All right, so here's the deal. A couple of months ago I joined a couple of photography groups on Meetup. I went to a few meetups (and I blogged about one here and also here) and I didn't really fall in love with any of the San Francisco groups, but there was one in Oakland that was run by a really nice guy, Bill McClaren, and that was pretty active and doing interesting things so I ended up staying a member and going to several meetups. The name of this particular meetup group is the Oakland Fine Art Photographers.
I admit, there was a bit of a hitch when I first thought about joining a fine art photography group, because it's a distinction that I'm not really sure could be applied to my work. But then, on the other hand I figured, why not? Who really cares what you call it? We're all looking for arresting images, one way or another, whether you use the moniker 'fine art' or not.
So fast forward a few months and the group had a little contest to see who might put some images up for Open Studios, using Bill's rather generously shared space. We all submitted up to five images, the judges deliberated, and two of mine were chosen, so I printed them and then all the images were hung on the walls. Yay! My first show.
So this morning I went to the studio for a few hours to hang out and try to sell some work. (More the former than the latter.) As it was pouring rain not many people showed up while I was there, but it should get busier as the weather improves.
Anyway, here are a few shots of the prints in the space. It was all set up and hung beautifully.
Also, I loved the reflections from the window on the photos. (Shh! Don't tell the photographers that's what I was really admiring.)
Bill painted all the walls white specially for this event. Turned out looking pretty good!
And he hung a few on gray seamless, artfully draped to give it that 'photographer's studio' ambiance.
And last but not least, here are my two (on the right)! Can you tell that they don't fit in? Everyone else matted and framed their prints, but I'm a maverick and I don't follow the crowd, so I chose to make some gallery wrap canvases instead.
Just kidding about being a maverick. I didn't really know that mine were going to look so different from everyone else's. Really, I'm just a failed sheep.
Anyway, so that's how it all came about. Let me know if you have any more questions!
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