Next Year - EVERYONE should go to the f295 Symposium

[gr82bart]

Seriously. This was a fantastic event. In summary,

• excellent event management,
• regular communication and updates from the organizer(s),
• diverse attendees (wide age range, many youngsters and at least 50% women!),
• no one cared if you weren't an orthodox purist and did something in digital (we all have flaws),
• no one cared about your equipment or talked about their equipment,
• outstanding speakers who weren't peddling their own businesses,
• lots of door prizes,
• decent food to be bought,
• amazing facilities (multiple darkrooms, numerous meeting rooms, lots of equipment available for use, central place to hang and chat with others)
• great location in general to go out and shoot

Unfortunately, I missed the speakers on Friday, even though I arrived on time - work got in the way of play. I heard the speakers were fantastic - none of the same old, same old people, but speakers who were making large pinholes/camera obscuras in public places; who are pushing the boundaries of digital to revitalize historical printing processes; who are using Toy Cameras/Lomo to show film as counter culture, retro and hip and as an entry to other areas of film photography; and who are marketing traditional and historical prints as high end, unique images for corporations and individual buyers, not just collectors and galleries; just to highlight a few. These folks were all exciting because they were extending their own boundaries with passion.

As for workshops, you can view them on the f295 website - http://www.f295.org/symposium2008/ I took France Scully-Osterman's Wet Plate workshop over 2 days.

France is a great teacher. A little on the hyper side, but a great teacher. Plus she likes to 're-purpose' everything (even crack pipes and diapers - inside joke people). You have to attend to know what I am talking about. You can tell when she talks about wet plate process that she's passionate about it. It oozes out of her. And she's amazingly knowledgeable about her passion too. Her workshop started with the theory behind wet plates, different types (she had some samples of her work that illustrated the different types), a summary of the equipment and chemicals; and a walk through of the ambrotype process as she produced a plate.

Then it was our turn.

In this class, I was the only non educator. Everyone else taught photography somewhere else. I thought, this is amazing and good to know that traditional and historical processes are being taught in many part of the country. And to younger people too.

We (the attendees) watched ourselves pour the collodion. Very zen. Sensitize the plate, develop and had lots of oohs and ahs when the blue disappeared in the cyanide. We chatted away the boredom while we poured and then warmed the varnish over an oil lamp. I even did 4 myself, despite my failed attempts at getting her to say it was OK to use a spray varnish. Drats. I mentioned my first attempts that bypassed the varnish process all-together and was replaced with a can of black spray paint instead. This was met with rightful disdain. In all most of us managed to create 2-3 plates.

She had a booklet handout that went into great detail on the process, equipment, chemicals, and resources.

Bottom line is this class had great value - it was a detailed hands on course of the complete end to end ambrotype process - with images made from an enlarger and from a plate camera.

BTW, Connie Begg was our assistant and despite her having a NASA moment confusing imperial and metric units (I should talk, being the one that turned on the lights just as Jamie was looking at his plate in the silver nitrate bath box), she was a hoot to be around. http://www.conniebegg.com

I also had the pleasure of having Robert Hirsch in my class. His recent work was on display at the Symposium and generated a lot of discussion around history, politics, ethics, copyright, public domain, and free speech. http://www.lightresearch.net/

France Scully Osterman and her husband Mark's website is: http://www.collodion.org/

I would highly recommend her as an instructor.

Now as for the rest of the Symposium, I went to the Alternative Photography Exhibition opening. I was struck with the works of:

• Our own APUGer Keith Taylor's photogravures: http://keithtaylorphoto.com/ - I'd like to buy one of his prints
• Ilan Wolff's huge lunagram made without a camera: http://www.ilanwolff.com/ - I bought his books
• Beautiful daguerreotypes of Pittsburgh's skyline by Mike Robinson: Dead Link Removed - I want to take his course (And he's Canadian too, eh)

A great show.

I highly recommend this symposium. Assuming costs remain roughly the same next year, rumoured to be in San Francisco, the Symposium fee was $150, courses cost about $200 for one day, hotel rooms were $115 per night. So budget about $1200 if travel and expenses are factored in and two courses or one two day course is taken.

