As an artist you inevitably end up placing your work into either competitive or critique situations. This happens when you submit work to art shows, stock agencies and/or galleries. Getting critiqued or having your work judged can take some getting used to. One good way to get some experience handling critiques is to join a photography club. Photography clubs generally provide many opportunities to have you work judged and/or critiqued (my club has both a competition night and a critique night once a month). Having your work critiqued or judged in a club setting can prepare you mentally and emotionally for the critiques that come when you are marketing your work. Clubs are also good place to meet other photographers, get inspired by what they are doing or find out about new places to shoot.

Just for a change of pace I stopped and shot a couple pictures at the local alpaca farm. I have included a few shots here in the blog. The alpaca’s were generally in the shade (but not always) with a bright sunny background. This creates some challenges for a photographer. Shooting HDR with moving subjects is not really an option (yet) so I decided to let the backgrounds blow out and use a shallow depth of field when possible (f6.3 for most of these shots – allows for some focus error due to animal movement). But the backgrounds don’t totally go white so I had to make some post processing decisions. For the lead image I selected the background and increased the exposure until it went totally white. In the second image I diffused the background and added a vignette.

Well this week I submitted two bodies of work to a local cultural arts center for a possible exhibition next year. Just after picking up my rejected material from the local coop gallery last week my wife and I stopped by the cultural arts center. We happened to catch the curator there setting up the next exhibit. While the primary call to artist for next year’s exhibits was over, the curator did say that if I brought something in it may be taken in as a late submittal. So I submitted two bodies of work – People of the Plateau and Simple Impressions. These are very different bodies of work. Given the quick turn time I didn’t have the usual time to research what type of work they usually accept. We will see. But the arts center is in a bigger town and a bit more progressive. That leads me to an additional comment on the coop gallery rejection.

1. Generally setting your exposure compensation to +2/3 or +1 is best to keep the fog from being underexposed. Check your histogram.
2. A little color in fog is very good thing. Sometimes it is naturally there: yellow from the sunrise or blue from twilight. A little magenta added via a filter or post-processing can be nice as well.
3. Take advantage of the background separation that fog or mist provides. Trees that never stood out because of background clutter can suddenly be outstanding.
4. If the subject is too far into the fog it can quickly loose its impact. Move in closer. Use a wider lens if necessary (or zoom less – often the case).
5. We tend to see more depth and contrast then you will in the photograph. I find this even more so when shooting in fog. Closing one eye always helps.
6. Objects staggered back into the mist create a great deal of depth.

Click on the blog image to see a gallery that illustrates many of these points. Or click here. Especially note the different color hues the fog takes on. It is often related to the surroundings.

1. Your work doesn’t match the galleries client base.
2. Your price range doesn’t match their market.
3. The style of your work is too different from anything else they carry.
4. They already have too much similar work.
5. The rejection is not a reflection on you personally, the validity of your work, the time you invested, etc.

But I will say, you don’t have to like it!