As I write this I'm thinking back to Friday 29th March 2013 as that was the day before I installed my first ever solo exhibition to be held at the Todmorden Tourist Information Centre, I remember how the butterflies in my stomach were starting and going through what I imagine what most in this position would be going through.... anxiety!
Doing an exhibition was something I had planned to do for many years, but with one thing and another I never seemed to get around to doing it, in that time I had come up with many different themes , but as time went on I had become more and more into monochrome and learning all about the different aspects of it, getting the right tones, contrasts and detail in the textures. In the end I decided that would be my theme and I would showcase some of my monography.
I had prepared for the exhibition well in advance, maybe too well in advance as I had been living with all the framed prints for some months now and perhaps become a little desensitised to them and questioning if they were actually good enough to be exhibited... In the end I decided to just go with it and put myself out there, if people were going to criticize them then hopefully it would be constructive and help me grow as a photographer. Don't get me wrong I'm happy with what I do and have published many times in various magazines, photographic website forums and social network sites over a number of years now and people do enjoy my work, but this somehow felt very different and very real, at least with the internet there is some level of anonymity...
Fast forward one month later and now the exhibition is over and of course now I'm thinking what was all that worrying about? In the end it was (in my opinion) a great success, my profile has been raised and my websites have had a massive increase in traffick and I sold 25% of the exhibits. The comments left in the visitors book were all positive, it seemed that those who visited the exhibition enjoyed it almost as much as I did making the images in the first place.
So I guess the moral of the story is to just bite the bullet and go for it, because if you don't you might always be wondering "What if?"
Thanks for stopping by, please check out my main website www.hanrahanphotography.co.uk and also for expert photography tuition you can book one of our excellent landscape photography workshops in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales National Park at www.tripodandwellies.co.uk
Hanners
Doing an exhibition was something I had planned to do for many years, but with one thing and another I never seemed to get around to doing it, in that time I had come up with many different themes , but as time went on I had become more and more into monochrome and learning all about the different aspects of it, getting the right tones, contrasts and detail in the textures. In the end I decided that would be my theme and I would showcase some of my monography.
I had prepared for the exhibition well in advance, maybe too well in advance as I had been living with all the framed prints for some months now and perhaps become a little desensitised to them and questioning if they were actually good enough to be exhibited... In the end I decided to just go with it and put myself out there, if people were going to criticize them then hopefully it would be constructive and help me grow as a photographer. Don't get me wrong I'm happy with what I do and have published many times in various magazines, photographic website forums and social network sites over a number of years now and people do enjoy my work, but this somehow felt very different and very real, at least with the internet there is some level of anonymity...
Fast forward one month later and now the exhibition is over and of course now I'm thinking what was all that worrying about? In the end it was (in my opinion) a great success, my profile has been raised and my websites have had a massive increase in traffick and I sold 25% of the exhibits. The comments left in the visitors book were all positive, it seemed that those who visited the exhibition enjoyed it almost as much as I did making the images in the first place.
So I guess the moral of the story is to just bite the bullet and go for it, because if you don't you might always be wondering "What if?"
Thanks for stopping by, please check out my main website www.hanrahanphotography.co.uk and also for expert photography tuition you can book one of our excellent landscape photography workshops in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales National Park at www.tripodandwellies.co.uk
Hanners