gr82bart
06-03-2008, 09:49 AM
Seriously. This was a fantastic event. In summary,
excellent event management,
regular communication and updates from the organizer(s),
diverse attendees (wide age range, many youngsters and at least 50% women!),
no one cared if you weren't an orthodox purist and did something in digital (we all have flaws),
no one cared about your equipment or talked about their equipment,
outstanding speakers who weren't peddling their own businesses,
lots of door prizes,
decent food to be bought,
amazing facilities (multiple darkrooms, numerous meeting rooms, lots of equipment available for use, central place to hang and chat with others)
great location in general to go out and shootUnfortunately, I missed the speakers on Friday, even though I arrived on time - work got in the way of play. I heard the speakers were fantastic - none of the same old, same old people, but speakers who were making large pinholes/camera obscuras in public places; who are pushing the boundaries of digital to revitalize historical printing processes; who are using Toy Cameras/Lomo to show film as counter culture, retro and hip and as an entry to other areas of film photography; and who are marketing traditional and historical prints as high end, unique images for corporations and individual buyers, not just collectors and galleries; just to highlight a few. These folks were all exciting because they were extending their own boundaries with passion.
As for workshops, you can view them on the f295 website - http://www.f295.org/symposium2008/ I took France Scully-Osterman's Wet Plate workshop over 2 days.
France is a great teacher. A little on the hyper side, but a great teacher. Plus she likes to 're-purpose' everything (even crack pipes and diapers - inside joke people). You have to attend to know what I am talking about. You can tell when she talks about wet plate process that she's passionate about it. It oozes out of her. And she's amazingly knowledgeable about her passion too. Her workshop started with the theory behind wet plates, different types (she had some samples of her work that illustrated the different types), a summary of the equipment and chemicals; and a walk through of the ambrotype process as she produced a plate.
Then it was our turn.
In this class, I was the only non educator. Everyone else taught photography somewhere else. I thought, this is amazing and good to know that traditional and historical processes are being taught in many part of the country. And to younger people too.
We (the attendees) watched ourselves pour the collodion. Very zen. Sensitize the plate, develop and had lots of oohs and ahs when the blue disappeared in the cyanide. We chatted away the boredom while we poured and then warmed the varnish over an oil lamp. I even did 4 myself, despite my failed attempts at getting her to say it was OK to use a spray varnish. Drats. I mentioned my first attempts that bypassed the varnish process all-together and was replaced with a can of black spray paint instead. This was met with rightful disdain. In all most of us managed to create 2-3 plates.
She had a booklet handout that went into great detail on the process, equipment, chemicals, and resources.
Bottom line is this class had great value - it was a detailed hands on course of the complete end to end ambrotype process - with images made from an enlarger and from a plate camera.
BTW, Connie Begg was our assistant and despite her having a NASA moment confusing imperial and metric units (I should talk, being the one that turned on the lights just as Jamie was looking at his plate in the silver nitrate bath box), she was a hoot to be around. http://www.conniebegg.com
I also had the pleasure of having Robert Hirsch in my class. His recent work was on display at the Symposium and generated a lot of discussion around history, politics, ethics, copyright, public domain, and free speech. http://www.lightresearch.net/
France Scully Osterman and her husband Mark's website is: http://www.collodion.org/
I would highly recommend her as an instructor.
Now as for the rest of the Symposium, I went to the Alternative Photography Exhibition opening. I was struck with the works of:
Our own APUGer Keith Taylor's photogravures: http://keithtaylorphoto.com/ - I'd like to buy one of his prints
Ilan Wolff's huge lunagram made without a camera: http://www.ilanwolff.com/ - I bought his books
Beautiful daguerreotypes of Pittsburgh's skyline by Mike Robinson: http://www.centurydarkroom.com/ - I want to take his course (And he's Canadian too, eh)A great show.
I highly recommend this symposium. Assuming costs remain roughly the same next year, rumoured to be in San Francisco, the Symposium fee was $150, courses cost about $200 for one day, hotel rooms were $115 per night. So budget about $1200 if travel and expenses are factored in and two courses or one two day course is taken.
Tom Persinger is an example of a great event manager. He communicates regularly through multiple channels - email, website, forums. His f295 Symposium website, not only has all the information you could ever need to attend, it looks professionally appealing too, is easy to navigate, has appropriate links, has e-business tools for online registration and payment, and is updated regularly with accurate up to date information. And as an organizer, he's not an instructor or an attendee. He organizes! Plus he's not pushing his photography or studio or business. Most importantly he's inclusive of everyone attending.
Other APUGers I met include: Peter Schrager, Winger (Bethe), 25ASA and Keith Taylor. Again. Everyone should go to this event.
An excellent, more cerebral review of the event can be found here by Leo Hsu: http://www.foto8.com/home/content/blogcategory/14/31/
Now, for some areas of improvement:
Ventilation in the darkroom! Seriously - something bad might happen one day if this isn't corrected. Not really the organizer's fault, but this needs to be fixed IMO as an engineer that deals with facilities issues my entire career.
I heard there were no breaks during the speakers and people were dozing off.
Maybe, just maybe, have all the events in one location or closer. Just a thought.
Maybe organizing some social events besides the openings. Not that Tom hasn't got enough to do already.
Oh, and for those of you worried about "Lomography being a sponsor", they really tried to convert the weak and feeble with a bumper sticker and small catalog. Anyway, once again, I reiterate. This was a fantastic event and everyone should go next year.
