A Guide to Preparing Your First Gallery Exhibition

If you come to this website, you probably have a stockpile of photos that you’ve made. But let me ask you a question, have any of them seen the light of day? Of course, you have a Flickr account, and you always upload your photos to Facebook. But have you thought about taking it to the next level?

I recently had a photography exhibition with a small group of photographers. I’d like to take you through the process I went through to prepare and execute this exhibition – it’s not as tough as you might think! The photos you’ll see throughout this tutorial were either photos of mine that were in the exhibition, or photos taken during the opening.

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Exhibitions

The words “gallery” and “exhibition” might seem pretty serious and can be intimidating, but they don’t have to be. An exhibition is just a public display of our work, and a gallery is just a place to have it. Your exhibition could be in restaurant or a library, which become galleries for the night of show. It might not be a swanky white-walled cube in London, but displaying your work for public review in any setting has serious benefits to you as a photographer.

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Cost/Benefit Analysis

There are many benefits to having an exhibition. Displaying your work to the public is great way to get your name out in the community. It’s also the best way to improve your confidence as an artist. I’m under the strict opinion that art is meant to be consumed. Photography is art, therefore it doesn’t do any good to keep it locked up on a hard drive.

But enough with these inspirational ramblings, time for the costs. The things you’ll need to pay for will include printing, frames, potentially the cost of the space, and any food or drinks you want to provide. Take all of these things into consideration before beginning. As uncreative and unromantic as it may sound, you need to make a budget!

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Old or New

You basically have two options when deciding upon what to display. You can create something completely new and tailor it to the type of show you’re participating in. Or you can pull work from your archive. Shooting something new has it’s advantages, but also takes a lot more planning. If you’re on a deadline, then it can be very difficult.

If you have a large body of work filed away, and you plan on pulling images from that to make a collection, then consider how they were made. Your new digital camera might make great 11×14 inch prints, but that 1.3 megapixel thing you were working with in college might not enlarge so nicely.

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Choosing A Theme

Quality being equal, a random collection of images won’t have as much impact as a group of images that tie together or can be viewed in the context of a theme. A picture of a bowl of fruit might be well executed, but put it in the the context of a show about food (or eating, or even something broad and abstract like “bounty”) and it will carry more weight.

My theme was a little complex. It attempts to compare and contrast the four seasons of the year with the seasons of life. Because I pulled images out of my archive, I decided on my theme first and then searched for images that matched it. This image was from the “Summer” section.

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Finding A Space

Each and every city and town all over the world will be completely different. My city is a mid-sized American town with about 300,000 people inside the city limits and another two million people surrounding it. The arts are pretty well supported and there are dozens of galleries and “art spaces” in the downtown area. But local coffee shops, our public library, eclectic retail shops, community centers, schools and universities are all great places to have an exhibition. Get creative.

Non-Traditional Spaces

Don’t be afraid to approach places that have never done exhibitions before. All you need are a few walls. For non-traditional spaces, think of it as a trade. You’re bringing all your friends and your local community art supporters to their business for the night of the reception. That gives the space exposure. And if the space happens to sell things, especially food and drinks, they can sell those and make money.

In return, you want to decorate their walls, maybe for just one night, maybe for three or four weeks. It’s a fair trade. We used a multi-purpose space to stage our show that used to be a brewery, but now hosts all sorts of events.

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Find A Flock or Fly Solo

In the early stages of planning, you need to determine if you want to have a solo exhibition or display your work alongside other artists. If it’s your first time, it’s usually much easier to display your work with other people. Are you part of a camera club? Are there other people from your city that visit and post to your favorite photo websites like Flickr?

Do you know other artists in your town that aren’t photographers? Painters, sculptors, musicians and other artists can participate as well! For our show, which we call “max” because it sounded interesting and was dedicated to a friend, we had six photographers. That made it much easier to fill the large space we were using.

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Printing

Printing your photos can be very expensive. You can save money by using an online printing service, especially if they are having a sale. You can also print them yourself if you have a printer.

