This Friday, Dec 10th - submission deadline for holiday show and challenge #8.
Regina mentioned in a comment recently about me showing some examples and ideas for challenge #8. I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to do this with the zine and all the other Salon stuff, but in the future we’ll do more to talk about the challenges as they’re going on. That’s important and I have a lot to say about it, but will do it this time during the recap post.
This year was a lot about building out the Salon and its features and next year will be about refining it and how we use it – focusing on what we’ve built and getting into a regular groove. And I want to spend more time next year focusing on sharing your work in these posts and such.
Please take the challenge in any direction you feel. This is a challenge is about interpretation and photos that mean something to you. Challenge submission page.
For the end-of-year show, upload up to three favorite photos taken this year as a part of the Salon, or if you are a newer member, or been in lockdown, share previous work you’ve taken outside of the Salon during this year.
I’m only going to pick one from each person, so if there’s one you definitely want to show, just upload one. And the show will be up for one month.
Keep in mind the photo sizing for the challenge and holiday show are different. For the holiday show, size the photos to jpg, 65% quality, 1900 pixels wide. Color space srgb. Name them “Firstname-Lastname-1.jpg”.
Upload here: https://www.dropbox.com/request/lMVarLootjMUN2PNaMnf
Mango’s artwork
LOT Zine
I’m assuming most of you got the Lot Zine by now. I hope you enjoy it! Here is a link to download the PDF of it, BUT if you purchased it please wait to have your first viewing be of that version.
I’m very curious to see what you think about it. We’ll have a photobook type hangout scheduled soon where we’ll go over it and talk about ideas for the future as well.
This was a massive time crunch, so creating a template, ordering multiple test copies, dealing with the quirks of on-demand printing, and figuring out everything for the first time was a lot at once. In further versions, it’ll be nice to have more time on the content versus tweaking the layout so much.
One of the biggest issues was the gutter of a thick magazine like this, and I think future versions will have fewer pages. Everything’s a tradeoff, and having a lot of large double-paged photos despite the gutter was a tough one to reconcile, but I think it was worth it. Especially with John Vachon’s work, I hated putting it on the gutter, but his photos were rife with small details that needed to be seen.
The double pages let you get lost in the photo, the details become clearer, and they break the pace up nicely. You just have to run with the imperfections though. And that being said, I wish I could have done a little less of them. A reason why they were even more necessary this time was that there were only a few vertical photos uploaded, and we needed something to break up the pages of all square photos.
Probably 98% of submissions were horizontal, so in the future try to give a little more thought to creating some vertical compositions. It will help a lot with the magazine experience, and it’s good in general to switch it up.
Greene Street
Rejection
As I mentioned last week, not everyone got photos in, while others got multiple. It’s just not possible, nor beneficial to make sure everyone gets a photo in every issue, but I did try my best to balance that with the storytelling. And attention will be paid to making sure everyone gets photos into these regularly.
You know by now that I want to keep competition out of this place as much as is possible, but for something like this, it’s necessary to some extent. And I think when done delicately and in the right amount, rejection is a beneficial thing.
We all need it to some level, it pushes us, changes our thinking, lights a fire. An artist’s life is like a potted plant, where the soil is all the rejection necessary to make a flower.
The initial hurt can be tough, but I promise it gets easier. Just barrel down, focus in, and think about what fun you’re going to have next.
Greene Street
Slow and Steady
Finally, I’m sorry for the constant motivational speaking, but one of my main goals with this Salon is to help you figure out how to keep up with your photography as regularly and steadily as possible.
A lot of people take a break during the down periods, and sometimes that’s necessary, but it can be the most important time mentally to embrace your art. There’s nothing like a good walk on a terrible day, after you get yourself out the door that is.
It’s important to understand that this is a slow and steady process. And it’s why I think ideas and projects can be so important. A project doesn’t have to be all-consuming with your photography, but something that you can do steadily and fall back on when you’re not feeling so into things.
When I feel unmotivated, getting out the door with the camera can feel overwhelming. But if I have something I’m working on, it feels much less daunting to say, ‘Hey let me pop down to the Speedway for a bit, or head over to Greene Street.’
Once you get to this point, you don’t need inspiration, you don’t need an idea, you just need to get out the door and head over to a place. It takes a lot of the planning, second-guessing, and over-thinking out of the equation. If need be, just pick an area and keep exploring it.
Now make sure you have some warm clothes so photographing this winter can be fun!
Greene Street
