WWFD

© Lee Friedlander. The New Cars 1964

Post by Pugilist Press

Now and again, with my finger on the shutter release, I'll ask myself, "What am I doing?" Some times it's an audible "Why the fuck am I taking this picture?" Sun-bleached billboards for a Christian daycare. Ripped boxes behind an apartment complex. Chewing gum at the base of the drive thru order box. Is it of any value? I panic a bit, clutching that little black box with clammy hands; then I remember Lee Friedlander, and every view is alive with potential. The cloud passes, I take the picture.

The Friedlander I'm thinking about is a contemporary photographer, and not some dinosaur bones from the MOMA archives that peaked when That Girl was on the air. We will not be talking about some Photo God with a string of half-empty churches across the land, and a brick-thick Bible to disseminate his legend. We will not be talking about some antique tradesman frozen in a quaint infotainment village going about his business just like they did "back then." We won't be talking about someone we look up to, or one that we’ve evolved beyond. We are simply talking about a photographer of this day, 2014. One with bad knees, sure. One with a few more mentions in the history books, but more importantly, more urgently, one who works in the now, and one whose methods are aligned with what we say we want.

I'm assuming you want what We want. Am I wrong? A better world. Gender justice. Racial justice. A world where the puppet strings of power are illuminated and everyone is equipped with a pair of scissors. One where we embrace reason yet recognize its limitations. You are not all talk and no action. You do not have a tab at Chick-fil-A. You have never uttered the words “reverse racism.” You are for real, you want that real, and you’re ready to do the real work. If that's the case, if you want photography that points to a just world, then start with Friedlander.

I’m not saying Lee's the future. I don't play those odds. Sci-fi writers don’t play those odds. The future is an unknowable distraction from the present. The question of time gets confusing for photography because it is so central to its ontology. So one must be forgiving of the many that are in a tizzy over what comes next. Amongst the arts, Photography is a pup, less than two centuries compared to the others’ millennia. The current crisis is nothing more than growing pains, but too many are worried about the crib-death of photography. And many of the attempts to Frankenstein-up the medium are light on the electricity and heavy on the formaldehyde: redoes of Sander without the wit, Rejlander without the finely calibrated melodrama, Bayard without the punchline, Hoch without the rigor, Rusha without the generosity, and so many of these sub-Bournes turning every gallery into wunderkammers. We are still learning to deal with photographs that are older than grandma, never mind those that were made last week. We are still teaching ourselves how to look at photos and figuring out why we look. Currently, the best answers are provisional. Those reaching for the stone tablets are the ones making the most dubious pronouncements.

© Thomas Struth, Paradise 17. 1999

The second most influential tribe in photography still seems to be the Dusseldorf crew and affiliated chapters. The first has this weird and sad contempt for the medium and seems to control many of the institutions that should be supporting it. Thinking about them paralyzes me, so allow me to go straight to the house that the Bechers built. Could those two be any more Catholic? They have left us a body of work that treats pleasure as an annoyance, that is deeply concerned with funerary rites and the afterlife, that thrives on a clear, regimented and immutable structure. The Bechers' work is also one huge act of faith: it was produced over decades without a single sign of doubt or deviation, it was the same process at the end as it was at the beginning. There was no reaction to the reactions, those grids kept popping up like monoliths across our museums, stating powerfully, without ever shouting, that “the answer” was there from the beginning and the world would have to conform to it. Pleasure was mostly absent, curiosity was absent, conversation was absent. The Bechers photographed a fifty-year sermon. And you know what? I ain’t mad at it. It’s decent work, and some of their students went even further and made some pretty good Catholic pictures.

© Daido Moriyama, Stray Dog, Misawa, Aomori, 1971

Here's the thing about a true secular culture, as opposed to atheism as some perverse theocracy of Logic, it allows for pockets of religion, it understands that a single system cannot possibly provide for all of its members, it understands that encouraging alternatives will make the society stronger. It is a lot more difficult, maybe even impossible, for a culture formed around strict dogma to respect and nurture pockets that wish to deviate from or reject that dogma. In small terms there’s room for the Bechers at Friedlander's house, but there's no room for Lee at the Becher temple. And this is why I am not suggesting we look to Friedlander, not as the ideal, but simply as a sturdy and useful model, one that we've been in danger of boxing up and burying in some warehouse.

Containment don’t jive with the faithless, and Lee is faithless. His eye has never settled on subject or schema. There has never been a lack of things to see for Friedlander. Even when age temporarily robbed him of his legs, he still managed to produce an odd and lovely book of flower stems. Viewed together, Friedlander's many series seem to say that nothing is beneath attention, nothing is meaningless. And that might be a lie, but if that's the case then it is a useful one. It's a lie that goes beyond our species dark leaning to turn every event, object, and life form as some sort of mirror. The work he's done over the years is often incredibly tender towards humanity, sometimes a bit cruel, and sometimes the very things that we have made are emancipated from us by Friedlander's framing. All those moments, spaces, and objects exist at the same level of effort and attention. There is no hierarchy. What we find instead is a keen awareness that Chaos and Order are the same tune played in different keys, one note after the other, one sound after the other, building melodies and rhythms, there is no status in a tune, even the voids are propulsive. The work is everywhere and it is never ending.

© Josef Koudelka, Hauts-de-Seine. Parc de Sceaux. 1987

If I sometimes get carried away describing the work, I blame its many complex and unexpected pleasures. I've seen the work described as too "flashy" or "tricky" by people, I would assume, that are disturbed by virtuosity. Or perhaps, they see it as nothing but indulgence, some dude showing off. I see nothing but humility. A thing in itself will always have value. Physics, biology, history, function and many other facets of its presence will see to that. A description of a thing, on the other hand, is often worthless as description even when it is of definite value as an artifact. Description that does justice to its object is a very rare thing. In four decades of looking at dog pictures, for example, I've seen a bunch of pretty good ones, and only two great ones. Even with the torrents of photographs coming at us from Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and others, the world lacks adequate descriptions. Friedlander is trying, and the effort often translates into pleasure, and not the cheap kind that is nothing but a shortcut to jouissance, acrid and necessary fuel for the big fire. Lee's pleasure is tantric, it is narcotic, it embraces the moment and pushes perception to bloom. These photographs help us with the necessary transition from beings who can look (setting eyes on the known) to beings who can see (setting eyes on the known and unknown alike). The pictures' formal verve has nothing to do with indulgence, that’s just Lee trying to describe the world adequately.

