Product Description

Creating and organizing successful photography exhibitions requires business finesse and expertise as well as artistic ability. Exhibiting Photography offers step-by-step guidance, paired with anecdotes and case studies of real situations to help photographers at any level improve their business skills, explore new exhibiting techniques and learn to self promote with confidence.

Addressing the technical and aesthetic concerns of amateur and professional photographers, rarely discussed in such detail, Shirley Read's informative new book explores:

.The process of finding the right exhibition space
.How to design and install an exhibition
.The right and wrong way to approach a gallery
.How to navigate contracts
.Pricing and selling
.How to establish budgets and timetables

Exhibiting Photography also includes documents and check-lists to help photographers stay organized and maximize the success of an exhibition.

Enhance your artistic ability by mastering the fundamental social, strategic and organizational skills that successful photographers utilize when navigating the world of art exhibition and commerce.

*Learn the right and wrong way to approach the managers of an exhibition space and how to find one that suits your photography
*Gain valuable insight from case studies with real situation dos and don'ts in actual exhibition settings
*Includes documents and check lists to help you with time management, budgets, invites, figuring out what tools you need for hanging, press releases, and more

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #620965 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780240809397
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"there is a crying need for a business perspective to the contemporary creative arts. My colleagues in the professional world rightly despair at the progressive reduction in confidence and breadth of knowledge of those wishing to enter the world of commerce."
Geoff Clark

Customer Reviews

Hang It!
Here's a book aimed at serious photographers. In case you might have made a mistake and thought this book would show you how to display a photograph on your living room wall, it is instead for folks who want to display their photographs in a public venue.

After a general introduction to the subject, the book discusses finding an exhibition space, including a few that might not come readily to mind; planning and research for the exhibition; publicity; preparation for installation; and the actual hanging of the work.

The book is about the logistics of exhibiting and not much about the art, although Read makes suggestions relating to both the preparatory phases and the actual installation that will help in a more artful presentation. My first thought, as I opened the book, was that this was just common sense. However, I've lived long enough to have made a lot of mistakes and as I read along I kept encountering advice that I wished I had had before making some of those mistakes. For example, Read tells you that when it comes to the actual hanging, lay out the installation on the walls completely with pencil, ruler and level before you drive a nail. If I had done that on a particular occasion, I probably wouldn't have ended up taking down a bunch of pictures because my last frame was butted up against a corner. Emphasizing the importance of backwards scheduling in detail might have prevented the pile of advance brochures that arrived the day before the event. It's this kind of nitty-gritty detail that can keep one out of trouble. And of course the advice that, if you cut yourself on the glass for a frame, you should walk away from the framing area immediately to avoid bleeding on the work is a good reminder.

Throughout the book there are a number of case studies written by guest authors. Although the authors might have felt they were telling a story of success, many impressed me with what could go wrong.

There were a few points that I thought the author scanted. She made it seem as if it might be easy to get exhibition space. But venues are not quick to allow photographers without a demonstrated market to use their space. Nor do artists want to exhibit just for the sake of hanging stuff on a wall somewhere. There are economic aspects, aside from the costs, of the show, that govern exhibiting. Before blithely deciding "Let's put on a show!" one would do well to read a book like "Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist" by Kay Lang, where she describes in much greater detail the hard work of getting a place to exhibit.

I felt that the author could have been more concise in her writing. That might have led to a book twenty to forty percent shorter. I disagreed with a few of her conclusions. For example she suggests that in pricing a work, overhead should not be included. That's might be a model for a low price, but it is also the road to bankruptcy.

If you are a photographer who wants to exhibit and you have no experience exhibiting, reading this book may save you a lot of anguish.

An Excellent Option to Propel a Career
This is a challenging economic time for photographers. Exhibiting is an excellent venue for getting a photographer's work in front of a new audience.

Shirley Read's book surprised me. I thought I was well versed in the topic. However, she and the team of photographers who share their experiences illuminated my insights into photographic exhibition to a far greater scale than I had anticipated.

It's not a book of pretty pictures. I'd term it "text heavy" in a most positive way. This book is very thorough in it's approach. With a variety of voices adding to Shirley's expertise, this book is more than one person's vantage point.

"Exhibiting Photography" stimulates the creative business mind.

Great if you do not know anything
The book is very basic is good for people that have no idea about dealing with people and have never exhibited or have discussed the topic before.

There is a lot of common sense written into the book which I found basic and was only able to pick a couple of great ideas for the publicity, planning ahead and the opening.