a sophisticated phone that takes photos that "look just like Holga photos". I choose to believe that there IS a difference. Maybe I'm delusional. I think there's more to the art form than snapping a photo and having a cool, computer generated border. As I type this, I'm fully aware that I've seen many iPhone photos with the Hipster-whatever-app applied and thought they were really cool.

Why bother with a plastic camera that you have to load with film ($), take images you won't see until the film is processed ($), then have to print ($) when you can whip out your phone and shoot a photo of, oh I don't know... a crack in the street, and have it look all arty and cool? For free!

But can the images be printed on archival, fiber based paper with rich tones that make you want to stare at the photos and absorb the depth of the images? (or, who cares... add it to Facebook and be done with it). Who's grumpy?

I think I have an overly romantic idea of photography that will always keep me in the darkroom with film and chemicals.

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I just applied to my first art show. It was the only one I could enter because I have yet to have a booth shot! This application didn't require one. It's a show in Texas, in July. Outside.

Suffer for art.

I'm working on making displays to show my photography and it's pretty fun. What I have for my purse displays doesn't work for art. It's too utilitarian, too heavy, and not what art shows are looking for. What I'm rigging up, for now, is made with galvanized steel flashing and screen doors. When I'm finished, I'll show you! So far, so good.

Here's an image from the vault:

near Bustamante, Mexico