ByrneBoehm Show

The ByrneBoehm Gallery show opened Friday. There was an opening reception Saturday evening. I had two pieces accepted into the show, so of course I went. The work that I submitted were two platinum/palladium prints I had done in a class at GRCC earlier in the summer. Two other of my fellow students in that class also had work in the show.

There is a lot of good photography in the show. I got a chance to talk to the owner of the gallery, and he mentioned that he didn't think the judges would pick so many pieces. I got the feeling he only wanted enough work to cover a wall, rather than take over the whole gallery.

Of the work presented, a couple of pieces I recognized from the show at the regional art show earlier in the year. I actually hadn't thought about resubmitting the same work, being new at the whole show thing, I had submitted new work.

One of the artists was a grad student at the local arts college, Kendall, whose work I had seen earlier in the year. Of the remaining work, I wrote down the names of a couple artists just to see if I could follow them if they had a web site or blog. Of the five names I wrote down, one was a photography instructor at Grand Valley State University, one is a professional photographer working for the Grand Rapids Press, and two of the others are professionals who have worked at photography in bigger cities than Grand Rapids and do photography full time.

A lot of the work was edgier than I'm used to presenting. My photography tends to be more of the reportage type, where I capture what I see rather than try to set something up. While I doubt I can change too much the way I work, if I want to continue to try to compete in this type of show, I may need to.

It was a good time, I talked to a bunch of folks and learned a few things. The GVSU professor was doing pinhole photography using a home built 4x5 camera with color film. Since I like the way pinhole photography looks, I may have a new impetus to get going and build my own camera.

I had to leave before they unveiled the winner of the cash prize. I already knew it wasn't me.

More stuff to think about.