Contemporary Photography in Hawai'i 2016: The Eighth Annual Exhibition

This past Friday, April 1st, Pacific New Media at the University of Hawai'i held their eighth annual photography exhibition: Contemporary Photography in Hawai'i 2016. This year's juror was Jay Jensen, the curator of contemporary art at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Almost 500 images were submitted from more than 100 photographers and Jay picked 50 images to be part of the exhibit. I'm very interested in photography, as you can tell from my having a section on photography in my ceramics website, but I'd never tried to enter a photography exhibit until now. I submitted five images, the maximum amount, and waited for February 29th to arrive like I was waiting for the rapture. That's the day "accepted artists" would be notified by email. I remember going through the 29th as calmly as I could, trying not to think about the exhibit, trying not to check my emails too often. When I finally looked at my phone, my heart always sped up just a bit when I saw that I had 7 new emails or 5, but they always turned out to be another offer from Dell or Apple (how many computers or phones do they think I need?), another chance to fly the friendly skies with United, or somebody like Pandora telling me they "missed" me. By the end of the day it became clear that I hadn't made it into the show, that I'd been left behind. I tried not to be too down in the mouth, tried to think of excuses that I could share with family and friends who knew that I'd submitted photos. I went to bed thinking that I must not be a very good photographer, that I'd sent in the wrong photos and why had I sent in those photos when I had better ones that I knew I should have submitted? I started making excuses for myself. We could only submit photos from the last two years but my camera had died two years ago so most of my photos since then had been taken with my phone and the rest with my daughter Bethany's camera. If only I could have used my older photos; then they would have been dazzled by my skills! And then I began to think about what a small thing it was, really, a photography exhibition. Why did I even care if I got in or not? Besides, it's totally subjective who gets in and who doesn't, right? So don't take it so personally. But none of this self-talk made me feel any better and I fell asleep a little dejected. The next day I woke up trying not to think about it, but I was still a little down from not making it into the show. Sometime in the morning, I received an email from Susan at Pacific New Media saying not only that I'd gotten into the show, but that two of my photos had been accepted. Euphoria!! I was a great photographer after all! My photography skills had been vindicated, and I wouldn't have to make up excuses now for my family and friends. Now I could brag (humbly of course) that I had two photos in the exhibit: "By the way, you remember that exhibit I sent photos to, the one I told you was the most important photography exhibit in the state? Well, I found out they accepted two of my photos. Yeah, two! Of course, I'm a little surprised they didn't choose what I thought was my best photo..." and so on. Okay, it felt good to brag just a little, especially after feeling so depressed the day before. 

It felt great for a few days telling family and friends "by the way, two of my photos are going to be in a photography exhibit..." but then I had to get my photos developed and framed, something I'd never done before. I sent my photos to Hawaii Pacific Photo and the results were pretty good, especially considering these images were taken with my phone, and the price was good for archival quality prints, a little over $20. Then I went to Art Source & Designs, one of the best places on O'ahu to have art framed. I found out quickly that framing costs a small fortune. What really blew me away was the cost for different types of glass. Regular glass is expensive, but art glass and especially museum glass (which have different levels of UV protection and are less reflective) cost way more than I expected. I went with the art glass and ended up paying more than $250 for framing both photos, even after getting a 25% discount. Such is the price of vanity, I suppose. This is not a knock on Art Source & Designs. They did a superb job. I've read more about this and I realize now that framing is a huge expense if you're doing art photography. This was a revelation to me. I asked someone more experienced than me what I might ask for my photos and they suggested a price uncomfortably close to what I'd paid for developing and framing. I comforted myself with the thought that if I sold both photos, I'd make enough to take my wife to McDonald's.

The artists' reception at Marks Garage in Chinatown was a great experience, and hats off to Susan Horowitz of Pacific New Media and David Ulrich, the Exhibit Coordinator, for doing such a superb job of designing the layout for the exhibit and making all of us feel so welcome. I went with my wife and we enjoyed getting to see all of the photos and meeting many of the photographers. Some of the best photographers in the state were there, and I enjoyed finding out more about their approach to taking photos. I felt very lucky to be in the show at all and tried to stay as far away from my photos as possible. Hopefully they'll forgive me for that. Below are a few photos I took at the reception. How can you not take photos at a photography exhibit? When someone asked me what I was doing, I said, "I'm working on next year's submissions!"