Well I got back from Toronto on Monday so this is a bit late. I had a
great time at the conference, it was really good to see so many
people dedicated to keeping analog photography around.
Any readers of the conference posts on the apug site will know that
things went off pretty well. There were some problems but nothing
major and I was really impressed with the quality of the conference,
especially for being the first time.
I attended mainly for the workshops so that's the focus of my report.
Cross-processing with John Callow: John gave a great overview on the
technical considerations but we also talked a lot about the creative
concerns; why are you using the technique for the shot? What does it
bring to the image? John has a wealth of knowledge about the process
and while he stressed that it's more valuable to test things and
learn for yourself, he was able to steer us in the right direction.
My only complaint would be that there wasn't any hands-on component
to the workshop itself; although we were encouraged to continue
shooting our tests during the conference and to show the results to
John. We all received at least 2 of John's prints as well which was a
nice treat.
Intro to LF with Peter Shrager: This was almost entirely hands-on.
There were about 6 of us in the class and we had 2 4x5's with
polaroid backs to share between us. I had used a 4x5 before but my
knowledge was only based on reading up in texts so it was great to
have an experienced LF shooter. We had a lot of fun and I ended up
spending a lot of time with Peter over the rest of the conference. He
also had a nice package of LF information for each of us which
included one of his prints. My only complaint would be that it was
only 4 hours so we couldn't get into more technical topics. If you're
an APUG member, check out the conference gallery for my LF polaroids.
AZO printing with Michael A. Smith: This was a bit of a mixed bag for
me. I went in without any prior knowledge about what AZO was so I
didn't really know what to expect but I was intrigued by the promise
of better B&W prints. My main issue with the workshop was that it was
more just a demonstration where Michael printed participants
negatives in order to show the potential of using AZO paper so it
felt a little more like an ad for AZO. On the positive side, getting
to see Michael work in the darkroom was really interesting as his
approach is different to how I was taught and it looks like his
techniques are geared towards achieving very high quality with a
minimum of time. Even if I never print on AZO I'll be able to use a
lot of what I saw in my own printing to achieve better results.
Portfolio review with Les Mclean: I would say this was the most
valuable workshop of the weekend for me. I had expected more of a
general critique of the individual images I brought but Les instead
looked at the portfolio as a collection of images and didn't dwell on
technical details very long. In the end he spent over an hour on my
photos and talking about my approach to photography and what I wanted
to get out of it (which is something I've really been struggling with
lately). Between that and then being able to hear the comments he
gave to other participants I think he's really helped open my mind to
new ways of making and presenting my images. I had breakfast with Les
before the review and I said to him that I would be happier coming
back thinking that everything I'd shot before was garbage having lots
of ideas and enthusiasm of where I could go from here which is
basically what happened (I'm not completely disenchanted with my
prior images but I do see a lot of room for improvement and have
ideas for some new approaches to work on).
All in all it was a great trip. Everyone I met was extremely friendly
and it was a great atmosphere. I will definitely be attending the 2nd
one barring scheduling or financial reasons.
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