Photolucida 2015, reviewing room at the Benson Hotel
I'm about to spend four days up to my eyebrows in photography at Photolucida. We spend two years organizing this event and it is a doozy. We'll be hosting 150+ photographers from all over the country and world, plus 60 gallerists, museum curators, photobook publishers, magazine editors, and collectors. We pair them up in many, many, many (!) twenty-minute meetings over the course of four days. The photographers display their images and the reviewers give them helpful feedback. Photographers walk away with new connections, offers to exhibit and publish, and tons of new ideas about their work. It's wildly inspiring and profoundly exhausting at the same time. Whew!
Photolucida 2015, Portfolio Walk at the Portland Art Museum
Anyway, what it got me thinking is this: creating a portfolio can sound nerve-wracking, confusing, or out of your league - but the reality is that it just takes intention and time. You don't just trip over a finished portfolio. Portfolios don't happen effortlessly for talented photographers. If you haven't made one, it's not because you're a wreck of an artist - it's just that you haven't given the process focused energy and attention. Yet.
Intention + Energy = Better Art
When you do give your art real energy and attention, amazing things happen. You start to see more connections between disparate images, styles, and techniques. You start to see threads of meaning and consistency - and you start to gain greater direction and purpose as an artist. It feels really good to start making real progress like this.
Portfolio building is essentially a way to go deeper than any single image can take you. You find a subject you love, and then you immerse yourself in it. It feels rich, engaging, and supportive (because, your subject gives you direction). I love teaching about how to do this, because it's a process that has given me so much joy and fulfillment over the years. My Visionary Portfolio e-course comes up a couple times a year. Join me if you're interested in learning how to create a portfolio of your own.
If you're in the Portland area and you want to get in on the Photolucida action this weekend, come out to the Portfolio Walk at the Portland Art Museum (Fields Ballroom, Mark Building) on Thursday from 6-9pm. We bill the event like this: "See more photography in one night than most people see in a lifetime!" It's really true - it's a massive education in contemporary photography. It's also really inspiring to see what other artists are doing. I'll probably be running around like a headless chicken...but it would be great to see you.