Category: Portfolio Review

I received the following question from a reader:

I’m going to my first portfolio review at the PhotoPlus Expo next month in New York. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it, so the trip is coming together kind of last minute. I currently don’t have a printed portfolio and I don’t have the money to print up a proper one. I thought about having a book printed up though a company like Blurb or Artisan State, as that would be a lot cheaper. Or I could use my iPad that has a nice looking portfolio app.

Does showing up with just an iPad look bad? Does showing the cheaper photo books make me look cheap? Is it worth it to find a way to try and get a proper printed portfolio? Any advice you can share is greatly appreciated!

I asked Heidi, Suzanne and Brittain for their thoughts and I’d love to hear any advice readers have on the subject in the comments.

Personally, I’m inclined to wonder why you will spend all that money on a portfolio review if you’re not going to maximize the value. If you don’t have a printed book and polished pitch you’re not ready to meet with Photo Editors and Art Buyers in New York City. Sure, you can go in and get some advice on which images are strong and where you might improve, but this is the first impression you will make with many of these people. The gold standard for portfolio reviews is a book with finely crafted prints, a well rehearsed pitch, promo card leave behinds and some personal project options in a separate book, ipad or Blurb type book. You can be sure when you sit down in that chair the photographers before and after you are doing this.

Suzanne Sease:

It is completely fine to show your portfolio on an iPad. I recommend http://ipadportfolioapp.com as many of my clients use it and it has been received well by the viewer. I personally feel that many of the pre-printed bound books don’t look as nice as a hand printed ink-jet book. Since the purpose of a review is for the viewers to make suggestions and possible changes, why invest in a costly portfolio? If you are going to get out and get face to face meetings, then invest in an ink jet printed double sided portfolio and a nice portfolio shell.

Heidi Volpe:

I think it’s perfectly fine to show your portfolio on an ipad especially if you have motion to show.

Some of the less expensive book services you mentioned are perfectly fine as well. I will say if you choose to use these printed services, you’d need to have a good design sense and understanding the printing process, how images behave across the gutters in these books, accurately follow the template and be sure to build in time for revises and proofs. Whatever you choose, make it tight.

Brittain Stone:

I agree that an iPad presentation is more than fine for a portfolio review of this kind. Just a few things to consider when you do go this route:

• An iPad review will invariably go much quicker. It’s human nature to linger on paper longer than on a swipe-able tablet.

• Your edit on an iPad is invariable more linear and one-sized, and while that’s not a bad thing, it’s a consideration when selecting images. It’s harder to go back into a portfolio and muse about particular images after the swiping is done.

• At these portfolio reviews, reviewers are expecting some “green-ness” so an elaborate print production would be overkill, unless you are the next (insert important photographer here) or. The book printing services you mentioned are all pretty great.

• You’ll still want some printed collateral of some kind in order to make it into a file or a stack or the reviewer’s memory banks. Very little trace remains after a digital review.

• Bring Windex

I’ve got my hands full at the moment.

In the last two weeks, I’ve begun a new job as the Chair of the Fine Arts Department at UNM-Taos, had a articles published online by APE, the NYT and The New Yorker, edited a new photo series of my own, put together the newest issue of Photographers Quarterly, and got my kids ready for a new school year.

Hell, just writing that sentence gave me a headache, much less living it.

Why am I complaining? As always, there’s a reason. In this case, it’s because I promised a book review this week. Back to normal, I assured you.

Alas…

I hate to be a liar, but in the mad rush to get everything done, I actually forgot to include an artist in last week’s article. Not something I’ve ever done before, but hopefully, given that my current to-do list is as ornery as a drunk barn owl, I’m hoping you’ll forgive me.

And of all the people to forget, I actually omitted the most memorable. I met Gloriann Liu at Review Santa Fe a couple of years ago. She showed me some pictures she’d made of Syrian refugees on the Turkish-Syrian border, as she’d spent significant time in the region, determined to see for herself what was happening.

I was floored for several reasons. To begin with, Ms. Liu had an Asian surname, but was a middle-aged, relatively small, blonde-haired woman. That’s the kind of detail that will stick in your mind. (It’s her husband’s name. Easy answer to that one.)

She also told me that she funds her travel herself. It’s art, for her, as she is so heartbroken and angry at the injustice that exists in the Middle East and Central Asia. As such, she spent much of her own savings making trips over there, reporting, working almost as a one-woman NGO.