When the Chicago Sun-Times fired its photographers, I was very definitely on the side my brethren. That said, I had a big issue with the illustration that kept popping up as an indictment of The Sun-Times’ greedy, short sighted ways. In this comparison, the Tribune photograph showed me exactly what I was expecting, in a professional and polished manner, a good photograph that offers a look at victory. The Sun-Times, photograph, the supposedly bad one, allowed me to figure out that mourning is a corollary to any well earned victory. Reaching that final goal means an end to the effort that drove and at times probably sustained the players, it also means the temporary or permanent dissolution of the fellowship responsible for this success. The Sun-Times photograph is about seeing, and it exposed the very real lack that was present in even the most densely staffed papers.

© Jessica Watson, Flounder. 2001

Friedlander has not photographed everything. He has not photographed in every way, but with each year he grows the library of the seen, and each year that we’re exposed to that library, we extend our capacities for perception. Each committed laborer with a camera can add to this endeavor, and the results are invariably beyond our imaginations and desires. Look at Jessica Watson's Flounder. It's one of the kinkiest images I have ever seen, a sad and beautiful slice of fish that connects fetish culture to the Shackleton expedition in a way that makes perfect sense. Look at Wolfgang Tillmans' for when I'm weak I'm strong, a new source of hope in a world that had seemingly exhausted the resources. This is photography as instrument, as tool, as factory rather than illustration or critique or confirmation. These are the type of photographs that are always absent from all of those shows and publications that claim to be the harbingers of the New Photography. They are ignored because the language around such pictures feels exhausted, and so the common mistake is made of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How does one even begin to catalogue the layers of fascination of this image (sadly separated from its author) found on Tumblr. More than new ways of making photographs we desperately need new ways of talking about them.'

Image from Tumblr, separated from author

______________________________

Pugilist Press is a collective of seven artists who all happen to be the same person, including pensive heartthrob Jericho Butters, renaissance bad boy DJ BabyNeckFat and Haitian expat Sebastien Boncy.

Book Discussion Group Recap: The "Quiet" Photograph

© Stephen Shore, Room 316, Howard Johnson's, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 6, 1973

I am joining Flak Photo and creator Andy Adams to host an online community conversation on the Flak Photo Books Facebook page focused on essays from Gerry Badger’s recently published book of essays, "The Pleasures of Good Photographs."

This public discussion provides a structured setting for expanding our understanding of the essays by reading collectively. All are welcome to join in! The conversation will continue the week of June 11th with the essay "Elliptical Narratives: Some Thoughts on the Photobook." (page 221) A full reading schedule can be found here.

I am following up on these community conversations with posts here on fototazo that will recap the ideas we discuss.  These follow-up posts will necessarily be an abbreviated selection given the length and quality of the conversation in the community discussion threads. In many cases, what arose from the conversation were questions and ideas to continue to explore, and not necessarily conclusions or consensus. My goal with these follow-up posts is to pull out threads from the weekly discussion that can be applied beyond the individual essays to inform our general understanding of the medium itself.

The follow-up post to the essay, "Literate, Authoritative, Transcendent: Walker Evans's American Photographs" can be found here and to "A Certain Sensibility: John Gossage, the Photographer as Auteur" here. This post is on "Without Author or Art: The 'Quiet' Photograph."

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CRITICAL OBJECTIVITY
A dominant theme in all of this week's threads was the tone of the essay. Readers – save one - noted the more aggressive, less impartial writing in this essay.

London-based photographer Pete Massingham wrote, "It seems to me that more than anything, this essay reveals the limitations or parameters of Badger's analytical ideology. This essay is clearly riddled with contradictions and bias...Unfortunately, a subjective, emotional bias sometimes permeates through his work at the expense of critical objectivity - no matter how well it is disguised by fine words." Contributor John Armstrong added, "I sense a tinge of resentment, almost bitterness, in his book that may have to do with his perception that the artworld has definitively rejected the very kind of photography that he likes most."

 I wrote, "I keep comparing him to [Geoff] Dyer and [Robert] Adams and keep feeling like both Dyer and Adams do a great job of 'showing' the reader and letting the reader participate by observing the evidence the two writers present; I feel Badger 'tells' us the evidence and this attempt to be persuasive through force is off-putting, even for someone like myself who is sympathetic to the arguments and the positions he wants to defend."

THE QUIET PHOTOGRAPH 
Looking past the issues around critical objectivity in the essay, we discussed the main concept of the "quiet photograph" itself. Badger defines the term with words such as calm, modest, measured, grace, economy, and reasonable. He then reduces the work that he considers to define his term: no photography with propositions about art, no expressionist tendencies, no big prints, no heavily worked prints, no "self-consciously mediating between reality and image" (i.e. no readily apparent style).

Our conversation considered whether the "quiet photograph" was based in technique, form, or content. Armstrong wrote "I initially thought that Badger's 'quiet' thing was basically a formalist thing, i.e. defined by properties you could detect in a picture without knowing anything about the photographer or the circumstances of creation. But after reading the essay again I now think it's really mostly about that photographer's attitude towards his (Badger's preferred pronoun) practice and photography in general. I don't know whether he believes you can 'read' the attitude from the work, but my belief is that you can't."

Massingham countered, "My take on this is that the quiet photograph has everything to do with the photograph itself," and that "The quiet photograph has a lot to do with pace, not necessarily in recognising it as an example of that category, but in deciphering or appreciating its attributes."

NARROWS DEFINITIONS AND THE QUIET PHOTOGRAPH OUTSIDE OF ART
In a corollary conversation, we discussed Badger's decision to define the quiet photograph outside of art photography. I asked whether participants thought that was problematic for us as photographers who, generally, have fought to be taken seriously as artists, not craftspeople - as peers of painters more than anything.

I also asked readers if the definition Badger employs necessarily needs to be as narrow as he makes it. Could work that shows an interest in personal expression or concerns of art be made in such a way that could be calm, meditative, honest, modest? Or is all intent towards expression necessarily "operatic," "desperate," and "arty" as Badger writes? And all photography interested in the dialogues of the art world “making noise”?

Armstrong wrote that Badger's position creates a binary choice: a photograph is either art or photography, but can't be both, and that this position is extreme.

Photographer and educator Dawn Roe agreed, "Badger’s narrow definition absolutely undercuts the usefulness of the term in question. Rejecting en masse photographs that are large in scale or engage in conceptual modes of serial imagery, for instance, disallows considerations of the relationship between form and content in this type of work – relationships that may well fall precisely under the umbrella terms set up by Badger in terms of a modest subtlety."

I added, "Badger goes awry for me when he tries to argue this set of values is unique to a very specific type of image, and then insinuates across the essay that other types of photographs cannot have those qualities - that no photograph can be 'quiet' if it deals with art or shows an expressionistic tendency; it can't be subtle, modest, restrained, that it's desperate for attention."

Finally, educator and photographer Angela Kelly wrote, "Badger in his desire to extol the virtues of the quiet photograph loses sight of his own argument offered in other chapters, and hurtles down a defensive path which is entirely unreasoned and unnecessary."

