Lauren Henkin Blog » General

What’s Ahead for 2012…

Lauren Henkin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:45:43 +0000

I want to take a moment, before talking about 2012, to thank those of you that have made 2011 inspiring, educational, and memorable. It’s been a great year filled with images, books, shows, decks of cards and new challenges. I am so grateful to all of you who have supported my work and me…

I have big plans for 2012 and hope you all can share in them in some way:

Teaching
I’m thrilled to be teaching two upcoming workshops, “Turning Toward Books” on bookmaking and self-publishing. Lúz Gallery in Victoria, BC will be hosting a two-day version of this workshop on April 21st and 22nd and I will be teaching a full week workshop starting on July 8th at the Maine Media Workshops.

Topics will include:
Why self publish?
Benefits and challenges of self publishing
How to publish
How to market & distribute
Case studies
Resources and Tools

We’ll be looking at lots of sample books and case studies, evaluating your own work, and I will be providing in-depth presentations of the steps required to complete a book. My hope is that you will leave with the inspiration, tools, and resources to finish your book project. All of the following material will be presented within the context of my own experiences in publishing.

I will also be teaching a workshop at Newspace Center for Photography on ‘Building a Portfolio.’ I have wanted to teach this kind of intensive workshop for a long time, so I’m really happy that it’s finally happening. I believe, right now, there is only 1 slot left, so if you’re interested, please don’t wait. For more information, click here.

Books
I am now working on my next handmade book of my series, Still Standing, Standing Still. This portfolio contains 14 images of a single tree in Oregon. I’ll be working with binder Rory Sparks on what is going to be a very unique book. I’m working on a second handmade book as well, which I hope to release this Fall.

I am partnering again with Kirsten Rian on a new project, details to follow. We have met a few times to talk about this new project and I feel that this will be something completely new and challenging for us as well as viewers. Stay tuned for more details on that project which is unnamed at this point.

I’m also looking to expand Vela Noche’s published works with a handmade book of another artist’s work, as I did with Dale Schreiner. I will not be taking submissions, but will be hunting around for work that inspires me. I already have a few ideas in mind, but haven’t committed yet.

All of my completed projects are now available online at the just completed website for my imprint, Vela Noche.

Shows
I will be having my first show of books at 23 Sandy Gallery here in Portland during Portland Photo Month. Really looking forward to exploring how an exhibition of books differs from one of prints. I’ll be writing more about this as I get a little closer to the show, which I believe will be in April. Still Standing, Standing Still will be presented for the first time at that show as well as all of the other titles I’ve published including Dale Schreiner’s Thereafter.

I’ve also been busy redesigning my website which will enable me to present my work in a much more flexible and interesting format online. I hope to get the new site completed in the next month.

Travel
I will be traveling down to Los Angeles in January to attend photo LA and continue photographing for Growth. Fotofest 2012 will also be a destination for me this year. I’ve never been to Fotofest so I’m interested to see how it differs from photolucida and other portfolio review events. My aim, in going, was to meet with reviewers outside the US as my work has always been well received in international competitions. I will be writing more about my experiences and reviews when I’m there in March.

For the first time, I will be spending the whole summer in Maine. I will be staying close to the workshops in Rockport and spending a good deal of time photographing for a new series.

Writing
I’ve been really excited about expanding The Photographer’s Alternative Reading List. I’m reading another book right now that is perfect for this list and as I consider titles, I am realizing how valuable this can be for photographers. Look for the next post in that series in the coming month and please let me know if you have any suggestions!

I’m also writing my first article for PDN on handmade books which should come out in March. The article talks about the benefits and challenges of handmade books, financing issues, and marketing and distribution. While it’s difficult to squeeze all of that into only a few words, my hope is that it will get you started, or even prompt you to take one of the longer workshops to gain even more of an insight into this wonderful area of self-publishing.

I think that about covers it! As I’ve learned, there are always new surprises and challenges that I don’t anticipate. Glad to know you all will be there with me, through the good and bad, for another exciting year to come.