And she shook with anger as she discussed what was happening to poor and vulnerable people. Literally, she was seething; physically manifesting her rage at a violent and unpredictable world. I’d never met anyone quite like her.

Most people who set foot over there have grant funding, or work for a major media organization. They have institutional protection of some sort. Gloriann was doing this as a private citizen, an artist whose inner necessity put her squarely in harms way. INCREDIBLE!

Fast forward to RSF ’15, and I reviewed her work, officially. She showed me a portfolio of images she made of Zarghona, a former Afghan child bride, now older, and the family she supports. One son, Barialy, who was injured by rocket-fire during the Afghan Civil War, is featured prominently in the project.

He has to be carried around, and sometimes his mother hires a man to cart him in a wheelbarrow, so that he can accompany her as she begs for money. Shocking stuff.

The only rational explanation for how I forgot to show you these photographs is that I was overwhelmed with life. It happens. But we’re rectifying things by showing Gloriann’s portfolio today, all by itself. The pictures are strong, of course, but also a great reminder that while we sometimes get wrapped up in our own lives…there are people out there who would kill to have our First World Problems.

I never get drunk anymore. It’s true. I can’t even remember the last time I was woozy and boozy, swaying like bamboo in a disorienting world.

I know, I know. Just last week I was bragging about throwing back shots of whiskey in my car with Paccarik, but that was just a little tipple to prepare for the onslaught of chatter. I barely even get a buzz on at portfolio reviews, these days.

It’s not about the drinking per se, these reviews I’m always on about. The key is to have just enough alcohol to be extra social, but not so much that you can’t speak coherently about your work. (And definitely not so much that you make an ass out of yourself in front of some VIP.)

Is this all obvious to you? Am I once again preaching about things that don’t need to be said? I’m not sure.

But the social aspects of Review Santa Fe, and other events like it, are where the long-standing relationships are built. That’s the reason I always recommend people attend a good festival: you can make things happen that you wouldn’t have predicted.

Case in point: in last week’s article, I highlighted the work of Shane Rocheleau. I edited out a few comments I made about Shane being a massive Massachusetts meat-head, once the beer was flowing. He was hilarious, his humor infectious, but I needed to mind my word count.

The story I was planning to tell was how Shane organized a little print trade/after-party in a room in the Drury Hotel. As it was booked into room 145, they cheekily called it The Gallery 145. People flocked, after the last evening’s final event, and I was handed a beer before I even knew what was happening.

There was a board of directors in place, a set of rules, and each trade was documented with ironic flair. Unfortunately, the organizers were unaware the hotel was filled with families and older folks, so by leaving the door wide open, at midnight, they were begging for trouble.

I was there when the hotel cracked down, shutting the party tight within three and a half minutes. Everyone moved on to a more suitable location, on a nice balcony, and that was the last I heard of it. But clearly, a few people who’d never met each other before organized something cool, that benefited others, and showed people a good time to boot.

I checked back with Shane yesterday, so he could remind me of the room number, and he said the whole endeavor morphed into a collective, and a website. It’s right here, if you don’t believe me. The Gallery 145 is a thing, and the leaders: Shane, Will Douglas, Eric Pickersgill, the aforementioned Paccarik Orue, and Marcus DeSieno intend to re-stage print trades at upcoming portfolio reviews, including one in Japan at the end of August.

Then, the guys decided that just staging print trades at portfolio reviews might not give them a ton of momentum. So they went ahead and founded the collective website Mall Pretzel, where they’re highlighting contemporary photography, seeking submissions, and planning exhibitions, IRL.

How cool is that?

I know that some people must think I’m always championing Review Santa Fe because I know the people there, and they helped launch my career. True enough, I suppose.

But really, those who read me regularly know how seriously I take this platform, and how much I’d like to help others realize their dreams, and pay the bills at the same time. If you don’t want to go to RSF, cool beans, but if you’re on your way up, and trying to make a name for yourself, you really ought to consider attending a top shelf festival.

That said, the point of this article is to highlight the best work I saw at RSF’15, so let’s get to it. (Once again, in no particular order.)

Shane Brown, (yes, two Shane’s today,) is a part-Native American artist from Oklahoma, where he still resides. (Otherwise known as the New Jersey of the Southwest.) Shane’s project, “In the Territories,” gives us an inside look at a State that was mostly known for football, historically, and is now infamous for man-made earthquakes caused by fracking.

