Postcards from the Creative Journey

419 - Why Go To A Gallery Exhibit?

Deception Pass, Washington

Continued from Post 418- My Next Photographic Exhibition...

You could sit at home and view great photographs on your big screen TV from the “Imaginary Photographic Netflix channel” or you could turn off the TV, get up off the sofa and head out to your friendly local photographic art gallery to see an exhibition of photographic artifacts. Why do people make that choice?

I think people make that choice to see something they cannot see at home. If we can view perfect images on our television sets at home in an increasingly large size, why would you come to see a gallery exhibit? If you can see a perfect photograph on a sixty five inch screen at home, the gallery is going to have to have an image that is bigger. I think that’s why the galleries and museums are headed to exhibiting photographs where the dimensions are measured in feet, not inches. Galleries and Museums have to show huge photographs because they need to produce the spectacle that you cannot see at home. It might analogous to the carnival side show giving the everyday person access to something they might not ever see.

On might also consider the social aspects of such an event. The exhibited artifacts might not be the sole reason for an expedition but aspects of a social gathering of a kindred spirits seems to me to be a really good second reason. We go to meet people that are interested in seeing the same thing we are interested in seeing. The artifacts provide the chance to spark conversations about the subject of the photographs. The interest might not be the images at all, but what the images are about. It could be a meeting place for those interested in the topic of the photographs and not necessarily the photographs themselves. 

418 - My Next Photographic Exhibition

Door, Cerro Gordo,

White Mountains, California

I wonder if I could persuade a gallery to have a photographic exhibition where the medium for the photographs is a high definition Television Screen. It would be novel, I think. The number of photographs exhibited is not an issue as it would be with physical prints. An infinite number (theoretically, at least) of photographs could be exhibited in a space of a single large photograph. Many artists could display their work at the same time.

A few years ago I did this as part of a gallery show at our town’s newly remodeled arts center. Two other photographers and I documented the change in the building over two years. I specifically made an effort to make photographs showing the transformation through time. It was a pretty interesting project and is on my website here.

My photographs on a monitor in a gallery. 

Let's just think outside of the box and go run off on a tangent (Don't you love mixed metaphors?). Would you pay an admission fee to see still photographs exhibited on a video screen in an art gallery? Video artists and film-makers do this, so why not me? Video artists and film-makers succeed because people are used to being charged an admission fee to their exhibitions. These exhibitions take place in special places created for this purpose called movie theatres. Major museums and galleries charge admission for special exhibits, but not necessarily for their permanent collection. So let’s combine these ideas and see what happens…

Would you pay a monthly fee to your cable service to be able to access photographs via a streaming service? What if I created a “Netflix” type company that would “stream still photographs” for a monthly service fee? You could subscribe to the “Joe Lipka channel” and see my photographs on your 65” television in the comfort of your own home. I might even be tempted to do a voice over to discuss the photograph, or do a tutorial of how the photograph was made, or maybe even a “making of” video sharing my photographic tips with my audience. 

So if all this was available, why would you go to a gallery event?

To be continued…

417 - Have Some Fun With It

Birds in Fog, Washington Coast

Revisiting old images can often lead to surprises. In the quest to complete projects I’ve overlooked good images because they don’t fit the project requirements. These “square pegs**” can resurface and become a small project of their own.

Today’s picture is from the 2011 Photo Safari. I remember wanting to capture a decisive moment of birds in flight above the surf and made several photographs from this vantage point before the birds flew away. I never gave it much thought until looking at them again this week.

Fast forward to earlier this week. In scrolling through Light Room, I rediscovered that foggy afternoon. I thought that would be a fun thing to make use of my slide show HTML code to share the experience on that beach. I rescued these images from obscurity and gave them a project of their own, “Birds in Fog.” Click on the title to take a look.

How many more images are hiding in storage waiting to become a project?

**The original title of this blog; honoring those photographs that didn’t fit in a project.

416 - Well, Work IS Fun

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame, In.

About a month ago I wrote about a project I was going to start that went immediately into the “work” phase of my usual photographic project life cycle (Yes, I am a consultant and sometimes I revert to form – sorry). I got down to grinding out the work at hand for this project and suddenly discovered that the part of the project I thought was going to be work actually turned out to be a bunch of fun. It pretty much caught me by surprise because I was expecting work and found an excessive amount of fun and a wonderful creative experience.

Now I am worried. I wonder when the actual work part of the project will happen.