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…

© Lauren Henkin, Fieldnotes

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):

© Meegan Keegan.

© Meegan Keegan.

© Meegan Keegan.

© Meegan Keegan.

© 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).

© Lauren Henkin. The Lines Between Us.

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!

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.

Lauren Henkin at Codex from Suzanne Ahearne on Vimeo.

More soon…

Click here to listen to the interview…

I think that the larger and more useful question is actually about communication in general, and what methods I’m using to communicate with galleries and collectors. So, I thought I’d give you my impressions of what’s working, what isn’t, as well as my general philosophy about getting exposure.

The first thing to understand is that there are communication tiers—levels of messaging targeting different groups that are used to take advantage of specific forums. The second thing to realize is that with all the options now available for gaining information, everyone seems to have a personal preference, so while one set of followers might only look at what you post on Facebook, there are others that will only follow your twitter feed, and yet others who will only read your blog.

The tiers that I have been using include:

1. Web Site: www.laurenhenkin.com
The web site today seems to be losing a bit of it’s power as a tool for communicating. Of all the tools I will describe below, my web site is the one that is visited the least frequently, and I suspect this would be true for many people’s sites. I believe the reason is because I use it as a final showcase for all that is “perfect” in my work. It is a place to view final portfolios, my updated cv, recent announcements that might include prestigious competition placements or reviews. The information may change there once a month for small updates, and as infrequently as once every four months for a major addition like a new book or portfolio. With the advantage of one-stop-shopping for information on sites like Facebook, the likelihood of someone returning to your web site over and over again is unlikely, so understand that, and reserve it for your best stuff.

2. Email Campaigns
In terms of effectiveness, the email campaigns that I send out with the help of Constant Contact are by far, the most useful tool for communicating a specific message. The list of about 500 names that I have generated over years is extremely targeted, so there is usually a large viewing rate, usually between 60-70%. This is the only method that I use that comes directly to someone’s doorstep so to speak, so I think it probably feels more personal than something that might be posted on Facebook or Twitter. I will usually send 1 or 2 of these per month. I wouldn’t recommend more than that as you might irritate some people on your mailing list… less than that and you start to lose touch. Like the web site, these are “quality” messages, meaning, the information being conveyed should be important… a new portfolio, a competition win, a new show, a new review, etc. In a way, because you are invading someone’s e-mail box with these, you should be sensitive to that and make sure that what you’re saying is worthy. Some e-mail campaigns I’ve sent in the past include the following:

3. Blog: www.laurenhenkinblog.com
I started this blog without really knowing what I was going to be writing about, or how frequently I would be posting. I have enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and have found it fascinating to track who is following this method of communication and why. While my web site might be dedicated to
“final” work, the blog has been an opportunity to explain works in progress, and to expand on why I’m doing the things I am, what inspires me, and to even ask for help. It is a great forum for explaining things in detail, and to expand on my working methods. Over time, I realized that this second tier seems to be primarily read by the 40+ crowd. This shouldn’t be too surprising considering the ever-decreasing attention spans of our youth. Those who usually respond to what I’ve posted, write quite a bit… it’s not the 1 or 2 lines I might get back from an e-mail announcement. That may in part be to the more lengthy messages that I am broadcasting, but I find it an interesting thing to note, especially if you’re looking for real feedback… My blog gets on average 3 times the number of hits as my web site and Facebook page, so in terms of spreading a message, this is vital.

4. Facebook: www.facebook.com/laurenhenkinphotography
Ok, this is the one I get questions about the most… To come to any real conclusions about the value of using Facebook for networking, to me, is premature. I signed on about 2 years ago, but I’ve only been using it for marketing for about 1 year. The hardest part for me about Facebook is that you really don’t know who is looking at what you’re posting, how often they’re looking, and if anything else beyond that initial read is happening. But… it is a great way to send out small messages frequently and to a wide audience—for free. It’s a perfect place to talk about smaller accomplishments like participating in a group or juried show, collaborations happening, even applying for a residency. The most critical part is that you have to post often, and with new information. It also seems to be a wonderful place to gather a more international audience. I know when my work went up on Urbanautica.com, I got a lot more fans from locations outside the US. People want to see that things are happening, and that you’re actively working. Nothing upsets me more than going to a friend’s website and seeing that nothing has been added since 2006. In my view, the biggest question mark for a gallery is not whether what you’re presenting is good work, but rather, Will this artist continue to produce good work? You need to convince them that the one brilliant body of work will feed into others. By communicating your progress, by any methods, you will be reassuring galleries and collectors that you are here to stay, your good work will continue, and that they can take a chance on you…

5. Twitter: www.twitter.com/laurenhenkin
For me, Twitter is the lowest tier. I just don’t have the time, energy or desire to post something on it more than maybe twice a day. That’s not to say it isn’t a good way of communicating. I think it’s perfect for quick messages like reminders of upcoming events, publication notices, even recommendations of shows or work. I know people that use it all the time, and I wonder what the results have been for them. I will say this, of all these methods, Twitter seems to draw the most people that I have never interacted with. I hardly recognize the people following my Twitter feed. While I don’t necessarily know what the implications of that are, I think it’s important to note. While it may seem overwhelming to have to deal with all these methods, one thing that helps is to link them together. So, for example, when I post on my blog or Facebook, a notification automatically goes out on Twitter, so there is some effort saved there.

In summary, the most important thing to do, when starting, is gather as many targeted names as you can. You want your mailing list to be effective and to do that, you’ll have to build it slowly, event by event, contact by contact. A lot of what is exciting about social media is that it’s new and therefore the possibilities for what may happen from it are unknown. A lot of the successes I’ve had have been through trial and error, just trying something and evaluating what has happened from the effort. I think that most people talk themselves out of doing new things and a big unknown loss is the result. So, I would encourage you all to experiment, find what methods work for you and your lifestyle, and then just work that until you get the results you want.

If you have more questions on this, please feel free to send them my way…

Hope this is helpful!

In other news, it looks like I will be moving into a new studio right on Mississippi Avenue in North Portland. The space will work beautifully for my studio, gallery and small press.

I will also be offering two workshops in the new space, one on marketing for photographers, the other will be a longer, intensive portfolio development class. I will post a description along with dates and cost in the coming weeks. Please let me know if you are interested in either class, there will be a limit on number of students.

Vela Noche Press’ first artist book publication will be of local artist, Joel Preston Smith‘s, work from Liberty, West Virginia. I will be updating more information on that process soon. We are now editing his images and selecting a paper for the interior of the book.

Production for my book, Displaced, has begun. There are only a few copies left at the edition price of $350, so if you’re interested in buying a copy at that price, I suggest doing it shortly. You can pre-order at www.displacedproject.com. I am currently printing the book, and the text pages will be sent to Inge Bruggeman to be letterpress printed this week.

More to come!

The prints are beautifully made, and the selection, layout, pacing and narrative all impeccable. Technically, there is little here to criticize. The binding, by John DeMerritt, reinforces his already formidable reputation for sensitive treatment of photographic material.

Jack Kerouac, in the midst of his chatter, was occasionally given to aphorism, and this is one: “Accept loss forever.” Displaced is the illustration of an attempt to come to terms with the meaning of that profound exhortation. Two short essays by the artist place this work in its specific personal context. The writing is heartfelt, sad, courageous and informative, but not necessary. The pictures say it all.

Steve Woodall

Recent review of the book, Displaced to be released in early 2010. For more information or to pre-order, go to www.displacedproject.com.

L