It was a crazy couple of weeks with going to Houston for FotoFest and then turning it around and going to Denver for the SPE national conference. It was the first time I had been to an SPE conference. Compared to the NPPA conventions I have been to, SPE was like visiting Germany, well run and on time. The only down side was not winning the Todd Hido image in the raffle. The person that won told me she was sorry, well not really. Such is life. I managed to come to away feeling good about the experience and tired.
It was good to see Rich Clarkson after a few years. Needless to say, I ate really, really well at Elway’s in Cherry Creek. Thanks again Rich.
by Rich Clarkson
Julieanne Kost’s Lightroom lecture was killer. By the end of the weekend I realized that I drank the Lightroom Kool-Aid. It is yummy. She was also really nice and answered a ton of questions.
David Taylor’s Frontier/Frontera talk was really interesting. I liked his use of the moving still image (video). He also showed some very subtly powerful images from our southern border regions.
by David Taylor
Lauren Greenfield’s talk was intense to say the least.
I have not seen the her documentary “Thin“. The clip she showed was difficult to watch. I find it highly interesting that a rather straightforward color documentary photographer has been so embraced by the art world. I find that her images are nuanced at times, but not different from journalism. I see how Alec Soth fits into the art world. For me, placing Lauren Greenfield in the art does not add up. They are both current color documentary photographers. Soth’s methods are more aligned to the art world, while Greenfield is strongly tied to the editorial side. She is one of the few photographers who makes work where I need to look away at times. the “Thin” video does that more than her images.
by Lauren Greenfield
Zack Bent’s was the lone graduate student presentation that I caught.
by Zack Bent
He focused on his newer work which is about his wife and two sons. It was interesting to hear someone else talk about photographing their family and all that it entails.
Jon Lowenstein’s talk with others from the Blue Earth Alliance, was inspiring, helpful, realistic.
by Jon Lowenstein
Jon’s kind words nd advice were exactly what I needed. It was like speaking English with someone after speaking Spanish (grad school) as a non-native speaker. Meaningwise, thanks for the motivation.
Edward Burtynsky closed out the talks with his keynote presentation.
I had not seen a lot of his work. He kicked it off with talking about his influences. He mention Sabastio Salgado. During the whole presentation I thought about how their work is similar in both scale and ambition. In the end, I will always like Salgado’s work more.
Burtynsky makes the world’s scars beautiful. It is probably my background in journalism that draws me toward Salgado.
Also, I ran into Grant Ray, who attends Columbia College Chicago.
It was good to see him again. We met during the open house at Columbia about a couple of years ago.
Ryan Shuler sat across from me during the curatorial walk through. He attends RIT.
About five hours before I left Denver I had a nice chat with Christine Holtz, who also went to RIT and now teaches at Robert Morris University.
I probably left something and someone out.