May the coming year be filled with open spaces…

Introducing ‘The Lookbook Series Volume I: Growth’

Lauren Henkin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:54:27 +0000

When my show at Newspace Center for Photography ended, I wrestled with how to present this new work to a broader audience. I spent a great deal of time working on the installation of the show and I felt satisfied that the consideration I gave to rhythm, spacing, sizing and craft gave the viewer the most accessible way to see the photographs for the first time. But, the question persisted, How will this work live on?

What I’ve decided to do is publish a series of small soft-bound catalogs, The Lookbook Series. A Lookbook will be published for each portfolio of images. The first has been printed for my new series, Growth. These Lookbooks will be the only way, at least for now, to view this series. I may decide to publish the images online at some point, but I feel, as I did for the exhibition, that presenting the work in print, is the best initial presentation for my work.

Growth was offset-printed and measures 6″ x 7.3″ in size with 40 pages, 33 images from the portfolio and the project statement.

I am offering the first in the series at $18.

If you are interested in starting your Lookbook collection, please either click on the purchase button below and you will be taken to my imprint, Vela Noche.

Thank you all, as always, for your continued support.

Transience

Lauren Henkin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:00:59 +0000

The stone on the beach evaporates.
The lake is gone in the sun.
Animals’ desert skeletons
concealed in eternal sand.
Things wander,
die in each other,
sail like thoughts
in the soul of space.
Caravans of living sand.

Is this a threat?
Where is my heart?
Caught in the stone.
Concealed in a lake.
Beating deep
inside a humped camel
lying and groaning
and dying in sand.

— Inger Christensen

Introducing Thereafter and Vela Noche

Lauren Henkin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:26:27 +0000

I am so pleased to introduce my latest foray in publishing… Thereafter is a new book of photographs by artist Dale Schreiner published by my imprint, Vela Noche.

This is the first time I’ve published someone else’s work so I feel the process is worthy of some explanation. I met Dale in early 2009. He was attending the critique group I led at Newspace Center for Photography here in Portland. In 2010 I taught an intensive portfolio building workshop. The class had three students which meant there was time in each session to deeply delve into what they had made and discuss where to go next with the work. The goal of the workshop, which lasted over 4 months, was to complete a body of work between fifteen and twenty images. Dale was one of my students in the class and up until the class, all I had seen from him were singular images.

It wasn’t until the end of the workshop that he started to bring in images that would begin to have focus. He began photographing a local park as frequently as he could, and although unsure about what the draw was to it, he persisted and slowly, a series emerged. We didn’t quite know what to make of it at first. There were classical landscape images but also ones that suggested a hard beauty—images that subtly referenced crime scenes.

When he fully committed to this series, the workshop ended and because it had taken him a while to find something worthy of a series, we continued to meet about the work. I wanted him to finish it, he was on to something, although we both still weren’t sure what yet. By then, I had known Dale for a couple of years and had the luxury of knowing what was happening in his personal life. During the months in which he made these images, he had suffered a tragic loss. His father had been shot to death in the middle of the night in his home. There weren’t many details to be had, acceptance was the only option. There was an ambiguity to the crime that haunted him. I started to see that come through in the images—references to crime scenes, hardscapes within the natural, and general uncertainty.

I’m not sure Dale saw these references at first, or if he even wanted to see them. He didn’t talk about what happened to his father very much. It was my belief, that instead, he spoke of it through the images. We started to feel this project could come together as a book, a short tale of loss and forced acceptance. After about eight months of photographing and meeting, we started to pair images together. Everything started to make sense. Where individual images presented a singular perspective of what happened, the pairs presented the full story. With some spreads, we purposely paired one hardscape image with a softer one; with others, we instinctually matched images that felt like partners to communicate ambiguity, loss, and evidence.

