Fuzzypictures's Weblog

once again i volunteered for the new york photo festival which allows me free access to the exhibits, well free if you don’t count my time doing not much but standing around looking or checking peoples day passes.

every year it’s different but held in the same dumbo area of brooklyn just different spaces. i’ve always liked the photographers presentations in st. ann’s theater but i didn’t see many of them this year and the couple i did see i wasn’t that impressed with. but hey that’s me i am from new york and a tough audience.

there is a nice article in pdn about apeture foundation’s two part seminar on strategies for emerging photographers here. another article in pdn is a quick preview of the festival.

as curator erik kessel wrote in his galley at smack mellon catalog ‘what is photography?’ as his selections were artist not using photography in the conventional way but using it as a tool to create something totally different than one would think.

a lager portion of the festival was european influenced. one can see some interviews with curators and artist here but i am quite disappointed that not all the winners work is displayed on new york photo festival web site. see winners & honorable mentions for names but no links to work. the question arises in my mind is this a photographic festival or what?

last year everyone who entered images to the festival had their 15 seconds of fame via a slide show in powerhouse book store but the only projected images were from the leica camera photo contest. while last years slide show wasn’t perfect, not even a sign announcing what these images were at least they were photographs.

daniel power does have selections of interim awards videos with comments as does frank evers interm #2 and doug rickard  shows interm #3. i thought it strange that most of the power winners examples had the subject centered, what happened to the ‘thirds rule’? am i being too academic here? i know rules are to be broken but this ‘center subject’ seemed a consistent in powers picks. oh well

there is a nice interview & video of Marc Granger who received a lifetime achievement award.

the link to coverage nyph 10 in 3D directed by martin lenclos showing interviews to exhibitors and visitors got me dizzy watching it. seems they need to have movement just because they could with the cameras view point constantly changing with mouse movement, oh 3D i forgot maybe i am too old but where is the photography? isn’t this a photography festival?

but on to the photography award ceremony that was delayed an 1 1/2 hour for technical difficulties. wonder how many audience members they lost? when they finally decided to go ahead with the presentations they went on without pictures of winning images. i would suggest the festival hire someone with more expertise next time or hey what about a tech rehearsal before hand like they do in other shows.

with all  the technical savvy people here in new york wouldn’t you think someone would have planned this better? why do something half baked? is that better than doing nothing?

winning pictures still aren’t up on the web site.what i found really strange were the winners at least in the student category had to buy tickets to the awards ceremony. ten buck is ten bucks ,especially for students. the question arise did marc have to buy a ticket?

the coolest thing at the festival was leica gave out the M9 cameras to use for the day ands ran a daily photo contest. great marketing  idea, who hasn’t always wanted to carry around a leica. woohoo. great feel to the camera, it really feels like a camera. but for me to see the focus rectangle in the view finder i’d need a cornia replacement. i’ll stick with my canon better or worst.

brooklyn bridge

graffiti

someone not too interested, guess who

no contest winner for me as the theme was nature. but to cap off the day mary and i walked across the crowded brooklyn  bridge to manhattan which we’ve never done before.

but i did meet some interesting people and the hope is to expand who i know and what work i see because it’s all good.

just my opinion

jene