here is the notice from the Washington Post’s Weekend section about the opening we had this past Sunday for the Alternative Visions show.

Washington Post Notice, Photoworks Exhibit

I was tickled that we got mentioned and one of the images by one of our artists was featured in the column, as the WaPo’s Arts section is notoriously unfriendly to local artists.

The evening was a big success – I think we had 50 people come for the artists’ talk and reception, despite the miserable weather all day. My work in the show was some of my 5×7 palladium prints from my trip to Argentina. One thing that I focused on in my artists talk was the story behind each photograph, as opposed to the technical details of its production, which other artists spent a fair bit more time talking about. I know if I went to a gallery talk by a painter, I’d much rather hear them talk about the content of their images than which brush they used. I think it’s a general shortcoming of photographers (I can do it too) to get caught up in the technical details of image production, in part out of a desire to share the knowledge to preserve it, in part to inspire others to try, and in part out of our own fascination and joy at the “wow, I DID this!” factor that is always there (for me at least) every time you successfully produce a print via a chemical process. 20 years on into this passion, I still have that “wow” factor every time I develop a print that works. In the first days of learning, I’d get the “wow” even if the print was crap, just because I made the chemical process work. I’m a little more finicky now and get excited when I see a GOOD print appear in the soup.

Anyway, here I am, talking about my work. You can see one of my prints to my right (your left) in the image.

On a separate note, my platinum/palladium printing class is officially sold out, so I will be offering it again in the fall. Stay tuned for dates/times. I’m very excited about the class, and can’t wait to see how it goes. I’ll also be offering some additional classes in the fall, including a Photo History class (probably) and a one-evening “Collecting and Preserving Antique Images” lecture, where I’ll be trotting out parts of my own collection for people to see real life examples of various antique photographic media.