It is all about the light

I have always wanted to have a show of my own, but costs, amount of work involved and the fear that only a few people would ever show up, held me back. When the ViewPoint Arts Center announced its competition for the 2025 shows, I decided to invite my friend Beth to submit a joint proposal. Beth photographs botanical subjects in color, and we thought that the contrast between color and black and white would make up for a good show.

One thing that made me consider the ViewPoint is that they offer standard frames with plexiglass for us to borrow. This cuts the costs of framing entirely. Another reason is that it’s a photography gallery we want to support locally.

Question: When can you consider yourself an established artist?

Answer: When you can sell your photograph for more than the combined prices of printing, mounting and framing. For example, if you spend 200 U$ in printing, framing and mounting, and you sell your final product for 400 U$ or more, and people buy it, you’re on the right path.

Question: who made this rule?

Answer: I think I just made it up.

Steps leading up to the show

Every show needs a proposal, a bio and, sometimes, artist’s statements. In our case, the proposal was the statement particular to the show. You can view our bio and proposal in this link.

Choosing the photos

A local photographer who has participated in a number of shows agreed to be our curator. We each chose about 24 pictures from our portfolios and had our curator choose 13. The rationale behind employing a curator is that it is an impartial person who has no attachment to any of the images. The objective is to come up with a set of images that look cohesive in a show, and that set may not contain all the favorite or very best images from each participant.

Printing

Once the show is accepted, the next step is printing the photographs. If you have a printer and know how to use it, this is an easy step. But if you don’t, you need to find a local printer to work with. And I say local because you may want to look at proofs and approve on them without having to pay for shipping and deal with possible shipping problems and delays.

We were lucky that a local photography business, David Nasater Photography, agreed to work with us. David helped us chose the paper for the show, and produced beautiful prints for us.

Matting

Beth and David figured out all print sizes to match standard pre-cut frames and backings, which we ordered from Redimat. Beth and I then mounted each of the 26 images for the show. Paying someone to do the matting for us would have represented an added expense we wanted to avoid, in order to keep our prices low.

The show

Click on the image if you want more details on the show!