Photo Lucida Follow-up

Photo Lucida may be over, but my work on it is not. My body thinks otherwise—within 24 hours I had a raging head cold. Now I have the time to be sick, apparently. It was a funny onset. At 10:15 at night, going to bed, I felt fine. Forty minutes later I had a sore throat and drippy nose, and a subsequent sleepless night.

For two days now I have been doing follow-up. I’ve made twenty four custom thank you cards, with a picture on the front, the one that each reviewer seemed to most respond to. I feel like the bride writing notes for all the gifts after the honeymoon. I need to write something warm and personal to each and every one, even the ones for which I didn’t like the gift.

Next is the specific follow-up that I said I’d do. The stack of inkjet prints to Germany. The reminder about the group show to Bellingham. The email to get that Italian publisher’s contact info. The resource file on my work to be prepared for the the magazine. The CD to the other magazine. I don’t know how any of these tasks could have been done without a spreadsheet, which has been my management system for this event. After every review I’d vanish into a quiet corner with my laptop and fill that reviewer’s notes field with everything I recalled. In another field I’d list what I’d said I’d do. I called it my memory dump. At the end of the day I’d enter in all the contact info from their business card. Now I am extracting all that information.

The cards went into the mail this afternoon, and then I went to bed.

Comments

[Saxon Holt]

My waiting list number did not come up for Photo Lucida and I went off instead into the Southern CA desert in search of wildflowers. I was looking forward to seeing this blog assuming, from the asmpfa list, that there would be some good info. I am looking at the blog for the first time, fascinated and in awe of the honesty and "brutal reality".

I am not even sure how to respond to Doug, to query about Photo Lucida, to investigate my own fears as a fine art dabbler, now revealed.

I don't think I am prepared with either the work or the emotions to "go there". I am a garden photographer and my comfort level is the garden or conversing with gardeners not photographers and art folk. Publishers, editors, and writers are OK because we understand the disposable nature of our business but artists (including photo artists) have their own passions and connection to the soul, connections that infuse their lives.

I loved the comment from one reviewer asking "where are you in the photo ?" Where am I in *my* work ? Too safe for one thing.

Thanks a lot for these insights Doug; a fine piece of work

Saxon Holt