I had never followed the development of a series like this in someone else’s work. Of course I knew what it was to build one, but what I didn’t have in trying to guide Dale, was the context of the images taken. I didn’t know what he had left out of the frame, what it was like to walk through these areas, or his perspective on what were the strongest images, which were the weakest and which he had an emotional connection to. I could merely see them multiply from an outsider’s view and hope that my eyes would accurately lead him to a place that made sense, both conceptually and visually.

At this point, we still hadn’t talked about how this book would be published. We agreed it should be a handmade book. The thought of creating new life from our own hands (in the form of a book) from death, felt like the right and only path here. I didn’t know, moving forward, that I would be the one to publish the book. I had been publishing my own books for a few years, and I was in the process of building a website for my imprint, Vela Noche. But at that time, I hadn’t planned on publishing the work of others—it was simply to be a site to sell my own books. But, as this project grew stronger and stronger, and as I became as equally embedded in it as he was, I felt compelled to move forward as both editor and publisher.

Here are images of the spreads:

We started to work out the details, from sizing of both of the book itself as well as the images on the pages, along with quantity for the edition, image tone, book cloth, end sheets, and the ultimate struggle, the title. We eventually, painfully, concluded that Thereafter was the best title. It would allude to the conclusion of one’s life and Dale’s ongoing struggle to cope with the aftermath of the events. The design started to take shape. We settled on book cloth that had a distinct texture resembling tree bark and chose to vertically align the grooves to make the reference more obvious. And once all of these decisions were made, I got to printing the edition of 20. We went together to meet with Sandy Tilcock (lone goose press), the binder I worked with on my last book, to decide the final binding method, solve out how the title would be embedded into the textured cover, and other final details.

Here are images of the completed book:

We received the first copy of the final book on Dale’s birthday last month. I know it was important to him, to see it, hold it, and realize this achievement on the marker of a passing decade. Maybe it will help him resolve this ugly chapter in his life, maybe it will redeem a part of this difficult year, maybe it will simply validate that he can build a cohesive series of images. Whatever the result, it is a huge accomplishment for me. In one act, handing over the first copy of his first book, I experienced a level of pride and satisfaction I’d never had before, as an educator, fellow artist, and now, publisher.

I don’t know if I will publish other artists’ work. Maybe this was a one-time deal. For now, I will simply make introductions to both Thereafter and Vela Noche, and thank you all, as always, for your continued support.

To visit Vela Noche, or to purchase Dale’s book, please go to www.velanoche.com.

Falling for the QR

Lauren Henkin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:09:43 +0000

While I have quite a bit to write about how I designed my last show at Newspace, I must admit that there was so much thought and planning, that I’m not really sure where to start. So, I thought I would write about a small piece that seemed to be new and successful.

I love going to artist talks. I love hearing an artist talk about their work, their process and inspiration. Some feel that images should speak for themselves, without the need for explanation. While I agree that it shouldn’t be necessary, it has only enhanced the viewing process for me when I’m in a large museum for instance and looking at abstract paintings or sculpture and feeling like I’m completely missing out. A curator’s guidance, tour, or translation often can transform viewing a show from frustration and even feeling left out, to making some long-lasting connection with an artist’s work. Because this latest series was more conceptual and demanded more from the viewer than in past series, I felt like I needed to offer a lifeline. So, I recorded an audio tour for the show which I’ve been told was listened to and greatly appreciated.

The question was how to incorporate the audio with the actual experience of viewing. Would I provide a cd, or some kind of download that people could prepare on a listening device before coming to the show? I eventually settled on incorporating a QR code into the title/specification sheet that I had letterpress printed locally. The QR code would enable anyone with a smart phone to use audio as an accompaniment to the visual. I wasn’t sure that a QR code (which you can find mostly on direct mailers) would actually work with letterpress printing. The artists I worked with to produce the pieces, Meegan Keegan didn’t know either. They were willing to experiment and discovered that it would and did work and ended up writing about it on their blog which you can visit by clicking here.

