Sunday afternoon – Open Portfolio Show
In the end there’s just too much happening to take it all in. Five days jammed with seminars, panels, portfolio reviews, classes, slide shows, contests, parties and more chance meetings than a speed dating convention. You pick what you want and you engage with photography and photographers as deeply as you can imagine. This year’s PSPF began on Sunday afternoon with show featuring the work of 80 attendees to the festival. No order, no selection, just photographs of every imaginable kind one next to another on rows of tables. It was the most democratic setting you can imagine. I strolled down the aisles looking for pictures that caught my eye and within a few minutes I was engaged in conversation. To me this is the heart of PSPF, the deep love of photography and the desire to do more, show more and learn more.
Opening Reception
At five o’clock the Portfolio Show starts winding down and everyone heads over to the Krakoria Pensione for the opening night party. Guests, attendees and instructors mingle and the night is beautiful and filled with promise. The Krakoria is where PSPF began, a unique resort space a few blocks from the main street and miles from it in terms of feeling. It seems like a private compound in another desert country, Morocco perhaps. Food and wine fuel the conversations and soon the space is buzzing. Tomorrow the work begins in earnest but for the moment it’s time to enjoy.
The portfolio reviews
Monday morning the portfolio reviews began. The reviewers covered the field, museum curators, gallery owners, publishers, editors, professionals from every corner of the photographic world one on one with the attendees offering thoughtful comments, suggestions and encouragement. I think most people go hoping that lightning will strike, that they will make an important connection. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t but either way they can walk away with a better picture of how the professional world views their work and their chances…and sometimes the lightning strikes. I talked with someone who had a meeting that ended in a print sale on the spot – it’s what you dream of and it carries you a long way when it happens.
An Evening Slide Show – The newest of the new, the timelessness of the great
A feature of PSPF is the evening slide shows, presentations of work by top photographers along with stories of how the pictures came to be. The slide shows are presented in the Annenberg Auditorium of the Palm Springs Art Museum where the projection and sound systems are great and there is good seating for the crowd. If you’re going to project photography, this is how it should be done.
Monday night the photographers were Vincent Lafloret and William (Bill) Allard. Their shows couldn’t have been more different. First up was Lafloret, famous the world over for his pioneering use of the Canon 5D for filmmaking. When Vincent took a pre-release 5D up in a helicopter and showed us NY at night it exploded on the internet and changed the paradigm for thousands of filmmakers. Although he is now known primarily as a commercial director, Lafloret has never lost his love of still photography. On Monday night he demonstrated that with a wonderful new series of pictures made high above cities, pictures that revealed their subjects complexity and beauty in ways never seen before. Vincent talked enthusiastically about his love of shooting from on high whether it was from the tops of buildings or out of high altitude helicopters and he showed us images that demonstrated his creativity in the air. He finished with a series of pictures intended to go live on the internet a few hours after we saw them in the auditorium, the newest of the new in the moments just before they would be born.
And then Bill Allard spoke. His pictures are miles from Vincent’s. His work mainly about cowboys and ranching in the late twentieth century. His camera was present and personal in the most private of places. His subjects seemed charmed by him, knowing somehow that they would be seen well and letting themselves be seen. Bill Allard is a legendary National Geographic photographer. He is also one of the best story tellers I’ve ever heard. He spent an hour showing us relatively few pictures but bringing each one alive with stories about the person in front of the camera. Not how I shot this or did that but long personal recollections of who they were, how they came to be standing there in front of the lens, what they said and why it mattered. If ever there was a masterclass in what’s really important to make great pictures of people we got it Monday night. Good technique sure, a good subject certainly but above all else a genuine desire to know people and to somehow convey they can safely be naked, emotionally naked in front of the camera.
So there it is, two masterful photographers in the space of a few hours. Each making pictures his own way and each giving you insights into who they are and how they do the work they do. And tomorrow night there will be more and the next night more again. That’s why I keep coming back year after year. In the end what seems to me most important is inspiration and PSPF is a place where you can be inspired.
Written by Andy Romanoff – [email protected]
Websites:
William Allard – http://www.williamalbertallard.com/index.php
Vincent Laforet – http://www.laforetvisuals.com
Billy Blake – http://www.billyblakephotos.com
Elaine Ling – www.elaineling.com
Gloriann Liu – http://www.gloriannliu.com
Andy Romanoff – www.andyromanoff.com