Texas-based photographer Pugilist Press countered the thoughts by writing, "The quiet photograph is narrowly defined and that at least works in favor of the essay. Narrow definitions are useful definitions. Nebulous definitions give us nothing to push against, pull along, cleave, or dissect. And to be clear, nowhere does he state that the artists or their work are neutral, he speaks of maintaining the neutrality of the camera."

THE BUBBLE
The group also explored the perception that many major online forums for photography, including the Flak Photo Network and Flak Photo Books that this discussion is being held on, are slanted towards photographers making photographs, not art, at least for the terms of Badger's essay.

Pugilist Press wrote, "I think that in a space like Flak where we are all aficionados or practitioners, it is easy to forget that we exist as a bubble within the art world and though we are supposed to share space and engage in a common dialogue things have very different values inside and outside of this bubble. Names like Adams, Lyon, Gossage, Moriyama, Levitt, Parr, Evans, Shore, Winogrand are a lot more important inside than outside. Names like Demand, Wall, LaChapelle, Ruff, Sekula matter more in the wider art world. The bubble is porous and can be difficult to locate, but it is clearly there."

STATIC AND DYNAMIC PICTURES 
Armstrong introduced the idea of “static” and “dynamic” pictures with static correlated to, but not the same as, quiet photographs. He explained, "A number of people (including the teacher of a class I took a few years ago) make a distinction between static and dynamic pictures (or rather define a spectrum from totally static to highly dynamic.) It generally has to do with the sense of movement or unfolding drama in a picture, though it sometimes has a low-level cognitive aspect in how your eye floats around the picture. (In static picture it focuses on one thing or migrates from thing to thing, where as in dynamic pictures it will do a sweep along an axis).”

A CAMERA’S LOGIC
Puglist Press raised the issues of a "camera’s logic":

     The camera records all objects and subjects with complete neutrality. Point of view and
     allegiances are revealed by the photographer's formal decision at the moment of exposure. This
     is what I got from the essay at least, and I do think that there is something to be said for
     maintaining the way that the camera 'thinks.' You can violate that logic and still make great
     work but why accept the violations as status quo?

     This is what is happening outside of the editorial/documentary world. The violation is becoming
     the status quo, the camera's logic is bypassed more and more and for someone for a deep love
     for that type of photography this ain't exactly a golden age.

ARBITERS OF TASTE
The issue of arbiters of taste was raised again, as it was with the John Gossage essay.

Massingham states, "A lot of how we perceive and what influences photographic practice and comment, is down to the critics - those aficionados of taste who, through a combination of persuasive argument and financial clout promote specific styles or approaches of work that they feel is relevant or that has mileage at any given point in cultural history." He continued by asking us, "Who are the arbiters of taste, and how do they gain prominence?"

Puglist Press responded with an interesting idea: "I don't think that the distinction [between American and European work] is Badger's. I might be completely wrong about this but I think that the distinction is actually a cultural accident. Europe never had a Szarkowski with the full weight of something like the MOMA behind him / her. That is a very singular instance and it has colored fifty years of dialogue, much of it aggressively since the 80s. I do believe that there are some definite American elements to the MOMA program but without certain key people in key places the whole thing could have evolved quite differently. Quiet photographers abound in Europe, but they were never the big names. No Szarkowski to exalt them."

CONSERVATIVE CRITICISM
Finally, we ended the week with a critique from Armstrong of Badger and his writing. He wrote:

     I believe the approach is bad for photography.

     It's a extremely conservative, even reactionary approach that seeks to return to a photographic
     age that's past, and probably for the better: a purist, parochial, exclusivist age dominated by
     formalism and detachment from / indifference to the practical realities of the world. It was the
     age of the masters, but it was also the age of the superannuated camera club, obsessing as ever
     over the issues of legitimacy and self-definition as it squirmed in its awkward middle place
     between art (i.e. painting) and popular photography. It was an age whose ideal was a form of
     photography so pure that no one except the photographers trying to make it and a few
     connoisseurs could appreciate it (or be bothered to try).

     It's not possible to return to this age because it's over. People – photographers – can try to
     recreate it, but, even if they succeed, what will they have accomplished?

Book Discussion Group Recap: John Gossage

© John Gossage, untitled, from the series "The Pond" 1985

I am joining Flak Photo and creator Andy Adams to host an online community conversation on the Flak Photo Books Facebook page focused on essays from Gerry Badger’s recently published book of essays, "The Pleasures of Good Photographs."

This public discussion provides a structured setting for expanding our understanding of the essays by reading collectively. All are welcome to join in! The conversation will continue the week of June 4th with the essay "Without Author or Art: The 'Quiet' Photograph." (page 210) A full reading schedule can be found here.

I am following up on these community conversations with posts here on fototazo that will recap a selection of the ideas we discuss.  These follow-up posts will necessarily be an abbreviated selection given the length and quality of the conversation in the community discussion threads. In many cases, what arose from the conversation were questions and ideas to continue to explore, and not necessarily conclusions or consensus. My goal with these follow-up posts is to pull out threads from the weekly discussion that can be applied beyond the individual essays to inform our general understanding of the medium itself.

We began with the essay, "Literate, Authoritative, Transcendent: Walker Evans's American Photographs" and the follow-up post can be found here. We followed with the essay "A Certain Sensibility: John Gossage, the Photographer as Auteur," the subject of today's post.

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STYLE, SENSIBILITY, AND CONSISTENCY
The deepest conversation of the week focused around the leading topic of the essay: style, sensibility, and consistency. In his essay, Bager talks about the idea of working in “the style for the job” instead of working on photographic problems in a preordained stylistic manner. By doing so, he questions a requirement for stylistic consistency in an artist’s body of work. He chooses to use the word and explore the idea of “sensibility,” suggesting that an artist’s sensibility can link bodies of work and photographic responses that do not display the same style.

Photographer and educator Dawn Roe responded by writing, “I’m in agreement with Badger in that I do like thinking about stylistic tendencies as the result of a ‘response to a problem.’” She moved on to mention other elements relevant in the construction of style beyond sensibility: “Badger’s fixation on the particular sensibility seems to me to be the key element here in terms of influencing any sort of style that may be evidenced in certain images. More important still, I think, are the particular sets of circumstances surrounding the creation of each image (and subsequent editing / printing, etc.) – here, we’re talking about time / experience / memory / perception / disposition – all that good stuff.”

She questioned Badger’s suggestion that stylistic consistency necessarily means a conscious decision to gain notice as well as to brand and market oneself: “When an artist is fully committed to a particular way of seeing / thinking about the world through their overall artistic project, indeed it might be that stylistic consistency may emerge. I think especially when there is a poetic / philosophical backbone to the work – this almost insists upon a more subtle and refined approach that may appear to be and / or frankly NEED to be reductive [in their stylistic choices].”