Here are images of how the card turned out (courtesy of Meegan Keegan):

I also used a QR code on one of the project statements for a body of work titled The Lines Between Us, photographs taken on the various cross-country train rides I’ve taken over the last 4 years. The cinematic quality of my work is growing, and for this series, I wanted to incorporate a piece of music to the experience of viewing this wall of images (seen below printed on the project statement).

To create a QR code, you can go to numerous sites that will ask for the web address, text or even e-mail address you want the code to link to. There are sites (like this one) that even will create a vector .eps file so you can enlarge the code to the size you want in Adobe Illustrator.

I think, like anything, the QR code needs to be used in moderation, and appropriately. That said, I think it’s a great tool for connecting with your viewers and integrating new technologies with old ones.

Happy QRing!

Introducing: Deck of Chords

Lauren Henkin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:13:24 +0000

I am so excited to offer Deck of Chords, with my ongoing collaborator, writer Kirsten Rian.

We are self-publishing a full deck of offset-printed playing cards. Each card front features an image of mine from an unpublished portfolio titled The Lines Between Us, and on the back, a poem by Kirsten. There are 52 cards in total plus a signed cover card.

This design is completed, prototype printed, and we are expecting to receive the final pieces in a few weeks. Until then, we’ve decided to offer a pre-sale price of $14 which includes shipping to anywhere in the US. After November 1st, the price will go up to $19. Please email me if you are outside of the US and I will give you an estimate for shipping.

To purchase, please click here and you will be taken to my imprint, Vela Noche.

Thank you all for your support.

The Photographer’s Alternative Reading List: The Shallows

Lauren Henkin — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:05:22 +0000

Over the last year I’ve noticed a shift in what I’m reading. I’m less inclined now to be reading books on photography and more likely to be reading about building trust in yourself, the importance of architecture, the dangers of consumption, and lots of poetry. I’m not sure what spawned this shift, but it is these books, on topics that are outside the visual arts, that have encouraged a heightened sensitivity to the world around me, and my ability to communicate, both in words and images.

I thought it might be useful to start a new feature on the blog called A Photographer’s Alternative Reading List. The list is meant to share what I’ve been reading that has broadened my perspective on being a better communicator, artist, and person. I hope, that if you choose to read any of these books, that you will take as much away from them as I have.

The first book I wanted to share is titled The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that of late, I’ve been very concerned with how images are being digested when presented online, and whether to alter the presentation of my own work because of it. In a previous post titled Casual Consumption, I wrote simply about what I’m experiencing as a result of showing my work online, and my fears about where we are heading with this onslaught of visual imagery. I had no factual evidence for what I was feeling, simply a gut reaction to my own experiences. The Shallows has further deepened that sense of dread.

The book opens with a quote from John Keats:

“And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain…”

The fundamental premise of the book is that the internet, is at it’s core, is a medium of distraction and that the more we engage it, the more it disassembles our ability to focus, digest information, remember, and possibly most important to us artists, engage in the creative process with the deep meaning that comes from quiet contemplation.

The book is not a diatribe. It methodically presents how information has been communicated and digested throughout history, from oral communication to scrolls to the origination of the first printing press and codex to the birth of all that is digital. The increasing ability to study neuroplasticity, or the ability of the brain and nervous system to change structurally as a result of input from the environment is also presented in depth. The loss of our capacity to memorize and focus are main themes and a case is made that the internet actually encourages us not to focus, but procrastinate. Procrastinate what exactly? I can guess that it was the work and mental energy needed to delve into something meaningful whether that is a long piece of writing, or, as I fear, worthy imagery as well.

One fascinating passage talks about the role that long-term memory plays in our ability to process complex ideas or thoughts. In this paragraph, Carr is quoting John Sweller, an Australian education psychologist who has spent three decades studying how our minds process information.