Camilo Ramirez teaches in the Boston area, and brought some work to RSF that he’s shot on the Gulf Coast, where he once lived. Camilo was interested in seeing what the region looked like, post-Gulf Oil spill, though the photos are not about that, per se. To me, they attempt the capture the spirit of a place in time, which is always an admirable goal for a photographer.

Svetlana Bailey is a Russian-born photographer, but she spent much of her life in Germany, and then did a long stint in Australia. (Have you got that?) Now, she’s studying at RISD, and will be featured in the Fall issue of Photographer’s Quarterly, alongside 4 other global female artists I met at RSF.

Beyond her primary project, which we’ll show in a few months, Svetlana also brought a few palladium prints made in an amusement park in China. That’s right, all the landmarks below are fakes. Fugazi. I guess they really do make everything under the sun in the PRC.

Jeremiah Ariaz strolled in 5 minutes late to his review, just when I thought I was going to get a break. (He was my second-to last meeting of the final day, so my brain was beyond fried.) Therefore, it was going to take a lot to get me back on his side. Fortunately for Jeremiah, his pictures were wild.

Jeremiah is a professor at LSU, in Baton Rouge, and had recently discovered a fascinating subculture, while riding his motorcycle around Southwest Louisiana. He happened upon a group of African-American men who have a Trail Riding club. No typical cowboys, these, as they tow a truck with a DJ to keep them company as they tool around on their horses. Badass, no?

Alejandro Duran, a Mexican photographer based in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, was one of Center’s competition winners, so his work was displayed at the Center for Contemporary Arts. As I was schmoozing non-stop that night, I didn’t even get to see the pictures.

Thankfully, I had a review with him, and got to see his portfolio up close. Alejandro spent time in the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve in Quintana Roo, Mexico, just south of Tulum. He was troubled to find washed up garbage, on the beach, from 50 countries around the world. (Can I get a WTF?) So Alejandro turned the trash into beach installations, which he then photographed. The work has been making the rounds on the Web this Summer, as it is clearly compelling stuff.

Finally, we’ll get to our last two artists, who were my dining companions at the Saturday night dinner honoring the legendary Anne Wilkes Tucker. To my left sat Tarrah Krajnak, a seemingly Peruvian artist based in LA.

I say seemingly, because Tarrah confided that she was from Ohio, and didn’t speak Spanish. A sharper person might have figured it out for themselves, but Tarrah told me she was adopted. Therefore, one might read into her project, “Dark Messengers,” shot in the American Southwest and South America, as an attempt to get in touch with her roots. Regardless, there is a mystical vibe I find alluring.

To my right that night sat Shawn Records, a photographer from Portland with whom I’d corresponded in the past, but never met. He’s been a part of the Photolucida organization for years, and I wrote a blurb about one of his books in the early days of my weekly column.

On a laptop, Shawn showed me a mockup of a book he’s been working on, called “Hero,” that’s modeled on Joseph Campbell’s famed ideas about the hero’s journey. Shawn has spent a couple of years combing through his massive photographic archive, trying to create a through-line that will parallel the aforementioned narrative.

There are a ton of pictures in his resulting effort, but we’re showing just a small sample, for obvious reasons.

All right, our coverage of Review Santa Fe 2015 is officially complete. We’ll be back to the book reviews from here on out, and then I’m headed to the Filter Festival in Chicago late next month, so we’ll have fresh portfolios for you in October or November. Have a great weekend.

It’s the first Wednesday in August, and I’m sitting at my white kitchen table. (As usual.) The late Summer sun filters through the window coverings behind me, suffusing the room with warm light.

Outside, the sunflowers stand tall, like teenaged boys trying to impress their fathers. It is the prettiest time of year, from now through October, and it puts me in mind of the impending Autumn.

Oddly, my job is to turn back the clock; to engage my memory, imagining the photographs I saw at Review Santa Fe, in early June. This year, the event took place at the newly built Drury Plaza Hotel on the East end of Downtown. It was a convenient location, but as I spent most of my time indoors, looking at pictures, it didn’t really matter.

The first night, a Thursday, began with a big lecture by an important person. I’m eliding the details, as I decided to skip it, and drove into town a little later. (I cooked a big dinner party for some collector friends the night before, and was too worn out to jump into the early activities.) As such, I headed directly to the opening party at the Center for Contemporary Arts, which featured the Center competition winner’s exhibition: The Curve.