London-based photographer Pete Massingham – like Dawn above - noted that style is defined by many other contexts than sensibility: “Stylistic appearance is affected by an array of conditions and circumstances including the artists personality, cultural background, dominant trends in art, market forces, the subject being observed - in fact just about anything you choose to think of. I do not like the word style. Style is a slippery term that tells us little beyond indicating there is a consistency of vision - whether it be strong or weak.”

He also rasied questions about Badger’s critique of the motives behind a photographer’s stylistic consistency: “As we get older and become more informed as to what form of visual vocabulary works for us, we tend to filter out those areas of earlier experimentation that do not appear useful to our individual take on the world. In the same way, we filter out the subject-matter that is no longer important to us, ‘..to progressively distill one's vision, reducing the range of subject matter and its treatment...’ as Badger states. Our engagement becomes less a concern for fragmentation, and more a concern for the whole. Whether or not these parameters are self-imposed or just the consequence of an unconscious (and perhaps inevitable) set of characteristics formed by personal histories and events, is open to debate.”

PHOTOBOOKS
Photobooks became the second major conversational topic of the week.

In the introduction to “The Pleasures of Good Photographs,” Badger writes, “It is in the photobook, in my opinion, where photography sings its loudest, most complex, and satisfying song” and in doing so suggests that distinctive sensibility of an individual photographer finds its fullest expression in photobooks.” (page 8) Massingham wrote that part of their strength is that they give a more “tactile” relationship with photography. His whole passage is worth quoting:

     It is the apparent perception available through touch that is important. The computer or digital
     screen is unable to fulfill this need in terms of viewing work, reducing images to a sterile albeit
     accurate facsimile. While both the analogue and digital print are able to express a rich sense of
     individual style and technical excellence, it is the photographic book that still seems to hold an
     almost fetishistic ambience that is difficult to surpass. It can embody qualities of editorial
     authorship, craft, intimacy, fact, and fiction, and seems a profoundly cogent means for reproducing  
     photographic works. It is I believe, the most convincing format for expressing the depth or
     gravitas of the photographer's passion for the medium and subject, aside from the original works.
     Within this format, there exists an unfolding, an exquisite revealment of the photographers intent
     which does not communicate on a screen. It is important to recognise the value, the richness of
     being able to turn a page and to be complicit in the flow of the work. The book makes you an
     active participant in a way that the screen cannot and should not attempt to emulate.

Another contributor added to this, “The photobook or essay are another way for a photographer to explore his subject from multiple viewpoints and over an extended period. They allow themes to be developed and explored and the fact of producing the book, with all the design and other choices that involves, extends the photographer's control over their output...And the great additional benefit is that they are relatively so accessible.”

CURRENT GOLDEN AGE IN PHOTOBOOKS
We also started to take a look at the reasons behind the current Golden Era of photobooks: Is this to do with the book’s inherent qualities and because it allows photography to sing its “loudest, most complex, and satisfying song”? Or is it market conditions? The connection between the explosion in the number of photographers and the hunt for economical distribution methods of their work?

San Francisco-based photographer Stefan Jora responded by writing, “I think it is a combination of advances in economy (the increasingly affordable cost of producing photobooks) and society (the fact that we're becoming a more visually literate society).”

This is a subject I hope we’ll explore more when we discuss Badger’s chapter on photobooks.

STYLE IN PHOTOBOOKS
Leeds, UK-based photographer and educator Philip Welding asked an interesting question in regards to style and the photobook: “Gossage's voice or style isn't just to be looked for in his photographs, concepts etc. but is surely visible in his books? Perhaps the design of a photo book is easier to pin down than the more elusive photographic voice? Or the combination of the two?”

Is a photographer’s style, voice, or “sensibility” something more equally or more apparent in the photobook than in a photographer’s images? An interesting question...

THE COLLECTIVE STATEMENT
Gossage, writes Badger, sees photography in terms of the collective statement contained in the photobook, and not as individual statements contained by the picture frame.

Massingham responded to this by confirming, “Gossage chooses to experience and involve himself in the complete process and production of his photography - a function which is not readily available to all photographers or artists.” Dawn Roe followed by writing that Pete’s point, for her, is key and that: “We must often give up some or all control in terms of how our work is exhibited, seen on-line or even in book form depending on the context and whether it is an artist’s book, or exhibition catalog/monograph, etc. And so I’d agree that the photobook is (one area) where ‘the photograph is at its most complex’ – and so, yes, in many cases the ‘collective statement’ is more successful than the single image.”

Texas-based photographer Pugilist Press added, “I am a big believer in the collective statement...it just opens up the possibilities for the phenomenological photographer without having to go into Painter territory... A book has certain implications but it is first and foremost a container, a world unto itself, and as such it is a space where an auteur can create context through selection, sequencing, scale, and materiality.”

PACKAGING AND BRANDING
Badger writes in his essay that, “ Style equals branding, and branding means sales, so we get the fairy common phenomenon of the photographer who hits upon one extraordinary image and then repeats it, with minor variations, for the rest of his or her career.” (page 89)

I wrote that I believe that the museum-gallery world does like to package and brand artists and that either directly or implicitly pushes artists towards less experimentation and more repetition of their ideas, I don't think by any means that all artist's who investigate a narrow range of ideas over a career and stay within a specific formal (or stylistic) range are the lesser for it and necessarily doing so to appease the market and museums. This is further explained in MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION below.

Contributor Pedro Safadi adds, “Of course some artists rely on style to individualize their work, to stand out from the crowd and to be eventually identified with that style. Is it for the purpose of branding only? I think for some it goes beyond that. I think it might serve a different need, something psychological perhaps. But style might also be an organic ‘thing’ that mutates in the artist's hands into an ever clearer means of communicating his / her artistic sensibility. When the artist finally achieves the style that he has been nurturing along perhaps he decides that he has arrived at the place he wanted to be and needs to go no further.”

FORM
Form was briefly raised within the conversation this week. Pugilist Press wrote, “Without form there is no pleasure and in most cases no access” and made perhaps the most quotable statement of the week: “We don't disagree that content is what keeps the people at the party but without form there's no music to dance to. Lack of formal interest means that the doors to content are closed.”

ARBITERS OF TASTE
Massingham raised an interesting point during the week, writing: “I believe the real debate lies in the question of who are the arbiters of taste? It is these people who determine the perceived parameters of style and subject matter.” George McClintock asked a similar question at a different point in the conversation: “Would Gossage's photography have significance without the elaborate textual support erected by Badger and others?” He later reinforced Massingham’s point, wrapping in to an assessment of Gossage and his work: “Without all the academic reinforcement of its metaphorical significance, 'The Pond' would have precious little to offer.”