Tom Persinger is an example of a great event manager. He communicates regularly through multiple channels - email, website, forums. His f295 Symposium website, not only has all the information you could ever need to attend, it looks professionally appealing too, is easy to navigate, has appropriate links, has e-business tools for online registration and payment, and is updated regularly with accurate up to date information. And as an organizer, he's not an instructor or an attendee. He organizes! Plus he's not pushing his photography or studio or business. Most importantly he's inclusive of everyone attending.

Other APUGers I met include: Peter Schrager, Winger (Bethe), 25ASA and Keith Taylor. Again. Everyone should go to this event.

An excellent, more cerebral review of the event can be found here by Leo Hsu: http://www.foto8.com/home/content/blogcategory/14/31/

Now, for some areas of improvement:

1. Ventilation in the darkroom! Seriously - something bad might happen one day if this isn't corrected. Not really the organizer's fault, but this needs to be fixed IMO as an engineer that deals with facilities issues my entire career.
2. I heard there were no breaks during the speakers and people were dozing off.
3. Maybe, just maybe, have all the events in one location or closer. Just a thought.
4. Maybe organizing some social events besides the openings. Not that Tom hasn't got enough to do already.

Oh, and for those of you worried about "Lomography being a sponsor", they really tried to convert the weak and feeble with a bumper sticker and small catalog. Anyway, once again, I reiterate. This was a fantastic event and everyone should go next year.

Regards, Art.

 

[winger]

I agree! There was so much creativity and imagination running around that I'll never catch up with all the ideas I got during it. Personally, I hope it's in Pittsburgh again 'cause I live close by, but it would be worth traveling to CA for me.
I took the gum bichromate workshop and had a great time. It's something I'd never done before, but I now have two prints started (yeah, they really need a dark grey layer).
The talks that Art missed on Friday were incredibly inspiring. It's probably somewhat unfair to say I have a favorite, but Ilan Wolff is one of the most creative people I've ever met. His passion for exploring photography, pinholes, lunagrams, and happy accidents is just so contagious.

 

[Bruce]

f295 Conference feedback

I also enjoyed the f295 conference along with two friends from Ohio. No sales pitches, just different ways to photograph such as pinhole, toy cameras, etc.

Speakers were good and diverse. Several different views expressed.

Workshops on Alt Processes were nice but would have liked 2 days for the gum workshop. It was a bit rushed at the end but still a great workshop. Scott McMahon is a very good instructor.

I agree with others that a mixer of some type would have been nice. The print show was very nice and a great oportunity to meet others and see their prints.

Hope to attend next year.

Bruce

 

[Peter Schrager]

f295

this was absolutely the best symposium that I ever attended...I actually ended taking my salt print and calotype negative class with Jill Enfield and Martha Casanaves...Alan Barnes the author of primitive photography was the teacher
we worked our butts off the entire time and it was great..he has an extensive knowledge of these proceses never heard and f/stop mentioned the whole time
next year in San Fran...I'm there!!
Best, Peter

 

[tpersin]

Many Thanks to everyone who came! Thanks to Art, Bethe, Bruce and Peter for writing up these little reviews (not so little in Arts case!) and sharing with the APUG community! I facilitate and organize the event but it's successful only because of all of the wonderful photographer-guests who attend. The spirit of sharing and community at f295 is fantastic! Everyone is eager to see what others are doing, how they're doing it and could care less if it's a Deardorff, a Hasselblad or a shoe-box camera. It's all about the image and the ideas that drive its creation.

It's true that we'll be having an event in San Francisco in August 2009. It will be more akin to the seminar we did at B&H Photo this past January: a one day event which features artists discussing their work. It may also have an exhibition component. BUT due to popular demand, I'm VERY pleased to say that the Symposium will again be in Pittsburgh. We're aiming for the same weekend (after Memorial Day)... Look for a major announcement soon!

I hope to see all of you there!

Bring your friends and fresh images to share!!!

With many thanks,
Tom

ps: I'll be posting a lot of images to the f295 flickr pool soon. If you have some I urge you to do the same!
Dead Link Removed

 

[winger]

BUT due to popular demand, I'm VERY pleased to say that the Symposium will again be in Pittsburgh. We're aiming for the same weekend (after Memorial Day)... Look for a major announcement soon!

Woo Hoo!!!! I'm glad. And I might try to make it to both. It'd be a good excuse to go to CA.
And if anyone around here wants to go shoot....