Silver Conference (2007) Recap/Experience?

[blaze-on]

Anyone? I haven't seen anything on this yet.
Who went and what were your thoughts?

Print exhibition?
Award winners?
Darkroom Demo?
Forums?
Presentations?

I went last year and am curious if anyone went last year and this year..
(I wasn't curious enough to go though.)
Thanks

 

[Robert Brummitt]

Has it happen as yet? I thought it was in April?

 

[blaze-on]

Took place this past weekend. Apparently no ape-huggers went..(?)

 

[Sparky]

I went. I just lurked around - I wanted to see the print competition winners. One thing that I thought was really refreshing was the apparent lack of dull 'old-west' cowboy landscapes (you know what I'm talkin' 'bout). I wonder if they had something of a mandate to show young (and unpretentious) work... and I also wonder what didn't make the grade. I was expecting to get depressed about my own printing abilities... but it was a nice recalibration in a way. I didn't think the prints were all that great. Decent - I would say. Flame me if you want - but I wasn't even that impressed by Sexton's prints (granted - they were nice, if a little anemic - to me). There were a few people there showin work/getting crits, who I thought had slightly better printing than Sexton and others. But mostly because the subject matter really worked with the papers they were using. But anyway - it was good. Though I regret not putting something in the competition now.

 

[Robert Brummitt]

How many people showed up? The first Conference had about 180. Was it more or less? I'm surprised that no other Apug person was there. Gustavo and others were campaigning for it. I didn't go because of the costs involve and 3/4 of the same speakers as last years.
Did they mention if there would be a third Conference?

 

[Sparky]

Not many people actually - I was wondering if there weren't very many submissions to the print competition... didn't seem to be too much variety. There were MAYBE 70 people in the room. But it could be that some were missing or out for supper - who knows...? I just crashed it. Didn't pay.

 

[Robert Brummitt]

The Conference folks called. They want their entrence fee, ol' Sparky dude.
I would like to know how it went? I do hope well but the lack of response from all here isn't good.

 

[lee]

The Conference folks called. They want their entrence fee, ol' Sparky dude.
I would like to know how it went? I do hope well but the lack of response from all here isn't good.

I think Robert Hall went but he may still be in California shooting. Haven't seen him posting much lately.

lee\c

 

[blaze-on]

I had heard that attendance was low, and that some of the key speakers didn't end up showing.
Simon Galley was supposed to go..Any word Simon?

Sparky, I think I hinted (on LF forum) you could crash the print exhibition...did you attend any of the Day conference?

This probably does not bode well for a future Conference, at least not as it has been set up.

More demo's, vendors perhaps may garnish greater interest.

Anyway, hope to hear more from whomever..

 

[Sparky]

The Conference folks called. They want their entrence fee, ol' Sparky dude.
I would like to know how it went? I do hope well but the lack of response from all here isn't good.

haw haw...! Bring 'em on...! I only saw some of the people there who had tables... and who were getting crits. And the print comp stuff. The elevator digital stuff was quite impressive! The guy running the table was the canadian equivalent to what I'd call a 'good ol' boy'... so it was fun talking for a bit about home environs...

 

[Sparky]

Sparky, I think I hinted (on LF forum) you could crash the print exhibition...did you attend any of the Day conference

Yes - that's right..! Thanks. I only went to the print part of it - maybe 2 hours, tops.

 

[User Removed]

This was my first year attending the Silver Conference and I will surly go back next year. I think a lot of people that may have attended last year were turned off about going because a lot of people were thinking most the talk would be about marketing/galleries/publishing, and not everyone is interested in that.

The first night was a very inform critique for the select few that were not students and random people wandering in looking for a free critique. Personally, I did not see to much work that excited me much, but that is not to say that there was not some fantastic work. I was showing a small portfolio of random images as well. I had hope to take both my older work, Iceland portfolios and my new work...but my portfolio boxes which were being custom made did not arrive in time for me to take all my work.

Ken Rosenthal gave a presentation on his life work. Mary Virginia Swanson gave an intense lecture on marketing that I'm still trying to sort out in my head because she packs so much information into her talks. A lady from BLURB gave a talk about their book publishing company to try to get more sales from those would be foolish enough to send them their photographs. John Sexton gave an amazing lecture on his life work, the work of Ruth Bernhard, and of course Ansel Adams. John was an amazing speaker and I highly suggest if you ever get the chance to attend one of his lectures...do so.