Before you starting spending a lot of money of prints, consider how much space you have to work with and how much money you can spend on prints. In my experience printing several smaller images costs less than printing one huge one, but you may want to have different sized prints in your show to add some variety.

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Framing

Framing can easily be the most expensive part of your show. Really cheap 8×10 inch frames can cost $5 USD, but they look like they cost that much! Unless you’re going with a non-traditional presentation, look to spend at least $15 USD on a frame with a mat to hold an 8×10 inch photo.

Many artists I know shop at a certain Swedish home furnishing store for their frames. I went with an alternative option by creating something different for my photos to hang on (in cheap frames, of course). Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box. I displayed 20 photos, and my frames cost around $5 USD, so I still spent $100 on frames. This was significantly more than the cost of printing my relatively small photos.

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The Final Presentation

I may have gone a little overboard in my presentation, but I knew the crowd that I was serving. Make sure your presentation suits your crowd. Your choice of photos is your personal artistic statement, so don’t let your potential audience have too much sway over that. If it’s good, they will like it.

But in terms of presentation, keep in mind that outlandish presentations like mine might not look to great on a wall in a restaurant. Also, make sure everything is extremely secure and that all of the glass in your frames in as clean as possible. This was my presentation of “Spring.”

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Get The Word Out

So, you’ve got your best work all polished up and ready to go. Now you’ve got to get an audience. Start with your friends and family, then go hi-tech. Between Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, online communities, message boards and your personal website or blog, you should have no problem letting people in on your plan.

Also consider doing a little traditional public relations. Contact your local newspaper. Let some photography teachers know what you’re doing, and invite their classes to attend. Some posters at your local camera shop might not hurt either. Don’t neglect this part of the process, it will make your show a lot more fun. The following image was my “Summer” colllection.

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The Show

You need to think of your show in two parts. The reception or opening is the first night, or at least a night close to when your installation is done. Then ideally, your exhibition will stay on display for a certain period of time for people to view it when your location is open to the public. This next image is the “Fall” board I displayed.

The Opening

Go all out for your opening. At our opening, we were fortunate enough to have a cash bar provided by the venue. They kept the profits in order to pay for the electricity and the bartender. We also made sure there was good music, and due to the casual, “underground” nature of our show, we had a ping pong table set up.

Think about inviting a local musician to play. And more importantly than anything make sure there are places to sit. People don’t want to stand around for hours, and most gallery settings are rudely lacking in the seating department. The following image is my “Winter” piece.

The Viewing Period

The viewing period is for people who couldn’t make it to your show. Viewing period at traditional galleries or museums can last a month or longer. This is probably a bit too long for most people. Obviously, if your venue has other commitments or shows planned, they will tell you how long your viewing period will be.

If you have a choice, the length of your viewing period depends largely upon what type of venue you chose. For a restaurant that is open most days during the week, you won’t want as much time. For an art space that’s only open on the weekends, you may want to try to keep your show up a little longer. This will also give you more opportunity to sell your work.

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Sales

First, I’d like to preface this section by saying that you should not expect to make money at your first showing – or your second – or most of the ones after that. If you go into it as a money-making endeavor, you’ll probably be disappointed. But you may be able to offset your costs a little.

My first suggestion is to price your pieces reasonably, but don’t undersell yourself. Price mainly by size. All your 8×10 inch photos should be the same price if they are all presented in the same frame. If you used a special process or paper or frame for a few, those can be more expensive. Don’t price things based on what you think is best or worst.

Also, I would print smaller versions of your bigger pieces, and sell them without a frame for at much lower price. This will give people an opportunity to take home something without it killing their pocket book. Museums do this with posters and postcards of famous works. It’s basically the same principle.

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Following Up

Have a guestbook at your opening and your viewing period if possible. Collect the names, email addresses, and possibly even the comments of the people who came to see your work. Stay in touch with them through an email now and then. You can send them an email directing them to your blog or website, or let them know about your next show.

If you do take photos for money, like portraits or weddings, take a big stack of business cards to the opening as well. There’s really no better atmosphere to network!