I parked in a still-empty lot, and strolled towards the venue in my new flip flops. (Fancy leather.) I hadn’t checked in at the orientation, so I bore no name-tag, flouting the convention in which people would know who I was before they met me.

Where do you go when you’re the first one to the party? That’s right, straight to the bar. That was the plan, at least. But just as I was approaching the end of the parking lot, a massive bus pulled up, filled with thirsty photographers, all likely to beat me to the drinks, if I didn’t hurry.

Why the rush? Center is famous for its generosity at such events, and there is almost always free food and booze, for the participants. (Keyword almost.)

I approached the very pretty, model-esque bartender, and noticed the trendy alcohol branding behind her. She handed me a menu, and told me there were lots of great drinks on offer. I noticed the steep prices next to them, and frowned. What do to?

Awkward.

Well, I said, and then paused for a few seconds. Is anything…complimentary?

What do you mean? Complimentary?

The drinks. They’re only for sale?

Yes. Of course.

Oh. OK, I said, as the crowd bunched up behind me. Give me a second.

Well, she said. There are ways to get things complimentary.

Right. I said. I get it. Tip you well, like in a bar, and one of them will be on the house. I got it. Thanks. Just give me a minute.

She smiled big, and I later wondered if that’s what she meant, or if perhaps she was hitting on me? Likely the former. Regardless, I stepped to the side, so paying customers could actually order, and pretended I was deep in thought.

However, I was actually deciding how long to wait before I went out to my car to drink some of the Bushmills I’d bought at the liquor store in Pojaque on the drive down. I slunk away, a few seconds later, and wouldn’t you know it, the first person I bumped into, quite literally, was Paccarik Orue. (Featured in a previous APE travel piece in San Francisco, 2012.)

I offered him free booze if he was willing to sneak some plastic cups from the bar, as I was then too ashamed of my thriftiness to face the beautiful bartender again. So he did.

Not two minutes later, we were sitting inside my tinted down, silver Hyundai, slugging whiskey, and preparing ourselves for the onslaught of socializing that is a portfolio review event.

Is there a point to the story, behind me being a cheapskate? Yes, there is: Always be prepared.

Since my intro ran long, I’ll cut to the chase. I had a fantastic time at Review Santa Fe. It was a bit strange to be sitting on the other side of a table, officially, at the event that helped launch my career, on the photographer’s side. But I tried to use that perspective to help put the artists at ease, when I could.

As usual, we’ll highlight some of my favorite work here, in a series of articles. (In no particular order.) I’ll try to conjure up a more interesting anecdote for part 2, but for now, I hope you enjoy the selection.

Jillian Mitchell is an American photographer living on the Mexican coast. Or should I say a misplaced Bostonian? It wasn’t until later in the weekend, well after our review, that a few beers summoned her strong accent.

Jillian showed me a serious and sad series shot at the Mexican teachers college where those 43 students were stolen. It was good, for sure. But this other group of pictures, in which she photographed Mexico, as she knew it, had a joy, strength, and whimsical silliness that I found charming.

Matjaz Tancic showed me some 3D photos made in North Korea that I didn’t find so compelling. I’m really not the target audience, though, as my brain can’t process 3D glasses. I gave him the best advice I could, and we had a good chat. Cool guy.

As Matjaz was leaving, he handed me a portrait of a Mao Zedong impersonator, wearing actual 3D glasses shoved through eye-slits in the print. Easily the best leave-behind I’d ever seen, and I immediately asked him why he didn’t show me whatever series that came from? Though originally from Slovenia, he’s currently based in Beijing, which gave him access to these actors who impersonate Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai Shek, and Zhu De.

Apparently, it’s regulated by the Government. But then again, how could it not be?

Shane Rocheleau got a hold of me before the festival, as he’s a friend of Susan Worsham, whom we interviewed here a few years back. I was predisposed to like him, I must admit. We met at the second to last review, and he was wearing a sharp camel-colored corduroy jacket over a music T shirt. Johnny Cash, maybe?

Shane showed me these pictures from his series “A Glorious Victory,” which is a part of a collaborative investigation he’s doing in Petersburg, VA, alongside Brian Ulrich and others. They chose the town to stand in for the contemporary South, and I thought the prints, all done with a 4×5, were dynamite. So sharp in person. (And yes, the blood is real.)

