The drive theme for this month is actually quite contagious. As you may know, I’m participating in a portfolio review later on this month (November 10th to be precise, which is, gulp, not all that far away.) Some of you may be wondering, what exactly a portfolio party is and why I’m doing one?
A portfolio party (or, you know, “review” if you want to be more formal) is an opportunity of sorts for photographers to take their work and present it to a crowd of museum curators, gallery owners, people “in the know” and just random passers-by who might like that sort of a thing. The way it works is, well, it’s sort of like a gathering. The photographers gather up their prints (exhibition quality and signed, thank you very much) and their “supporting materials” (yes, that includes the dreaded “artist statement,” oh how we hate the dreaded “artist statement”) and plunk them down on a big table in a big room, filled with curators, gallery owners, odd random passers-by, and anyone else who might happen along. Then, we stand there and discuss our work-you know, it’s the usual, we talk about lines, shapes, corners, edges, emotional impact, and all of that yada yada that we clearly put into our, ahem, “artist statements.” But, the point is, I have to have the work ready and looking just “spiffy” so that the curators, gallery owners, and random odd people can “oooh” and “ahhh” with the best of them. Ha! Wish me luck. (Basically, it means I’m going to be a very busy little printer for the next 10 days or, you know, until I collapse, whichever comes first.)
I’ve done a portfolio party before-some of you may remember I did one maybe two years back or so-those were images of Venice at night. It’s very stressful, it’s hard, it’s time consuming, and it eats a lot of ink. While worth it in the end, it’s just grueling. If there weren’t enough pressure, my photographic mentor (of sorts) used to work for one of the reviewers, so I really feel an added pressure to “nail it” on account of the fact that I’ll be, in a way, representing my mentor at this shindig. Oh the horror!
To keep it entirely drive related, I should point out too that this year my theme will be “Drive.” Yes, snowflakes, I’m going to dust off 8-12 of my best “drive by” shots (shots taken while driving, riding, clinging to, or otherwise moving along at speed) to use for this review. To give you an idea of what a “drive by” looks like, you can peek at the picture above. So far, in my editing process, I’ve gathered about 200 prints for consideration (in the review.) I plan to edit these down to “about 60” and make a Blurb book. Then, the next phase will be to edit down to “about 15” for consideration in the review. From those 15, I’ll then select the “final 10” that will make up the review, and make exhibition prints of those for the actual review. (Will this one “make the cut” and survive the final edit? Hey, nobody knows for sure-watch this space for details about that.)
Because we’re all about the drive this year, in this great “driving towards December” bit, I should also talk about my prize. This year, should I happen to survive the great portfolio review and make it to the end of NaBloPoMo, I intend to raffle off a prize. This is where you come in. For those of you in NaBloPoMo, I’ll donate a prize though the official channels (look for Carol’s Little Work in the blogroll of prize entries.) For those not doing NaBloPoMo, relax, you too can get in one the prize offering. This year, I plan to offer up two copies of a signed limited edition calendar featuring work shot at the Texas all British car day. You can see a sampling of the images here.
No, for those wondering, The Stig will not sign autographs (we’re just introducing him all month long to help complete the challenge.) He’s too busy racing ’round the track to get out and work a pen, but the calendars will be signed by the artist (that would be *me* in case you weren’t paying attention.) I’m sure they’ll fetch even less on ebay, what, now that they’ve got my chicken scratch on them, but, there you have it. A signed limited edition calendar featuring cool cars could be yours for the taking if, you know, you get lucky (and we both make it to the end of the month.)
Beep Beep! Is it December yet?
Until next time…
PS Here’s the current tally:
- Number of NaBloPoMo posts left: 28
- Number of prints made up for the portfolio party: 0 (number needed: 10)
- Number of days left until portfolio review: 10
- Number of prints from which to edit: 198 (to go down to: 60 and then: 10)
- Number of days left in NaBloPoMo: 29 (as I’m writing this)
- Number of Blurb books about driving I’ve completed this week: 0 (number needed: 1)
- Number of chances you have to win a signed limited edition calendar: 2
- Number of signed limited edition calendars I’m making this year: 2
- Number of times I’ve proposed to The Stig: 2 (number of times he’s answered: 0)
- Number of days left until I go completely insane: ???
