exhibition

Flowers? For me? Well, thank you very much!

Yours truly receiving flowers and a reward. Photo by Agneta Nilsson

It's not everyday you stand in front of an audience and accept a bouquet of flowers and a check that has a healthy amount of money written on it, but I can definitely get used to it...fast!

The reason why I did just that this weekend was that I was rewarded for providing the image of the poster for this year's Culture Night, an event where local artists show off their works, be it photographs, paintings, sculptures or performances of various kinds.

I wrote about this in a previous blog post so I won't go over it all again, but rather talk about the evening a bit instead.

My father and I had gotten spots at City Hall, which was definitely a step up from last year's location, a nearby school gym, as far as audience numbers go. This year it was pretty much non-stop people showing up from about 5 PM when the event started all the way to 10 PM when everyone seemed to have disappeared. The event was scheduled to continue until midnight, but when no one had shown for 15 minutes we decided that enough was enough and took down our stuff.

My setup at City Hall.

I showed 11 50 x 40 cm frames (20 x 16 inches) and one at 100 x 70 cm(40 x 28 inches). The bigger one was the poster image put on a separate easel so that people could look at it close up. The others were mostly local images...and in color too, which is a rarity for me these days. I did have four black and white ones though, and they seemed to render quite a bit of interest too. I even had a tentative request for one of the images, but it didn't end up in a sale since the lady in question didn't come back to close the deal. That's too bad, but not something I cry myself to sleep over; I didn't think I'd sell anything. If I had sold anything it would have been a lovely bonus to a very enjoyable evening!

This was my fourth time participating in Culture Night and I hope I can do #5 next year too, because it is just so much fun! Next year I'll try to avoid the rookie mistake of not putting titles or price tags on my pictures too...perhaps if I show they are for sale people will actually be interested!

August - exhibitions galore!

August turned out to be quite the busy month for me and my interest in photography. Previous years I've only done one photography event in August (Planket...or The Plank); this year however I've done three!

Pixel & Korn (Pixels & Grain)

The audience during the inauguration speech by the club chairman

The audience during the inauguration speech by the club chairman

This is the big one, my photo club exhibited the works of 37 different photographers in an old storage barn right on the southern coast of Sweden. We've gotten almost exclusively positive comments for our show, and the number of spectators are the highest we've ever had for a group show. Several of the participants have also sold a few of their works, which is great!

My six black and white prints shown at the Pixel & Korn exhibition in Smygehuk, Sweden

My six black and white prints shown at the Pixel & Korn exhibition in Smygehuk, Sweden

Linan (The Line)

My twenty black and white prints at the Linan 2014 event

My twenty black and white prints at the Linan 2014 event

This is an event where where photographers put up washing lines between steel poles along paths in a park and hang their photos from those lines with clothes pegs. Over 50 photographers had signed up via the Facebook page, so it was pretty crowded, but we somehow managed to squeeze everyone in so they could show their pictures.

I showed 20 black and white prints that I had selected for this purpose, a mixture of street photos, details and landscapes, and for the most part everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Planket (The Plank)

Two generations of Nilsson photographers, my dad's photos on the left, mine on the right

Two generations of Nilsson photographers, my dad's photos on the left, mine on the right

This was event number three and one I've done several years before. This is another one day open air event where photographers hang their photos along a 2 meter high fence of one of the parks in Malmö, Sweden. This year we had twice the area we have had the previous years, so it took a bit of thinking to pick out what to show, but in the end I went with 4 color and 4 black and white shots I've shown previously at the 2013 Culture Night in Staffanstorp, Sweden and at a local business during the spring of 2014.

So why do I participate in these events?

One simple reason: It's fun!

Okay, in more words than that: I get to show my works in public, so that visitors can get a look at what I'm capable of doing and give me feedback. It's fascinating to see which of your pictures get the most response from people; it's not always the ones that you as a photographer are the most attached to! Also I get to see what other photographers do, and get inspired by what they do. The social aspect is important too; getting to meet other people interested in the same thing as I am, very often brand new to me people.