“In order for us to think about something we’ve previously learned or experienced, our brain has to transfer the memory from long-term memory back into working memory. “We are only aware that something was stored in long-term memory when it is brought down into working memory,” explains Sweller. It was once assumed that long-term memory served merely as a big warehouse of facts, impressions, and events, that it “played little part in complex cognitive processes such as thinking and problem-solving.” But brain scientists have come to realize that long-term memory is actually the seat of understanding. It stores not just fact but complex concepts, or “schemas.” By organizing scattered bits of information into patterns of knowledge, schemas give depth and richness to our thinking. “Our intellectual prowess is derived largely from schemas we have acquired over long periods of time,” says Sweller.

Another interesting point was made when describing the research that Jakob Nielson, a consultant on the design of web pages who has been studying online reading since the 1990s, has been done on how we actually read text on a monitor:

“Fast. That’s how users read your precious content. In a few seconds, their eyes move at amazing speeds across your website’s words in a pattern that’s very different from what you learned in school.’ …most Web pages are viewed for ten seconds or less. Fewer than one in ten page views extend beyond two minutes, and a significant portion of those seem to involve ‘unattended browser windows left open in the background of the desktop.’”

While this research was conducted with an emphasis on how we read text on the web, I cannot help but believe that images, in their visually accessible nature, garner even less time.

Undoubtedly, the internet has made my work available to a much wider international audience. But… if that new audience isn’t really processing the work in any kind of meaningful or lasting way; if that new audience is using my images in the same way that we are using all internet content—as another method of distraction—then what’s the point of gaining that wider audience?

Another interesting passage was a discussion of how we interact with the tools we use and how we adapt to them. Carr writes:

“Whenever we use a tool to exert greater control over the outside world, we change our relationship with that world. Control can be wielded only from a psychological distance. In some cases, alienation is precisely what gives a tool its value. We build houses and sew Gore-Tex jackets because we want to be alienated from the wind and the rain and the cold. We build public sewers because we want to maintain a healthy distance from our own filth. Nature isn’t our enemy, but neither is it our friend. …an honest appraisal of any new technology, of progress in general, requires a sensitivity to what’s lost as well as what’s gained. We shouldn’t allow the glories of technology to blind our inner watchdog to the possibility that we’ve numbed an essential part of our self.”

I just took down probably the largest show I will have in quite a while. With each show I am lucky enough to secure, I am reminded of what gives me the most joy in creating art—the ability for those very few people who do take the time and make some deep connection with it, to understand me and how I see the world. That connection is why I do what I do. It’s worth the frustration, the rejection, and the financial strain.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, Ok, so you’re not making those connections online. But still, what is the harm, why prevent a potential connection by keeping the images offline?

This is the tougher question to grapple with. But again, in my gut, I feel that by further populating this infinitely large cyber repository of imagery, that I will, in some way, be participating in the perpetuation of this medium of distraction—that in my small way, I will be procreating even more noise, not art, not shared human experiences.

The last thing I want, thirty years from now, when looking back on my life’s work, is to conclude that my small contribution to this world has been the numbing of anything—but especially the minds I had hoped to connect with, excite, and inspire.

Growth

Lauren Henkin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:55:39 +0000

I’ve had two major surgeries in the last 12 months.

8.6 x 6.4 x 3.8
In 2004, I first learned of a growth in my abdomen. It was a benign tumor, but unusual to have at 29 years. My doctor said it would expand and should be removed surgically. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want surgery. I could barely stand a flu shot much less the thought of being cut open. At the time, I thought the best course was inaction — maybe it wouldn’t grow, maybe it would shrink.

What I wasn’t aware of was that this thing would grow into such a large mass that I would feel incessantly uncomfortable in my skin and ever-aware of it’s ability to further embed itself within me.

Six years later I was 35, divorced and without kids. After years of steady growth, it would deceive me into believing that it was a baby I was carrying — a clever disguise to avoid removal by a woman already fearful about a future alone. Having it inside me, increasing with a sense of entitlement and feeling more and more like a child was a bittersweet reality to face every night lying in bed, always questioning why the life I planned wasn’t the one I was living.