Now you’re ready for an exhibition and, if this helped you out, I expect to be invited!

How To Create Unique Photographic Art for Your Home

We all have a handful of framed photos on our walls, but beyond printing some portraits of friends and vacation shots, what else can you do with your photos and your camera? The camera you own is a art machine. It’s capable of all sorts of things.

Today we’re going to talk about filling your home with all sorts of creative visual pieces. From using your camera to further enhance the photos your already have, to creating interesting, new and exciting work. Treat this as a jumping off point for your new interior decorating project!

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Mats

You’ve got to wrestle those pictures down and make them tap out on the mat. Wait… that’s not the right kind of mat, is it?

A mat is simply a border to give your photo some breathing room. They are especially useful to set the photo apart from colored or patterned walls, and usually, they are incredibly boring. You can create mats yourself. Once you do, you can use it on a photo or use it to mat another type of artwork like a painting.

Matching Room Designs

You can match your mat to designs in your home. In my house, I have a tiled ceiling. I used my camera to photograph this pattern and use it as a mat. This pattern as a lot of straight lines, so to keep them straight, I laid on the ground to get as far away as I could – wide angle lenses typically distort more than normal or telephoto lenses.

It also helped me keep my camera square and level to ensure that the lines remained even. The design was also a bit bold and busy, so I lowered the opacity to make it more subtle. Of course, this photo/mat combination is a little silly, but you get the idea.

Pulling From the Image

You can also just pull a pattern or design from the image you intend to frame. In order to do this, you’ll want to be careful of resolution. For my example, I also lowered the opacity again and applied blur to make the mat look like more like a texture than an actual image.

When printing your mats, carefully consider the type of paper you want to use. You’ll typically want to use a matte finished paper or even a thick card stock. You could even apply the image to a cheap piece of actual mat board using a light adhesive.

Matching the Walls

This technique is a bit of a visual trick. First, you’ll need to photograph the wall you intend to hang your photo on. Photograph it using the light that will most commonly illuminate it – preferably window light. This will ensure that the colors and texture will match most of the time. Then you’ll simply need to print the image to a large size and cut out a window for the photo you want to frame.

This will create the illusion that your photo is floating in it’s frame. Of course there are glass frames that can do this in reality, but this is more affordable, and can be further embellished in creative ways.

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Posterizing Collections or Hobbies

There are a lot of places online that can print poster-sized images for relatively little cost. The paper is usually thinner than your typical photo paper, which is how they make up the price difference. But in a frame, the paper can look great. So get creative with what you shoot. I decided to posterize my collection of cribbage boards.

While I live in the U.S., part of my family comes from the U.K. where cribbage is a popular card game (that said, I’ve met some young U.K. residents who tell me that, like most cards games, cribbage is now mostly enjoyed by older people).

To make this image, I chose a dark background – a black-topped coffee table. I set up a softbox to achieve nice, even lighting. I used a step stool because, again, I wanted to be as far away from the subject to eliminate wide-angle distortion. You can see my set-up below, which I used for the next few demonstrations.

Using this technique, you could also photograph your favorite game or something similar. I did another shot here with dominos. Both the cribbage boards and the dominos are visually appealing, and could actually be displayed on the wall themselves! Unfortunately, a custom frame to do this will cost a lot of money and, once mounted on the wall, it would difficult to take them down to use them! You could also use this technique to display things that are too fragile or delicate to have hanging on your wall.

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Literary Inspirations

I also love old books. I’ve got a small collection of first editions, and a lot of books that were given to me by friends and family. Sometimes books have great art and illustrations in them. One book that I own is a 50-year-old instructional book for ballet. I’ve photographed dance for a long time, and my girlfriend spent many years in her youth dancing. The book has very unique engravings in it, many of which could make great posters.

Obviously, reproducing copyrighted material is often times illegal. So creating this poster and distributing or selling them would be illegal. The image below shows an entire page with an engraving, and text that could be included on the poster.