Unfortunately I am also a realist (cynic?) about the fact that connections (and the implied textual support and access to collections and exhibitions) define who is in the photography canon almost as much as the quality of work does, and the number of gatekeepers has always been very few. John Szarkowski made kings and queens for 30 years - and I believe that model of kingmakers is largely still in effect.

MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION
I mentioned in the conversation an idea that offers perhaps an alternative way of looking at artists who make photographs that work within a narrow range in terms of subject matter and formal stylistics over an extended period of time. (Unfortunately I do not remember the source of the conversation or reading of this idea, but it is not originally mine.)

When we are young most are interested in a multiplicity of experiences – we date different people, travel many places, move around, and hold different jobs; likewise in art, when we are just getting going we explore different themes, formal ideas, try on different hats, jump between ways of working.

When we get older, most of us become interested in the division of a single experience rather than to continue with multiplication, that is to say we choose to experience one thing deeply, rather than many things more superficially. We tend to find a home, a long-term partner and settle into a career. The same would hold true for how we make artwork – we divide a more limited subject matter, exploring it thoroughly, instead of taking major jumps between each project.

Book Discussion Group Recap: Walker Evans

© Walker Evans, Houses and Billboards in Atlanta, 1936

I am joining Flak Photo and creator Andy Adams to host an online community conversation on the Flak Photo Books Facebook page focused on essays from Gerry Badger’s recently published book of essays, "The Pleasures of Good Photographs."

This public discussion provides a structured setting for expanding our understanding of the essays by reading collectively. All are welcome to join in! We began with the essay, "Literate, Authoritative, Transcendent: Walker Evans's American Photographs" and the conversation continues this week of Monday, May 21st with the essay "A Certain Sensibility: John Gossage, the Photographer as Auteur." (page 87) A full reading schedule can be found here.

I am following up on these community conversations with posts here on fototazo that will recap a selection of the ideas we discuss.  These follow-up posts will necessarily be an abbreviated selection given the length and quality of the conversation in the community discussion threads. In many cases, what arose from the conversation were questions and ideas to continue to explore, and not necessarily conclusions or consensus. My goal with these follow-up posts is to pull out threads from the weekly discussion that can be applied beyond the individual essays to inform our general understanding of the medium itself.

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TERMS
We found quickly that a core issue for a group conversation is the importance of defining terms. As the conversation evolved, the differentiation between the words "truth," "reality," and "accurate" became crucial for understanding one another.

We generally came to an understanding of "reality" meaning the world in which we live physically, "accurate" to mean the fidelity of a representation to something in reality, and "truth" to mean...well, I don't think we ever came close to an agreement. See below.



TRUTH
The healthiest argument of the week focused around the perennial issue of truth in photography.

The issue of how to use the term was an issue from the start. Was truth a measure of how "accurate" an image is? Was truth a problematic term leading us all into the winter woods at dusk with no matches? Is there a single truth? Many truths?

Defining "truth" started to pull us into larger conversations of philosophy and semantics. It was suggested that we define the term. It was suggested we stop talking about the term.

Contributor Pedro Safadi addressed the passage by Badger that sparked the debate. In this passage, Badger wrote that Evans believed, "The photographer must impose nothing upon direct and undiluted experience. He must discover, divine, and reveal his truth rather than construct it." (page 31)

Safadi replied, "I think it is very telling that the words 'his truth' rather that 'a truth' or 'the truth' are used in that sentence. Walker Evans may have preached for the capturing of reality free of manipulation as a tenet of documentary photography, but he has been accused of rearranging objects in some of the photographs he made. Are those manipulated photographs factually truthful? They are not if the threshold is transcribing a place and time as it existed in that precise temporal chunk that the camera has sliced away. Are they pieces of the photographer’s subjective personal truth that he / she wanted to reveal to us, where that truth transcends the actual and factual physical reality? I believe they are."

These comments represented one side of the conversation that argued for a separation of "accurate" (as defined above) from "truth" and a vision not just of a single truth, but different kinds of truth. One could be "accurate." Another could be a sense of "emotional truth" or a sense of rightness about an image.

A second camp pushed for a stronger single bond between "true" and "accurate," in part because this helps to emphasize photography's unique ability to present a relatively unmediated view of reality, a bond which lead Badger to write, "For me, the documentary, or the 'documentary mode,' remains not only the core of the medium, but the source of its greatest potency." (7)

The fundamental and eternal debate on truth in photography was not fully resolved this week by our discussion group.



CONSTRUCTION
Connected with the conversation on truth arose the related, but separate issue of construction in photography. It started from the same passage in the essay cited above, in which Badger writes that Evans believed a photographer must discover, divine, and reveal his truth rather than construct it.

As part of this conversation, contributor John Armstrong wrote, "Constructedness is the original sin of photography" and Bonita Springs, Florida-based photographer Dennis Church that "I believe all images are constructed, some more consciously than others."  Others felt accepting "construction" as a part of all images without establishing some guidelines would risk equating documentary work and photographers like Gregory Crewsdon.

Like in the conversation on truth, we discussed the idea of construction being on a spectrum that avoids the duality of an image being "constructed"or "not constructed." Instead, images would be seen through degrees of construction with complete construction of a scene on one side of the spectrum and construction by unavoidable decisions on lens choice, perspective, and cropping on the other side.



TRUTH AND TIME
The point was made that the question of "truth" in photography may rely on time; that the truth-value of an image may actually shift according to public perceptions of photography over time. This suggests any photographic truth is not an absolute, but something that may be redefined in relation to changes in the history and understanding of the medium.

As an example, the work of Alexander Gardner, accepted as "photojournalism" in the 1860s and therefore likely seen in its day as mostly truthful in terms of depicting an event that actually happened, today would be labeled as less "truthful" (in these terms) because the contemporary code of photojournalism does not provide for moving objects and bodies in an image. The image itself would therefore be less "true" today than in the past due to shifting perceptions of what is acceptable in photojournalism.



BELIEF IN PHOTOGRAPHY
One of the bigger points of disagreement during the week was over the state of belief we have in photography in contemporary life. This seems an issue that truly divides current thinking on photography.

LA-based photographer Justin Fiset wrote a strong defense of the "we believe" position:

     Where you get it wrong is claiming that photography has no franchise on reality, it does.
     Here’s why. Even though we’re all real smart people who are hip to post-modernism and
     photoshop we still believe photographs. During the course of a day we take photographic
     veracity for granted at least a hundred times. Even a heavily photoshoped image on your
      Facebook feed that made you do a double-take, you subconsciously afforded the photo your
     trust before you realized you had been tricked (I’m trying to think of an example to use here
     but I’ve got nothing, sorry). That trust wouldn’t have been given to an illustration...

