I’m finally getting caught up from my trip- thank you notes, emails, etc. I didn’t leave Santa Fe with any shows, gallery representation, publications, etc. Yet, it felt like a far more productive experience than ones where I have walked away with those things.
In terms of portfolio reviews, the only other one I have been to is The Meeting Place (and I’ve been there multiple times), so that is my only point of comparison. Review Santa Fe was a very different experience. The Meeting Place feels like something of a clearing house, dealing in large quantity. Review Santa Fe by comparison is very small and intimate- many times fewer photographers and reviewers. The organizers do a really good job creating not just a set of portfolio reviews, but an entire experience. This meant at night the photographers were hanging out at sponsored social events with the same reviewers they had met with during the day (as well as all those they didn’t). The mix of both formal and informal interaction with reviewers was fantastic, and created (I think) deeper relationships than the Meeting Place interaction, which sometimes seems to border on an us-against-them mentality, as the reviewers are carefully sequestered (and with good reason given its size).
There are advantages to Meeting Place. For one, people do tend to come ready to “wheel and deal,” so you do hear of people walking away with half a dozen shows (though this doesn’t happen as often as people like to believe). In addition, due to the size of Meeting Place, people tend to band together into small groups (a survival mechanism??), and as a result, some very intense relationships develop. I developed some very close bonds with other photographers at the last Meeting Place I attended, and did walk away with at least one “on the spot” show. I really didn’t hear of anything like that going on at Review Santa Fe.
I personally greatly preferred the climate at Review Santa Fe, but for those who are looking to wheel and deal, Fotofest is the place, and $1000+ dollars (with travel) for Review Santa Fe might to some seem like a ridiculous amount of money to pay for what could cynically be referred to as an overpriced “Meet and Greet.” (I am sticking to my belief that over the next few years it will prove to have been much more than that, but maybe it’s just because I don’t have my cynical hat on right now).
On to the reviews themselves. For starters, I was very happy to find that at least 4 or 5 of the reviewers I met with were already familiar with my work through Critical Mass, 20×200, or various other means. This is the first time that has happened for me, and makes me feel like I am at least doing something right. Here are a few memorable reviews for me (in chronological order):
- Karen Irvine (Museum of Contemporary Photography). Really perceptive comments about the content of my work. She was excited by the technical, formal, and stylistic aspects of the work, but saw something of a disconnect between my ideas and the work itself. She has set me to thinking very carefully about what the work is really about for me, and whether I might consider re-examining that idea, altering the direction of the work itself, or a little of both. She also encouraged me to send work again in the next year, something I will certainly do.
- Michael Mazzeo (Peer Gallery). Was very excited by the work (though as a disclaimer I should say that my initial perception of him is that he is easily excitable). However, he felt I had “killed”‘ the work by deciding to do it in black and white instead of color. He made it out to seem like the work would be hugely successful if it were in color. It would be easy for me to dismiss this as just a reflection of a) one reviewers prejudices, and/or b) the fact that color is “in” and black and white is “out.” However, he re-opened what for me has been a Pandora’s box since the beginning of the project. I LOVE color, and it was very hard for me to give that up in this project. In fact most of the work from the project was shot on C-41 and converted to black and white in Photoshop for total control over the way the colors mapped to tones in the images. I actually have the beginnings of a post that has been sitting in my draft box for months about color and “Somewhere in Middle America.” Maybe I’ll get around to finishing it now.
- Leslie Martin (Aperture). Leslie has seen and supported my work in the past, so it was very nice to meet her in person. She had some very specific suggestions for how to expand the project, as well as some good perspective on getting the work published down the road. She also indicated that my project had been in the final round for the Portfolio Prize last year, something that was very nice to hear.
- Rboert Koch and Ada Takahashi (Koch Gallery). Seemed to really like the work, and asked that I continue to send them new pieces over the next year or so. The review was dying down when they asked me if I had sold work in the past. I mentioned 20×200, and this led to a 15 minute debate over the merits and shortcomings of 20×200 (I was trying to convince them of the merits of the project for someone in my position, they were trying to convince me that it was a bad idea). I don’t think anyone won the debate or changed their viewpoint, but it was an interesting conversation nonetheless.
People in general seemed to responded very positively to my dog images. Several reviewers asked me if I had considered doing a series just of dogs. It seems like something that has already been way, way overdone, but I guess most things have.
I’ve rambled on enough.
July 3rd, 2008 by 
Colin
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