Regards, Art.
excellent event management,
regular communication and updates from the organizer(s),
diverse attendees (wide age range, many youngsters and at least 50% women!),
no one cared if you weren't an orthodox purist and did something in digital (we all have flaws),
no one cared about your equipment or talked about their equipment,
outstanding speakers who weren't peddling their own businesses,
lots of door prizes,
decent food to be bought,
amazing facilities (multiple darkrooms, numerous meeting rooms, lots of equipment available for use, central place to hang and chat with others)
great location in general to go out and shootUnfortunately, I missed the speakers on Friday, even though I arrived on time - work got in the way of play. I heard the speakers were fantastic - none of the same old, same old people, but speakers who were making large pinholes/camera obscuras in public places; who are pushing the boundaries of digital to revitalize historical printing processes; who are using Toy Cameras/Lomo to show film as counter culture, retro and hip and as an entry to other areas of film photography; and who are marketing traditional and historical prints as high end, unique images for corporations and individual buyers, not just collectors and galleries; just to highlight a few. These folks were all exciting because they were extending their own boundaries with passion.
As for workshops, you can view them on the f295 website - http://www.f295.org/symposium2008/ I took France Scully-Osterman's Wet Plate workshop over 2 days.
France is a great teacher. A little on the hyper side, but a great teacher. Plus she likes to 're-purpose' everything (even crack pipes and diapers - inside joke people). You have to attend to know what I am talking about. You can tell when she talks about wet plate process that she's passionate about it. It oozes out of her. And she's amazingly knowledgeable about her passion too. Her workshop started with the theory behind wet plates, different types (she had some samples of her work that illustrated the different types), a summary of the equipment and chemicals; and a walk through of the ambrotype process as she produced a plate.
Then it was our turn.
In this class, I was the only non educator. Everyone else taught photography somewhere else. I thought, this is amazing and good to know that traditional and historical processes are being taught in many part of the country. And to younger people too.
We (the attendees) watched ourselves pour the collodion. Very zen. Sensitize the plate, develop and had lots of oohs and ahs when the blue disappeared in the cyanide. We chatted away the boredom while we poured and then warmed the varnish over an oil lamp. I even did 4 myself, despite my failed attempts at getting her to say it was OK to use a spray varnish. Drats. I mentioned my first attempts that bypassed the varnish process all-together and was replaced with a can of black spray paint instead. This was met with rightful disdain. In all most of us managed to create 2-3 plates.
She had a booklet handout that went into great detail on the process, equipment, chemicals, and resources.
Bottom line is this class had great value - it was a detailed hands on course of the complete end to end ambrotype process - with images made from an enlarger and from a plate camera.
BTW, Connie Begg was our assistant and despite her having a NASA moment confusing imperial and metric units (I should talk, being the one that turned on the lights just as Jamie was looking at his plate in the silver nitrate bath box), she was a hoot to be around. http://www.conniebegg.com
I also had the pleasure of having Robert Hirsch in my class. His recent work was on display at the Symposium and generated a lot of discussion around history, politics, ethics, copyright, public domain, and free speech. http://www.lightresearch.net/
France Scully Osterman and her husband Mark's website is: http://www.collodion.org/
I would highly recommend her as an instructor.
Now as for the rest of the Symposium, I went to the Alternative Photography Exhibition opening. I was struck with the works of:
Our own APUGer Keith Taylor's photogravures: http://keithtaylorphoto.com/ - I'd like to buy one of his prints
Ilan Wolff's huge lunagram made without a camera: http://www.ilanwolff.com/ - I bought his books
Beautiful daguerreotypes of Pittsburgh's skyline by Mike Robinson: http://www.centurydarkroom.com/ - I want to take his course (And he's Canadian too, eh)A great show.
I highly recommend this symposium. Assuming costs remain roughly the same next year, rumoured to be in San Francisco, the Symposium fee was $150, courses cost about $200 for one day, hotel rooms were $115 per night. So budget about $1200 if travel and expenses are factored in and two courses or one two day course is taken.
Tom Persinger is an example of a great event manager. He communicates regularly through multiple channels - email, website, forums. His f295 Symposium website, not only has all the information you could ever need to attend, it looks professionally appealing too, is easy to navigate, has appropriate links, has e-business tools for online registration and payment, and is updated regularly with accurate up to date information. And as an organizer, he's not an instructor or an attendee. He organizes! Plus he's not pushing his photography or studio or business. Most importantly he's inclusive of everyone attending.
Other APUGers I met include: Peter Schrager, Winger (Bethe), 25ASA and Keith Taylor. Again. Everyone should go to this event.
An excellent, more cerebral review of the event can be found here by Leo Hsu: http://www.foto8.com/home/content/blogcategory/14/31/
Now, for some areas of improvement:
Ventilation in the darkroom! Seriously - something bad might happen one day if this isn't corrected. Not really the organizer's fault, but this needs to be fixed IMO as an engineer that deals with facilities issues my entire career.
I heard there were no breaks during the speakers and people were dozing off.
Maybe, just maybe, have all the events in one location or closer. Just a thought.
Maybe organizing some social events besides the openings. Not that Tom hasn't got enough to do already.
Oh, and for those of you worried about "Lomography being a sponsor", they really tried to convert the weak and feeble with a bumper sticker and small catalog. Anyway, once again, I reiterate. This was a fantastic event and everyone should go next year.
Regards, Art.