10.8 x 8.7 x 7.2
During the first few years of living with this invader, I became used to the frequent sonograms and exams. The resulting number combinations measuring the size of my growth held greater and greater meaning. I began to know, without needing to reference previous year’s results, what the numbers referred to—how much wider, how much longer, how much deeper. I could, by memory, immediately assess by how much the new dimensions surpassed the old ones.

12.2 x 7.8 x 9.3
A week before Thanksgiving 2009 I met my doctor once again for an exam. The conversation began unexpectedly. Instead of being presented with numbers, I was told, “We have another issue to talk about.” I didn’t want to know.

One of my ovaries had been aggressively taken over by some other, completely new growth. Maybe it was cancer, maybe it wasn’t. They wouldn’t know for sure until it was removed and tested. The doctors assured me that the chances were low that it was cancer, but the thought that haunted me was of someone taking what was mine since birth. It felt like a violent crime — and one requiring my consent. One week later I was in surgery.

I was asked if I wanted to remove the older mass at the same time. Kill two birds with one scalpel. No thanks. It was happening too quickly and in some strange way, it had become an adopted part of me. It felt as wrong approving it’s demise as it did to cut out my ovary.

11.6 x 8.4 x 10.6
Sometime before this first surgery, I began photographing urban landscapes — trees, weeds, shrubs and other vegetation attempting to grow in unlikely places. At times invasive, at times reclaiming, at times succumbing, it was hard to know whether to champion these subjects or hone my garden shears. There is a fine line between what is deemed invasive and what is merely reclaiming a rightful environment. Who am I to judge, even when the domain is my own body? I never connected these urban growths to the ones in me. I was drawn to them because they persevere. They are survivors. Emerging through asphalt, suffocated by electrical wires, trapped between buildings, standing proud even in defeat, they are both accommodating and unyielding. I respect them.

17.8 x 11.9 x 8.6
Eight months after my first surgery and I felt the most uncomfortable yet. I didn’t sleep easily. I like lying on my stomach, but could no longer. My clothes were tight despite eating less and less. I was exhausted. I learned at my next appointment that the large tumor still in me merged with smaller ones, making all of my symptoms more acute. I could feel its shape within me. Any attachment I had, as an adopted part of my body, was quickly disintegrating. Exactly one year after removing my ovary, I decided again to undergo elective surgery and the six hours it would take to slowly extract it.

I didn’t make a connection between what I was seeing on my ground glass and what was inside me until I visited the studio of a fellow artist and examined some x-rays she had hanging. Immediately, it made sense. I was connecting that which I had tracked for so long in my body with similar tales of survival in the external landscape. These humble subjects, ones I found beautiful, would enable me to let go of the fear and willingly accept these aggressive beings that will, most likely, be in me for the rest of my life.

For me, it’s difficult to think of plants as invasive. But in these contexts, deeply embedded in the industrial urban fabric, they are just that. They are what don’t belong. I needed to change my perception of what is “invasive” — to find some kind of respect for anything that persists in growth, no matter what the environment. I fear that someday I will breed a tumor that isn’t benign and will eventually succeed in its attempt to overtake. For now, I am content to photograph growth I could favor, that of the natural reclaiming a small piece of its habitat.

Thank you to all of you who have helped me in the production of this work, either through printing, editing, sequencing, and/or general support. Special thanks to Dale Schreiner, Kirsten Rian, Michael Borek, Beth Kerschen and especially, Tyler Boley.

Hope to see you all in September.

Thoughts on Jurying From a Photographer

Lauren Henkin — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:51:50 +0000

These past couple of weeks I’ve been pre-screening the submissions for this year’s Photolucida Critical Mass program. I’ve never juried anything of this scale before and while I’m used to critiquing and reviewing work one-on-one with photographers, this is a completely new experience for me. 700 photographers + 7,000 images = a ton of work… and a unique opportunity. There have been countless times that I’ve submitted my own work to competitions and for juried shows, never to understand the perspective of those looking at the images, what they might be looking for, what order of priorities might be in place, what the level and quality of the other work submitted was. I thought that by writing my experiences in jurying, it might give my fellow artists a glimpse into how to better prepare for submissions. Let me preface all of this by saying that this is merely my own perspective. Other jurors, most likely, have different priorities when viewing work, and may have a different process for viewing work online.

