Daniel Milnor, a once-was, has-been photography student and competitor in the photojournalism world, reporting for duty. Dateline: Society of Photographic Education annual conference. St. Louis, MO.(The place with the arch.) Cold, cloudy. The day so far: up at 6AM, gym, shower, dress, hunt for food. I successful paid $10.28 for my morning coffee, a new personal best, and also consumed a $2.75 bagel as my lunch. Bloated, crashing on dough, ready to report my findings. I love this event.
How often are you surrounded by young photographers carrying printed portfolios?
Sixty seconds into the hotel I encountered three people I’ve known forever, and three people you should know as well. In no particular order. J. Sybylla Smith, photography consultant. Julieanne Kost, Adobe master. And, Veronica Cotter from Hahnemuhle. These are the industry types who are very much a part of this experience. In addition, I’ve seen friends from Sony, Freestyle Photo in Los Angeles, Kodak, and more. And yes, Kodak is giving out film, but I did not take samples. Students cruised that booth like sharks. I was afraid to get too close. Speaking of Kodak. Meet Tim Ryugo, someone I used to work with when I was with Kodak Professional back in 1997. Tim runs the film division for Kodak and is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Tim IS Kodak film, and he is celebrating his 45th year at the company. Think about that. This just doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Love the guy.
Hot topics of this year’s event include identity, ethics and Artificial Intelligence. After all, the theme of this year’s event is “New Realities,” and I would imagine that nearly every single person reading this blog post will find themselves, at least in part, in new realities in 2024. Most likely, many of these new realities are GOOD things. This is the 61st year of this event. Yes, you read that correctly, SIXTY ONE YEARS. And, by the way, over 50% of the attendees are first time attendees. Heck, I even ran into two kids from INDIANA. If we get the Hoosiers fired up, photography doesn’t stand a chance.
Print is also a hot topic, as it always seem to be. Several publishers are here, Aperture and Getty among them. I love seeing Blurb authors with books at traditional publishers. Makes me warm inside, like the onset of the flu. Just kidding. Look, you know me. I love print. Eric Joseph at Freestyle said, “I make my images based on the paper I’m going to use.” He looked at me and paused. I said, “I do the exact same thing with my books.” And you know what really makes me happy? Seeing young, Digital Age, students possessed by print.
But there is another reality I face when coming to an event like this. Have you ever heard of the “Thousand yard stare?” Most often associated with war survivors or those under duress, but now being used when referring to those under stress for long periods. I know what it’s like out there. I do. I did it myself for nearly thirty years, and all my friends are either survivors of photography or still in it. Making a living today is difficult, so when I’m here, I wish I could find a way to share what I know while also sharing strategies that go beyond the standard operation procedures. (And sure, push my Blurb samples on anyone within reach.)
Just getting started here. Will be back with more findings and observations. Tomorrow’s featured speaker is a superstar, so keen on hearing what he has to say. Maybe the final takeaway from today is the idea of intention, purpose and career. Okay, I’d throw history and context in there as well. SPE is the opposite of things like Instagram. Do 90% of the people in this building have IG accounts? I’m sure. But when it comes to photography, there is another layer, another chapter, another realm where these folks dwell. Imagine a three dimensional space surrounding a single image. Like the screen in Minority Report only focused on a single image and not focused on a person about to commit a crime. A 3D, revolving, sentient space about context, history, education, and career. Meaning. Maybe it’s as simple as that.
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What a cool event. Thanks for being our humble, expensive coffee drinking, bagel eating, photo journalist, blogging correspondent!
Author
That’s one of my hopes, is to bring this type of material. Not sure how many people will take it and run, or join, or change their dedication level, but that’s the plan. And you are welcome.
Nothing beats the energy of a big room full of people obsessing over the same thing you obsess about
Author
Yes, the ideas spinning around are inspiring.
Growing up with, and completing my working life with film, mostly transparencies towards the last five years, I would probably still enjoy exposing the odd film or three, and my freezer contains a lot of it, Kodachrome 64 Pro included. Sadly, my lovely little Cannon scanner is no longer supported by Microsoft and that would mean I’d be left with a lot of pointless trannies that have never been convenient to view as final products. I can remember very well when a 36 exposure cassette of Kodachrome, processing included, would be ours for around a pound sterling. Long gone… as Veblen goods, films don’t quite hack it.
Yes, having a tech-independent “original” is far more reassuring a prospect than a file whose very access ultimately depends on third-party whim, but without a client to foot the bill, not gonna happen chez-moi. I suppose that when you just shoot as an amateur, as do I, it really hardly matters if the stuff is or is not available fifteen years down the line. Regarding black/white photography: if you don’t process and then print your own film you will never really get the connections between exposure, development and how your final print is going to look. A simple squint at your negs should be enough to tell you how you are going to print them. If a lab makes all these decisions for you, how do you judge where you could improve your techniques? That said, for me, when graded papers gave way to variable contrast and plastic, the fine art of printing was pretty much out the window.
Author
A NYC lab friend said young photographers are dropping film, having it scanned, then when they come in to pick up the disk of scanned images they throw the negatives in the trash. Classic.
Got a small tingle when I saw all those young students gathered around the Kodak table. Partly remembering my own eagerness to learn photography at an early age but more that this new generation of photographers so obviously is just as eager to learn. I’ll be making sure my peeps see this… thank you for posting!
Author
Kodak came to UT and gave us a paper safe and some RC paper. It felt like wining the lottery.
Cannon scanner?… oh well, guess that’s too much, or not enough coffee.
Author
Canon was there. I just scanned my face then hit 10,000 on the copies button.
Dan, you are on fire. Great post and the event looks awesome! Have fun out there
Author
Thanks. It was a good few days. Learned some new things.