The second night was an even more informal critique with EVERYONE, including students from the school. I was there for awhile, but it was a complete madhouse of people running around trying to show their photographs and see others photographs. I left that night to head home, missing the final day.

Thank you to everyone that took the time to view my work and thank you everyone that brought beautiful work to share as well!

Best,

Ryan McIntosh
www.RyanMcIntosh.net

 

[Alex Hawley]

Its kind of spooky that nothing has been said about it, outside of this thread.

 

[copake_ham]

Its kind of spooky that nothing has been said about it, outside of this thread.

Lot of spooky things going on - have you too noticed the silence?

Is it only here?

 

[blaze-on]

Yeah...maybe it was held in the Outer Limits...

I guess it bombed, so perhaps Calumet et al would rather not bring attention to that..

 

[wildbill]

I didn't see any ads for it anywhere this year. I didn't even know it was going to happen this year. Freestyle didn't post anything and Calumet didn't have anything up that i saw. The calumet email flyer they send me quite often didn't mention it either. The flyer is usally all digital anyway. If they didn't make a significant profit then i'd be suprised if they are a part of it next year.

I take that back, they did mention it at the bottom of the flyer.

 

[Sparky]

They could have hyped it WAAAAYY more. It'd be more of a risk - but if they could have made more potential ticket sales - and broken down the tickets a la carte - they could have paid more speakers to be there - which would, in turn, bring more visitors, etc. etc... It just sounds like they were being a LITTLE BIT too non-commital about it. Why just go part-way???

 

[blaze-on]

Having gone last year, which I enjoyed, I can say it does not actually offer much bang for the buck per se. You listen to a lot of speakers/ presentations and the portfolio showings/contestant stuff.

There were apparently less presenters than last year and mostly the same ones, minus...

I considered it (last year) as entertainment and not so much educational.
The benefit was to "feel" that silver based photography would be around for some time.

I think lack of advertising hurt it severely, than again, I'm not sure what it is they were selling. Maybe they weren't either..

Hopefully someone who presented or represented will chime in eventually.

 

[lee]

I talked to Robert Hall last night in the chat room and he indicated he thought about 200 people came to this years version. I went last year but not this year.

lee\c

 

[Bob Carnie]

I just got back from Silver yesterday,
I have mixed feelings about the event. We brought down samplings of our work and met a lot of people both nights at our tables.
John Sexton is an amazing speaker and he definately was the highlight of the days event. The other speakers were interesting but I feel they fell short compared to John. The tech talk was limited to only 1hour and I think Ilford being a sponsor and present should have more time to talk about their vision of the future of silver. This was in my opinion one of the most critical areas of the conference and the time limit was very dissapointing.
A lot of time was spent on marketing ones work and simply was very dated and boring and if one followed all the advise you would no longer be a photographer , but an ad agency.
I was really dissapointed not to meet Tim Rudman as he and others were not brought in and I was not aware of that before I left Toronto for the Conference.
The event was not well attended as others have pointed out.
I think that this conference and some others should be combined with a major Photofest in a local that is sponsoring such a city wide photography festival.
I am thankful to the organizers to host such an undertaking, as I well know the problems that can and do occur from my experience with the first APUG Conference and our very vocal photocommunity should look at these events and be more supportive by attending and sharing.
Without attendence these events will definately go away which would be a shame.
I have met in person at Silver and APUG1 many , many wonderful people and I feel enriched by this one on one experience.
This trip I met Ralph Baker, Steve Simmons, Aggie, Robert Hall, John Upton, Another one of the owners of Ilford and many other photographers and printers , and it was a pleasure putting a face to some ot the names.
This is only possible by attending and supporting our communities efforts.
My main dissapointment is not with the Silver Conference but with the lack of attendees, plain and simple

 

[Sparky]

Hey Bob! Don't know if you remember - I'm the guy from London...! I was drooling on your prints... (figuratively, of course!)

 

[Richard Newman]

I'd like to respond from Calumet's side of the Silver conference:

This year we did have lower registration, why is a mystery to a lot of people. In the end we had over 250 attend, which is more than last year, this is because we decided as a group to allow students in at no charge on Saturday and they responded in droves. We also made the Silver Circle so that people that paid would get special attention on Friday night and Sunday morning.

Instead of canceling, we went with a smaller line up of speakers and panels. The choice for Art Center in Pasadena is logical, the school is the best, we have great facilities and it's pretty easy to administrate without too much before hand travel and expense.

The number of entires in the print competition was the same as last year, with great work submitted and chosen by our judges. How often does anybody get the chance to show their work to this level of judge?

