Two of the main features of the Palm Springs Photo Festival are the Portfolio Reviews (over 1100 individual reviews) with major museum curators, picture editors, gallery owners, and photo industry professionals, and the workshops with individual world renowned photographers.
To see the workshop process first hand, I decided to spend the day with Gerd Ludwig, the award winning German born photographer now living in LA, as he showed an enthusiastic group of students how a National Geographic photographer works on a story. Gerd has done several stories on The Salton Sea area, south east of Palm Springs. This is where I joined them for the day. Their day (not mine) had started a 4:30 AM has they departed in true National Geographic fashion for the shoot so they would arrive before sunrise as to be in position for the best light of the day. After the Salton Sea the class moved on to a man-made wonder, (Salvation Mountain) and another natural wonder (mud pots). Next was lunch in a small out of the way restaurant. The day would end 16 hours later back in Palm Springs as they reviewed their photos and lessons learned.
The portfolio review while not as visual, was fascinating to watch. The stream of people that show up for portfolio reviews at PSPF makes it readily apparent how many photographers are looking for feedback on their work. Aside from the occasional photographer looking to the reviewer to pull out a check book and buy a few prints, (as happened to Tony Bannon, the Director of Eastman House), most are looking for some recognition of their effort to date in the medium, a pointer or two on improving their technique and an opportunity to have their work seen by an amazing group of Photography Professionals.
Bob McNeely
