Wrapping up quite a week. Here’s a re-cap: pre-production for a commercial shoot, improv rehearsal, Tuesday night photo book meet up, camera club judging (more on that) a 12 hour day on set yesterday, followed by two improv sets in Santa Fe last night. Oh, yeah, a visit to my doctor since I am still sick with the crud… four weeks and counting. Good times… I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Thursday night was an event that I had booked many months ago… something that had almost fallen off my radar, honestly. A local group of photographers called the Enchanted Lens Camera Club had asked me to judge their monthly photo competition. The theme was “Taken on a Smart Phone.” I was excited to review the work, especially since I was curious about how a group of serious photo enthusiasts would tackle the challenge of only shooting with their phones. Truth be told, the commitment to be their judge took me more time than I had anticipated, but my passion for photography pushed me to give the work the time and consideration it deserved. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the submissions overall. And there were a handful of real gems in the almost 90 photos I reviewed. Amusingly enough, the photo I chose as my favorite of the night was a shot of fishermen taken in Porto, Portugal… a very special place to me personally.
Part of my obligation was to critique each photo as part of a talk / presentation to the group. I have a bit of a problem giving criticism to anyone photographically, but I also wanted to provide constructive feedback to the group. I hope I struck a balance in my critique. A few members personally thanked me afterwards… and no irate shutterbugs were waiting for me in the parking lot, so I guess all went over well. They also gave me the chance to give a 10 minute presentation of my own work. I focussed on my self-publishing efforts, as I thought it was a topic many in the group would not immediately consider as an outlet for their own photography. It was a nice chance for me to reflect on this journey of photo book printing that I find myself on, and it came at a good time, as I’m prepping my next project as I write this.
I quickly edited a short 15 second video of my books to include in my presentation. Thought it would be fun to also share it here. Life is short… print your photos.