All that being said, here are my thoughts:

Artist Statements
For me, it’s critical to read each artist statement before I look at the images. I’m sure the reverse is true for many jurors, but I want to have some idea about what I’m going to see and what the intent of the artist is before delving into imagery. I read every artist statement. Because there are so many entries to see, I have to read quickly, so the statements that get read in full are those that are limited to about 3 short paragraphs. I have to say that about 85% of these statements need major work. The language is often vague, process-oriented, filled with art-speak, and generally, not helpful to understanding what the work is about. I truly believe that I’d rather see something like, “I made these images simply because I felt compelled to do so.” than most of what I’m having to read with these entries. If you are not a good writer, or struggle with writing about your work, try to write three paragraphs and answer the following questions:

Why do you photograph?
Why did you make this work?
How does this work relate to who you are as an artist?

If you can just answer these clearly, you’ll be way ahead of what’s out there.

The Viewing Process
These images, on both my laptop and desktop at my studio, are larger in size than what exists on many blogs or social media outlets. When the images load, I see the top of the image first and as it loads down I begin to see the rest. This is a small point, but I found it interesting how many times I noticed technical flaws in images because I was forced to see the tops, or edges of the image before the centers. If you have blown-out edges, or a lot of digital noise in the upper part of your image, that’s what I saw first. Just a reminder to make sure you look at your files from corner to corner, not only where the focal point of your image may be.

Hierarchy of Ratings
There are four ratings that you can give to a body of work. Naturally, I save the lowest score for work that I cannot connect with in any way, and the highest score for work that I feel is publication-worthy. The trouble areas are in the middle. How I decide between these middle ratings depends on how I answer two questions, Do I feel this work is or should be still in development? and Have I seen enough that is at a high level of quality that I would want to see more? If I feel that the work should still be development, I go with the lower of the middle scores. If I feel that it could be complete, or close to completion and that I’d like to see more, then I give the higher of the middle scores. This can be tough at times, and where strong sequencing and editing really help.

So what am I evaluating when looking at these portfolios, specifically? This is the list and the order varies depending on the intent of the artist and my own interpretation of the work (keep in mind that the list is in no particular order):

Concept
Subject
Composition
Technical Ability (how well are the online images crafted – please no more purple skies)
Writing
Beauty (yes, this does matter to me)
Mood
Context

Other Notes
I made some other notes on interesting things that I’ve seen.

1 One photographer submitted nine images instead of ten. I actually appreciated that. It said to me that this person was confident enough to realize that they didn’t have ten strong images and that they would just put forth what they thought was worthy. If you don’t have ten really strong images, but you have nine, maybe it’s worth just submitting those? I don’t know how other judges reacted to this, but I found it interesting.

2 A few photographers used one of their ten entries for images that weren’t photographs in their portfolios. For example, one used an installation shot which I found very smart because the installation of the work was very important to how I interpreted the images. Another used a shot of an actual book which is how they saw their work being presented in it’s final format. Seeing these were extremely informative in understanding how the artist would want the work presented.

3 With pricing, if you’re not sure what to price your work at, you should do some research and try to go to more gallery shows where you can see what similar work is priced. I saw a range of prices, from $75 up to $4000. I have to say that if someone prices their work at $100 for a 16×20 print, it does make me wonder how much experience they have in showing and how active they are in the community, because you would know that for a relatively accomplished photographer, a 16×20 print would sell for much more than $100. Remember, all of what you apply with, from website addresses, to pricing, to writing, to image preparation, gives jurors clues as to your credibility as a working artist—best to use every opportunity to show that you working and connected to what is happening in this community.