London-based photographer Pete Massingham took the opposing view:

     In response to Justins' excellent comments I feel obliged to respond and to some extent beg
     to differ. I am not altogether convinced that people (artists/practitioners) today do actually
     believe in a photographic veracity. One of the exquisite but illusional qualities of the photographic
     process has been its ability to seduce us into a false sense of relationship to reality, when in fact
     what we are perceiving is as much a representation of reality as the painted or drawn image. The
     fact we believe in it does not make it any more real as a document of reality. I am reminded of
     a well known dialogue that occurred between Picasso and a newspaper or art critic. The
     interviewer was trying to pin Picasso down on the issue of realism in his distorted figurative
     paintings, and offered I believe an image of his wife from his wallet as evidence of an image
     which was more realistic. Picasso's response was something along the lines of 'So your wife is
     only three inches tall and two wide is she?'

Badger weighs in with Massingham. He writes in the introduction: "Photography's value as art has never been so high, yet in these mediawise and Photoshopping times its value as documentary has never been so questioned." (8)



WHERE MEANING IS CREATED
Educator and photographer Angela Kelly made the point towards the end of the week that, "A readerly approach while taking into account the artist's intention suggests the larger meaning of a work of art lies somewhere between the artists intention and the audience or even critic who encounters it within a different context."

Massingham followed by writing "What happens once the work is thrown open to public scrutiny (either in book form or as an exhibition) is both fascinating and complex. Arguments are developed, and theories espoused, all of which inform our understanding of the works of art in question. However, there are ocasions when this process of examination is presented as the primary concern of the work - the original context and intent relegated to some dark redundent corner of history. To accept that contemporary theory and observation can be interwoven at will with historical works - without contradiction or complication, is troublesome to say the least."

This conversation about where meaning is created in art, and the potential dangers of disregarding original intent, is one I hope we continue to investigate during the coming weeks in our essay discussions.



AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHERS
Badger writes that Evans is the "most American of artists." (28) This raised the question of who we would say defines "American photography."

Texas-based photographer Pugilist Press included Robert Adams, William Christenberry, William Eggleston. Wright Morris, Ed Ruscha, and - in the way they approach the American Image in a similar way - Cindy Sherman and Philip-Lorca DiCorcia on his list.

Safadi added, "Those who, for me, define American photography during the period that spans the beginning of the 20th century all the way through to the start of the 2nd World War include the greats such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston as well as [Alfred] Stieglitz, [Lewis] Hine, [Paul] Strand."

The question of which photographers define "American photography" remains another question to continue pursuing during the coming weeks.



THE OBJECT IN AMERICAN ART
Badger's argument for Evans being the most American of artists rests largely on a passage in the essay in which he addresses the object in the history of American art.

One contributor summarized it well: "'The integrity of the object' – I think the crux of Badger’s argument lies within that statement. If, for Badger, the fundamental essence of American art (and what actually defines it) is indeed the integrity of the object being depicted then certainly the medium of photography provides that integrity as part and parcel of its true nature. And that is why, in his point of view, the American sensibility lends itself to the photographic medium as the mode of expression that allows for the transparent means of capturing/depicting the object in its entirety (faults and all)."

And Pugilist Press added: "I will say that Americans have a special relationship with the object that while not that singular in experience seems to be singular in cultural expression. It has something to do with the potential for splendor in the vernacular and a penchant for sensuality. It's Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes, American Graffiti's cars, those baubles from The Man in The High Castle, Ignatz' brick."

Both make good points. While also keeping in mind that America in popular thought is connected with object creation, consumption, and possession, however, a hanging question from this conversation is whether the object has a particular place in American High Art, and not just in popular cultural expression.

Badger seems to say so, couching his argument for Evans as a quintessential American artist by drawing Evans' connection to the history of the object in US painting. But what about Dutch still lives? And Cézanne? And Morandi? The incredibly detailed objects in a Thai Ramayana mural? Is the connection between the object in High Art and America really unique? Could we equally argue that landscapes are uniquely "American" with US ties to the Western frontier, the New World, and Manifest Destiny?



NARRATIVE
We also considered the narrative potential of photography this week. To what degree can photography tell stories? What are the limits of narrative in photography?

We talked - in the shadow of a previous conversation on truth and construction in a single image - about the subjective control of the message of a photobook through sequencing images to create narrative. Leeds, UK-based photographer and educator Philip Welding raised an interesting point: "Badger compares [American Photographs] to an epic poem, film or novel; all very much fictional constructs. It seems more comfortable to recognize this artifice within book form than when discussing the photography itself."

It's a good question - are we more comfortable with accepting the artifice of sequencing, editing, constructed narrative, and presentation decisions than we are with the idea that a photograph itself is a constructed fiction?

To push a step more: does questioning the "truth" of an image itself threaten our understanding of reality and ourselves in a way that causes many of us to want to defend it, while we understand and accept the fiction of a narrative sequence, edit, and presentation more comfortably?



READING TEXTS
One last point. A text can be read in two ways - first, to understand the author's intent, to push to understand what the writer says, and to engage the author on their terms.

The second, equally important and perhaps more important for photography practitioners and non-academics, is reading a text to find what we need for our own practice and thought processes, regardless of a more literal analysis of what the author intended.

Bill Evans, the jazz pianist, once said that he was a Buddhist, but didn't want to learn anything more about Buddhism. What he understood Buddhism to be, he said, was exactly what he needed it to be. He was afraid that if he learned more about it, he might discover that it wasn’t actually what he understood and wanted it to be.

This spirit is important to maintain in our reading, especially of more academically-oriented texts. Rather than pinpointing an understanding of the author’s argument on a particular part of a photographer’s career, frequently letting a sentence or idea resonate so that it leads us to an understanding we can apply to our own work gives us more from our reading, even if it’s not exactly accurate....true...real...wait...uh oh...the original intent of the text itself.

The FotoFest Guide

Note: This article has been and will continue to be updated in March 2014 with a short addendum at the end with more suggestions provided in response to this post by readers.

After a week in Houston for FotoFest, I thought I would write a comprehensive review of the experience as a reference for those who will attend the event in the future and also because many of the comments will apply to any photographer attending any review anywhere.

The Basics

FotoFest was founded in 1983 by photographers Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss along with European gallery owner Petra Benteler. The first FotoFest International Biennial was held in 1986, making this year's version the fourteenth. The biennial is primarily known for its four week-long portfolio review sessions, but also encompasses an exhibition of ten photographers discovered in the past biennial, several other exhibitions focused around a single theme (this year it's Russian photography), lectures, workshops, a film and video series, conferences, and a print auction.

