Today I had the great pleasure to judge the third annual Humboldt Photography Exhibition presented by the Redwood Art Associaton in collaboration with the Eureka Photoshop Users Group and the Redwood Camera Club.
http://www.redwoodart.org/exhibitions.htm It was an open, unthemed show with over 100 entries. The work submitted spanned the gamut of subject matter and skill levels. It was a delight to see how well it was curated by the organizing staff, and exhausting work to grok, categorize, and grade such a diverse body of work. After that was done, there was a two and a half hour reception for the submitters to meet the judge, announce the award winners, and then to respond to their questions about the photos. This was thrilling work. So many interesting, important questions ... ! Such passionate desire to learn, to understand, to improve on their work. I was most impressed at the level of the questions asked ... there were *no* questions related to equipment specifics, no mention of camera brands or querulous thoughts of "maybe I need a better lens or a better body" ... Everything was directed at "what makes this photo a winner, why does this one work and this other not." I haven't been so thrilled talking Photography with photographers in a while. It was also hard work: I'm exhausted now. I feel I truly earned my honorarium ... But the positive feedback from the committee and the participants in the exhibition who attended today were a much greater reward than that check. So many took the time to come back into the gallery and thank me personally for my thoughts and answers to their questions... Even those whose work I found to be lacking and pointed out what I saw as flaws walked away with a smile and a positive thought, a thank you. That goes beyond any honorarium. Gosh, I love doing this stuff. :-) -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