You could also use illustrations from a children’s book. When photographing these books, I used the same lighting set-up that was used for the cribbage boards. I used binder clips to keep the pages as flat as possible, being careful not to damage the book. These could make a great addition to a child’s bedroom, blown up to a large poster size.

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Overlaying Images

We all have snapshots of friends and family doing whatever it is that they do best. I have a few musician friends, and decided to use those photos to create this next image. When choosing or shooting these shots, you typically want the person to be well-lit and have some empty space around them to work with. We’re going to layer another image on top of it, and we want some space where that image will show through.

Start With Your Main Image

I’m going to be working in Photoshop to create this effect, but you could use some other photo editing program if it allows you to create layers and change opacities or create screens. I chose the image below because of the clear face and emotion along with the empty space around the subject.

Choose a Simple Graphic to Overlay

For the overlay, you want an image that is simple and graphic. It’s also easier if you have an image that isn’t dependent on a lot of color. You may end up converting it to black and white for use as an overlay. I shot an image of record to use as the overlay in the shot, but a guitar or some other instrument could work just as well. Obviously, you’d want to choose something that pertains to your subject.

When you have both images, open your main image in Photoshop and import your second image in as a second layer on top of the first. For the image of the record, I’m going to be deleting the center portion with the words and placing my subject inside the empty space.

Try Using a Screen Setting

Each image combination will be a little different. But first, try the screen blending mode setting. In order to do this, look in the layers control panel. There should be a drop-down menu set to “Normal.” Select this menu and change it to the “Screen” setting.

If the overlay looks really strange, try inverting the colors of the image by using the toolbar and clicking Image > Adjustments > Invert. Then apply the screen and see how it looks. Here’s what mine looked like, I didn’t have to invert it.

Using opacity changes

If the Screen setting isn’t working for you, there is another more controlled option. Open both photos in different layers with the detail shot on top, just like before. Delete any parts of the detail image that you don’t want, like I did with the center of the record. Then go back to the layers control panel and lower to opacity of the detail image until it looks good. You may want to increase the contrast of the detail image as well. I also selected the areas of the main image that are hidden by the record and increased the saturation drastically to help the color show through. Here’s what the effect looked like in my situation.

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Slide Viewers

Slide viewers have been around for decades. Wait, let me clarify, they were around for decades until they stopped being produced. These are small, usually battery-powered, devices that were used to quickly go through a batch of slides. Some are bulky and pretty ugly, but some are super retro and great fun.

The one in the image below I found at a garage sale. Before purchasing these, make sure they take a type of battery that’s still made, and make sure the bulb works. Mine was designed to only turn on when a slide is held down into it, but it could easily be modified to stay on continuously.

Slide Projectors

Better yet, dive into slides completely and buy a slide projector. Some models which originally cost nearly $800 USD can now be found for around $100 or less. Although I haven’t seen one incorporated into a home décor, I imagine that one could be set up on a shelf and projected across the room onto a free wall space. I own a Kodak Ektagraphic that would work great for this.

Many of your photos might not be on slides at present, but you can easily convert them to slides by taking photos of your art using slide film.

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Special Print Presentations

Of course, there are a hundred and one ways to put a regular photo on display. I’ve outlined some unique and interesting ways here, but there are many more. One of my favorites is having a “photo clothes line” somewhere in your home. Just hang a wire or length of thin rope on a wall, and clip your favorite images to it. You can change it all the time, and even customize it with lettering for special occasions. It can be a great way to show snapshots of a child or friend during a birthday party.

Another great way to display photos is using “photo clips” which allow you to join photos together at their edges. You can create 3-D structures, curtains or just simple rows and lines.

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Conclusion

So what have we learned? Firstly, your camera is an art machine. Even if you don’t think your photos are worthy of being blown up to billboard size, you can find something to photograph that will make a great new piece of art for your home.

Secondly, your photos do not deserve to be relegated to photo albums, tucked away for no one to see. At least some of them should be out on display. So take some of these ideas, spice up your shots, and hang them with pride!