The portfolio review - held at the DoubleTree Hotel downtown - provides attendees with just under 20 scheduled reviews over four days with a mix of curators, gallery owners, magazine editors, and other photography professionals. Attendees are provided a list by email before attending in order to rank their top 25 choices from among the list of roughly 50 reviewers offered for their session. This year attendees received reviews with just about everyone in their top 20, minus one or two. Unlike other similar events, unofficial reviews outside of those scheduled are expected by both reviewers and photographers. If you are weighing which review to attend in the coming years, one advantage of FotoFest is that many of the reviewers overlap with events like Santa Fe and Photolucida, but at FotoFest you will get more reviews over more days than at either of the other events for about the same price.

Also in comparison to others, FotoFest is known as a review where things happen - publications, shows, and other offers - especially in the weeks and months after the review, but also occasionally during it. The event is unjuried, meaning you'll see commercial work and safari shots alongside work that pushes conceptual boundaries. Despite being unjuried, the majority of the work is professional quality. In a sentence, the event is well-organized and valuable (small suggestions which can be found at the end of this article aside), especially for social networking and to a lesser degree for feedback on your work.

Tips for Before Arriving

Do your research before making selections of reviewers. This is vital: fully read who each reviewer is and take the time to rank them with a full knowledge of who they are. This sounds obvious, but didn't seem to be done by a number of photographers there.

Do some dry runs. To maximize your dollar and get the most you can from the week, practice your presentation before arriving, ideally with someone similar to the reviewers who will be present (a gallery owner, a curator, etc.). If that's not possible, do it with your four-year-old, your mechanic, or your cat - anyone. It will help you get your patter down and understand what's possible in a 20 minute conversation.

Be rested when you arrive. See if you can't get your printing finished a few days before arriving - at least - so that you can arrive with energy to take full advantage of the intense days, from 9 AM reviews to 2 AM bar-closing conversations.

Portfolio Review Tips

Keep your introduction of yourself and the work short. One to two minutes, absolute maximum. The time is tight - more on this as the article progresses.

More is less in terms of amount of work shown. Again, given the time you have, you can't make your way through four projects or fifty prints and still have a real conversation. The consensus seems to be to bring a primary project with one or two backups in case the first doesn't resonate with the reviewer or to show outside the review time. Some photographers have different projects to show to different reviewers based on who the reviewer is and what side of the photography world they represent. That's also a successful strategy if you have the work as well as the time to print that many images. Twenty prints seems a consensus good number, with twenty-five being an absolute upper limit, depending on the project and what is needed to show it properly.

Respect your time slot. When time is called, get moving and respectfully avoid taking time from others.

Print size considerations. While some work needs to be seen large, perhaps because of the process or concept, most work is best seen between 11" x 14" up to 20" x 24". Larger becomes cumbersome. Avoid mattes as a general rule and simple clamshell portfolio boxes seem to work best.

Guide the conversation. The (too) short review times means that you may need to step in to direct the conversation if the review isn't covering what you'd like it to. Some reviewers have a tendency to drift if not gently pulled back towards the photographer's work, goals, and questions. Having a particular goal for the conversation will help you guide it.

They will announce when you have 5 minutes left in the review. This is helpful and the moment to begin to guide the conversation to your goals for the conversation if it hasn't arrived there yet. It's the time to focus in on asking about how to submit work to the reviewer or their institution and on other names that they would recommend contacting about the work, or to make a concrete next step with the reviewer if things are going well.

Approach reviewers you are not scheduled with about meeting with them. Almost all reviewers seem open to this and unlike other portfolio reviews, this is part of the fabric of the event. You may only have 18 or 19 scheduled reviews yet walk out at the end of the week with 30 reviews.

Hang around the review area even if you're not slated for a review. You will meet other photographers, see their work, show your work, and most importantly, after the time slot has started if a reviewer has an open session, an announcement will be made and you'll be able to jump on a few reviews you weren't scheduled for.

You might be able to swap reviews. There is a bulletin board for people looking to change reviewers or times.

Don't sell yourself short. While the majority of the photographers who attend FotoFest are somewhere on a professional track, if you are a student, hobbyist or just getting into photography, there's no need to qualify your work in each review as such. Present yourself as a photographer and let the reviewer make their determinations from there.

Know your reviewers. With so many reviews you may forget who some of the people you are scheduled to meet with are since having read their biographies when filling out the reviewer request form. Review their biography before having a review with them. This will help guide the conversation in your mind and avoid a potentially embarrassing revelation that you have absolutely no sense of who they are or what they may be able to offer.

Stay open to all conversations. Some of your most informative and helpful reviews all week will probably come from a random person, an unscheduled review, or another photographer attending the reviews. And some of the reviews you are most excited about will be flat. 

On the first day people may be cold. Unfortunately FotoFest will fill your first day with many of your top choices. Many are arriving the night before from other reviews or other countries and will be tired, disoriented, and in need of an IV with coffee. There's really nothing to be done other than to know that the conversation may not be the best, to take it with a little salt, and suggest to FotoFest they change this structure.

Leave a simple "leave behind." You should have a postcard or business card with your contact information clearly presented with an image from the project to leave with the reviewer. This will help them remember the project, connect it with your name, and give them an easy way to continue to be in touch with you about your upcoming solo museum show they want to offer you. Include name, location, website, email address, and phone number. Generally, reviewers don't want to get books, packets, and other large items - they'll leave them at the hotel because of their size and weight.

FOLLOW UP! Be sure to send your reviewer a thank you after returning home. This could be an email, could be a physical mailing - attendees varied on their strategies. Everyone, however, recommends doing so, even if the review didn't seem to go well. It's the first step towards continuing to grow a relationship with the people you have just paid a lot of dollars to meet.

The review is held in the ballroom on the second floor. Some say it's a little cold - bring something in case you think so as well - and the lighting is crap.

General FotoFest Tips

Split a room and stay at the DoubleTree Hotel where the reviews are held. While it came out to about $85 a night and while you can find a bare bones hotel for about $35 on the edge of town, the DoubleTree is worth it. It's energy-saving during a high intensity week and staying in the hotel where the event is actually held makes it easier to be fully present at all events, formal and informal. At least a few attendees last week had discouraging stories about their stays in budget hotels.

Hang out and have more drinks. The lobby bar of the DoubleTree is a popular hang out at night for both attendees and reviewers and important in terms of solidifying friendships and connections during the week.

Attend session two or three. If you do so and arrive a few days early and leave a few days late, you will be able to connect with both reviewers and attendees from the sessions before and after, extending the value of your stay in Houston.

Get on the bus. FotoFest organizes buses that leave in the late afternoon on 3 of the 4 nights that reviews are held. They will take you to exhibitions and out for (overpriced, you pay for it) food. This is an opportunity to get to know people as people, not only as reviewers and photographers. You may have the chance to expand on conversations you've had in reviews, but this is mostly a chance to hang out, get a little sense of Houston, unwind, and connect.