I would like to say thank you publicly to our speakers who were tireless in their support of this conference and traditional photography.
Last year any profits from the conference were given back to ACD for a student scholarship, it really helped a kid in their career.

Our focus on marketing this year was so that we could help photographers get their work out into the world to be seen, work in drawers and boxes is wasted work, there is personal satisfaction, but photography is for sharing.

There is a lot of love and sweat between Ilford/Harmon, Art Center College of Design and Calumet Photographic that goes into this, almost 7 months of my time goes into the creation of this event as do my partners. We do it to give traditional photography a voice, I feel Silver was a smashing success this year. Looks for it again.

Richard Newman
Calumet Photogrpahic
Director of Education

 

[Robert Brummitt]

I'd like to respond from Calumet's side of the Silver conference:

This year we did have lower registration, why is a mystery to a lot of people. In the end we had over 250 attend, which is more than last year, this is because we decided as a group to allow students in at no charge on Saturday and they responded in droves. We also made the Silver Circle so that people that paid would get special attention on Friday night and Sunday morning.

Richard Newman
Calumet Photogrpahic
Director of Education

That was a very good thing! Last year, I was a sad that not many young folks didn't come. By opening up this year to students. You're seeding the art for the future. My hat is off to you for that.
Lets see what next year brings.

 

[Sparky]

This year we did have lower registration, why is a mystery to a lot of people. In the end we had over 250 attend, which is more than last year, this is because we decided as a group to allow students in at no charge on Saturday and they responded in droves. We also made the Silver Circle so that people that paid would get special attention on Friday night and Sunday morning.

Instead of canceling, we went with a smaller line up of speakers and panels. The choice for Art Center in Pasadena is logical, the school is the best, we have great facilities and it's pretty easy to administrate without too much before hand travel and expense.

Our hats are all off to you, everyone at Calumet and Harman Ilford, and your sponsors - for caring to make it happen! My thoughts (if you care) are as follows;

It appeared to me that there was just a single (and very steep) fee of $175 or so to attend any portion of the conference. I would imagine that you could get greater attendance by having some sort of à la carte offerings - most conferences of ANY kind usually allow a 'pay-as-you-go' scheme of some sort. If, as with THIS conference, attendance will be unpredictable, it might be a great thing, in order to secure more heads, to offer a more varied lineup - this doesn't have to be at great expense - as long as the themes are compelling (and that's your job, I guess) - in which case, you'd be able to secure many lesser-knowns to talk at little to no expense. In this case, you might have varied themes, such as the 'state of the art' in alternative silver processes, or toning, say - and have a bunch of practitioners doing interesting work talking about their work. The number of compelling concepts you could come up with are as unlimited as your imagination. Certainly, the community here would be more than willing to help out - and, I'd imagine, the more involved you get such communities with the planning and execution of it - the more seats you'd be able to fill as well... it seems to me it can be as big as you want to commit to. If you ever want to engage this idea, please let us know.

sincerely,
Jonathan

 

[Alex Hawley]

I'd like to respond from Calumet's side of the Silver conference:

This year we did have lower registration, why is a mystery to a lot of people. In the end we had over 250 attend, which is more than last year, this is because we decided as a group to allow students in at no charge on Saturday and they responded in droves. We also made the Silver Circle so that people that paid would get special attention on Friday night and Sunday morning.

Instead of canceling, we went with a smaller line up of speakers and panels. The choice for Art Center in Pasadena is logical, the school is the best, we have great facilities and it's pretty easy to administrate without too much before hand travel and expense.

The number of entires in the print competition was the same as last year, with great work submitted and chosen by our judges. How often does anybody get the chance to show their work to this level of judge?

I would like to say thank you publicly to our speakers who were tireless in their support of this conference and traditional photography.
Last year any profits from the conference were given back to ACD for a student scholarship, it really helped a kid in their career.

Our focus on marketing this year was so that we could help photographers get their work out into the world to be seen, work in drawers and boxes is wasted work, there is personal satisfaction, but photography is for sharing.

There is a lot of love and sweat between Ilford/Harmon, Art Center College of Design and Calumet Photographic that goes into this, almost 7 months of my time goes into the creation of this event as do my partners. We do it to give traditional photography a voice, I feel Silver was a smashing success this year. Looks for it again.

Richard Newman
Calumet Photogrpahic
Director of Education

Thanks for the update Richard. Hopefully, I will be able to attend the next one.