4 I really think all of us need to read Bruce Fraser’s Real World Book on Sharpening. This is my bible for sharpening images. There are so many files that I see online that could be made so much better if sharpened properly. I’m not going to use any of the images I saw with the submissions as an example, but below I have one of my own. The first is undersharpened which is what I’m seeing in most cases with the entries. The bottom one is sharpened to how I would want it viewed. Again, this is a personal preference, and maybe most felt that they wanted a softer look, but with so many like that, I started to question it.

My hope in writing this is that you might think as carefully about the presentation of your submissions that are viewed online as you do for galleries.

more later…

Casual Consumption

Lauren Henkin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:45:17 +0000

With all of the chatter over the last few days on the benefits/detriments of viewing photographs online, I thought I would expand my comments from the original blog post that brought forth the discussion on The Ten Blog.

Jennifer Schwartz of the Jennifer Schwartz Gallery was kind enough to ask me to contribute to this post. It was difficult to invest as much time into my response as I would have liked because when I got Jennifer’s request I had literally just checked into a hotel for my last night’s stay in Seattle after spending 5 exhausting days printing with master printmaker Tyler Boley for my upcoming show at Newspace Center for Photography. I’ve written about my friendship with Tyler before on this blog. I met him 4 years ago in Vermont. He was giving a workshop in printing fine art black and white photographs using Jon Cone’s beautiful inks, a process now known as Piezography. Since that time, Tyler has been a mentor to me on the printmaking process. He has answered questions that no one else would be able to answer, he has shown me techniques in Photoshop and with my printer that quite simply, have made my ability to continue in photography possible. I firmly believe in the printmaking process. For me, the end result is the print, or rather, the full experience of viewing the print. Without it, photography holds little interest for me.

During the times when I’ve gone up to Seattle to print in Tyler’s studio, we often get into heated discussions about viewing images online, about why photographers don’t invest more time, energy, and yes, money into becoming really good printers, and about how, as artists who passionately care about the craft of printmaking, can we make both artists and non-photographers aware of the value and importance of maintaining the level of craft that the founders of this medium trustingly bequeathed to us. These conversations usually end in frustration.

I’ve spent the last two years building a new body of work titled Growth. I’ve spent the last 3 months preparing to show this work and other unpublished, unexhibited portfolios in September. For some reason, which is very unusual for me, I have held back on sharing these new images online. They’re not on my website, blog, or Facebook. In fact, I’ve hardly shown them to anyone. I don’t know why I’ve kept them to myself. But maybe it was this very idea of casual consumption that I didn’t want.

Selfishly, I don’t want to offer my work, that has taken so much from me, to be immediately devoured, digested, and discarded by this community which lately, always seems ready and eager for more.

I listened again to the interview I did with Cat Gwynn for Photo Radio about her series, Hungry – The Insatiable State of America. What Cat is showing in that body of work, is another kind of casual consumption, one that I can speculate that most of us would look upon with disdain, our consumer culture becoming ever-more demanding for anything we don’t already have, what is new. But are we just as guilty—always craving new imagery, rather than what might take time to appreciate, what is subtle, what is well-conceived, and well-crafted? Is there a place for subtle work in this online emporium we all now have frequent-viewer memberships to?

There may be ramifications for not sharing these images. I doubt that many of us would, and it is against my own advice when I talk about expanding your audience. Yesterday, in the midst of all this discussion, I got an e-mail from Andy Adams of Flak Photo, asking to see the new body of work. I told him, that in thinking about all of this, I had decided not to publish the images online, at least for a while. I didn’t hear back from him. Did I piss him off? Maybe. Did he want a first look to possibly put it on Flak Photo? Maybe. Am I missing an opportunity by not giving him what he wants? Maybe. But I want, for once, the prints to make the first impression.

My fear is that our community will become that which so many of us are disgusted by and focus our work on, ever-hungry consumption. I don’t want the same afflictions that we look down on, the devouring of our natural resources, the lack of patience for experiencing what is real and in the moment, and the focus on instant gratification to be what our legacy is to the next generation of photographers.

Hope to see you all in September.