Have limited expectations for Public Portfolio Review Night. On one of the nights during the week, FotoFest holds a two-hour open portfolio for the public to come and theoretically purchase work. The great odds are you're not paying for your week here with sales from this event, however. The attendance is decent, but sales slow. It may be better to go into the night thinking of it as a chance to look at the work of other photographers there and connect with a few reviewers you're not scheduled with.

Digest later. This is the week to take in everything - pursue every conversation, meet anyone. Save the project and career choice re-evaluations until you're back home.

Demeanor.  Similarly, if you're an introvert or if you're exhausted, fight to extend yourself anyways. The true value of this event is social networking, not life-changing critiques of your work. Unfortunately, at least during my session, the reviewers and attendees tended to congregate separately, but don't be too bashful in talking to reviewers outside of the reviews - especially about anything other than your work.

Reviewers talk. Even if the reviewer is horrible, don't insult them and don't walk out. Endure. The photographers in attendance talk about the reviewers and reputations form quickly. By day two you'll hear which reviewers aren't worth your time. The same is true of reviewers, however - they talk about your work and you as a person and the absolute last thing you want to do is establish yourself as the resident session prima donna headache.

Houston Tips

I can't say not having visited Houston before this event felt like a major hole in my life that needed filling. The city is pleasant in March and April, however, and there's much more to see than you'll be able to even if you stay a couple extra days to explore the city - which you should. During the days with reviews you could really be anywhere in the world - the energy expended combined with the review schedule leaves little left for exploring. That being said, stay and enjoy the city to relax beforehand or unwind after.

Personally recommended:
West of downtown: Rothko Chapel, Menil Collection (currently featuring a Richard Serra drawing show and a fantastic temporary room off the Surrealist collection called "Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision"), Cy Twombly Gallery, and the Houston Center for Photography - all within two blocks of each other. The Byzantine Fresco Chapel is also nearby, but is currently closed.
South of downtown: The Houston MFA and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in an area with beautiful houses and parks.
Downtown: JP Morgan Chase SkyLobby (60th floor observation space looking west), the Julia Ideson Public Library building a block north of the DoubleTree, and the various block-sized parks.
Restaurants: Pappasito's weekend brunch with 99 cent frozen mimosas and famous fish tacos - found in the Upper Kirby neighborhood close to the Menil Collection and nearby arts destinations. Azuma for sushi in the beautiful Post Rice Lofts building, about a 15-minute walk from the DoubleTree.

The local METRO train has a north-south line that gets you easily from downtown to the Houston MFA area.

Logistical Tips
 
Houston has two airports: George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) - yep, you're arriving in Texas - as well as Houston Hobby Airport (HOU). Take a SuperShuttle, or split a cab with at least one other participant and it comes out to about the same price. IAH is about a half-hour ride out of the city. Current rates for a cab to/from IAH are about $60; a SuperShuttle runs $24. A SuperShuttle to Hobby is $20. Not sure on the price of a taxi to Hobby.

DoubleTree promo codes. If you're still there this year, you can get free Internet in your room with Promo Code "DoubleTree1". If you're there in the future, seek out what the current promo code may be. Otherwise, you'll have free Internet, but only in the lobby.

Free cookies! If you stay at the DoubleTree, you will get a free hot cookie on check in. If you politely or humorously engage the front desk, you can milk them for more cookies during the week.

Food court and deli. The food court at the bottom of the northeastern tower of the Allen Center, connected by walkway to the FotoFest ballroom review room, has a great variety of reasonably priced lunches. Jason's Deli, across the courtyard looking south of the review room, has long lunch lines, but at the take-out counter in the front, you can get premade salads and other things, skip the line, and sit outside.

Free coffee refills. The Einstein bagels one block east of the DoubleTree allows free coffee refills all-day for about $2.50.

Facebook page. This year, a Facebook page was formed for the event where you will find people offering to sell their spaces, looking for roommates, and able to answer questions from where to develop film to the best local BBQ.

Open suggestions to FotoFest

Make reviews 25 or 30 minutes and schedule fewer. I think that this would help raise the quality of each review, without comprising volume much. Most people I talked with felt 15 reviews with more depth would have been more valuable than 18 or 19 faster reviews. And given that many unofficial reviews take place, everyone still would walk away with many more reviews than at any other similar event I'm aware of.

Put the top reviewers on day 2, not day 1. As mentioned above, people are arriving from around the world, tired, and a little cold the first day. Placing top choices on day 2 would give photographers a day to warm up and get on their game before meeting their top choices, while still having several days left to continue conversations with them and to continue to get to know them.

Consider a portfolio review time for the photographers in attendance. The biggest unfilled interest of most photographers at the end of the week that I spoke with was the chance to see more of each other's work. Finding a structured time with open portfolios for the photographers and reviewers in attendance - in addition to the open public portfolio night and possibly just for an hour or two before it - would be both enjoyable and valuable.

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If you have attended FotoFest, please send me other information you feel I should include.

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Addendum, March 2014: I'm going to add comments and suggestions from others as FotoFest 2014 approaches.

Pugilist Press, on Facebook's Flak Photo Network, suggested this link for a much fuller list of food options and recommendations.

Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director at the Griffin Museum of Photography, posted a link to this post on her Facebook page which generated a number of additional helpful suggestions that I will reprint here with the permission of those that commented.

Tognarelli wrote the following several points:

- I would like to add that while asking for reviews outside of the review process is expected as Tom mentions, you may be told no. Don't hold it against reviewers. The Fotofest event is a pretty intense experience for photographers and reviewers alike.

- I would suggest photographers start with what they want to accomplish in the review after the quick intro. This way the reviewer can focus since there is so little time. Also get the work on the table as soon as [you] can and talk while the work is viewed.

- Ask the reviewer if you can be in touch after the reviews to keep them apprised of you and your work. And with what frequency. And by what means.

- Number the backs of prints to keep your sequence. The work gets out of order easily and there is very little time between reviews frequently.

- As the reviewer should be giving [you] his/her full attention give them [your] full attention. As I am always placed in front of Anne Wilkes Tucker, I have been amazed at photographers who would keep an eye on her to see if she was free rather than on my review. I know she's more exciting than me!

Houston-based gallery owner Catherine Couturier added, "As a reviewer: I always ask, first thing, 'How would you like to spend our time?' Have an answer! Do you want to discuss edit, representation, pricing, sizes.... Lets make sure we spend our time together the most effectively."

She also wrote, "I'd add to that: don't think that getting a show is the end-all be-all of the reviews. All the reviewers have advice to offer and you will definitely get the most out of your time if you go into each review with an open mind. I've had photographers sit across from me and I can immediately tell they aren't open to the process. Be open to good comments and bad, and realize that all the information is helpful to hear, even if it just makes you question something before discarding it."