Patti Hallock is a Denver artist, as is the last in today’s piece. (Evan Anderman) It’s a co-incidence that I’m lumping them together, but each did ask me the same question. How can I get my work noticed outside my regional area?

Patti first showed me a project that’s now in the current issue of Fraction Magazine, and I didn’t love it. It was pretty, but didn’t seem to transcend a genre of pretty nature photos. She disagreed, and thought there was more too it than that.

I told her that typically, work that resonates with larger audiences had something of an edge or tension to it. Things that don’t look like other things stand out by definition. She said she had something else I might like, and maybe she could show me later.

Not to pick on Patti, but “later” should never be at 1am on the last night of the festival, on your Ipad, when someone says they’re going to bed and have to pee. Just bad timing, FFR.

But, I try to be a nice guy, so I looked for 6 seconds, and said, sure, send it to me. “It” is “Wreck Room,” in which she photographs people’s basements. The random stuff we never see. I think they’re cool, and contain the funk I suggested she try to bring out in her nature imagery.

Evan Anderman is a pilot, and trained geologist. He brought aerial work, which was popular in Denver, he said, and wanted to see how he could break out nationally and internationally. We discussed the multitude of people shooting from the air these days, and that in the wider world, he’d therefore be compared with Ed Burtynsky, Emmet Gowin, David Maisel, Michael Light, and people like that.

It’s tough company.

I suggested that his advantage was his professional-grade knowledge, as a scientist, and if he tunneled (no pun intended) deeper in to that expertise, he might find ways of communicating things the others couldn’t. Plus, knowing how to fly a plane was advantage 2. The following pics are from his series “Ground Zero,” which focuses on environmental degradation, and I thought they were interesting enough to show you here.

OK. Part 1 done. More to come next week.

My father reads my column every week. Without fail. Recently, he took exception to the fact that I labeled my writing “nonsense.” Thank goodness for encouraging parents.

I try to keep these articles entertaining, and have found that a little self-deprecation goes a long way. Occasionally, I revel in it, because I used to have very thin skin, as a youth. I’d fall to pieces if anyone made fun of me. (As Dad can attest.)

That’s why I love to start these travel pieces and festival reviews with a funny story, making me look foolish. Like the time I set off the fire alarm at the NY Times review. Or the time a heavy door at Gagosian hit me in the stomach, right in front of a gorgeous gallerina.

Eventually, though, I was bound to run out of embarrassing incidents. It was inevitable.

And here we are.

Nothing funny happened to me at Review Santa Fe this past June. I was invited as a roving reviewer, and as the guy who announces their raffle at the Saturday night party. (Yes, I broke into Spanglish, but it was more ha-ha funny than Ricky Gervais cringe-worthy. So not relevant here.)

I had a very nice time, as it was my sixth consecutive trip to the review. Good food, good weather, lots of nice people from around the world. I think I’ll even skip the part where I defend the review process from those who get upset about having to pay for meetings.

Overall, I saw the best work of any review I’ve yet attended. Polished, relevant, accomplished projects, professionally presented.

So if nothing bad happened, nor anything eventful to recount here…let’s get on to showing the best work I saw at the RSF ’14.

Qian Ma is a photographer based in Brooklyn, who recently finished a degree at ICP. In a perfectly strange coincidence, he just finished studying with my former professor, the great Allen Frame. I wasn’t surprised to hear that, as Allen is adept at pushing young artists to dig into a practice that allows their personal aesthetic to shine.

Qian’s black and white prints were totally gorgeous, and admittedly, the jpegs don’t do them justice. People literally lined up to see this work. I loved the otherworldly, odd, metaphysical qualities. How a simple cell phone can make you think of a parallel universe. So of course I asked him if he read Haruki Murakami, and of course he said, “Yes. Everything he’s written.” The project is called “Luminance,” and if you happen to see a sheep man lurking in a corner, at least you were warned.

I met Julia Cybularz within seconds of walking into the open portfolio viewing at the Santa Fe Farmer’s market. Normally, you wander around such events, looking for the juicy bits. Not that night. Hers was the first work I saw, and I loved it.

She’s photographed her niece, who has horrible scoliosis. Debilitating stuff. The photos were elegant, razor sharp, and visceral. Apparently, Ms. Cybularz suffered from the same affliction, which adds to the resonance. She also had a concurrent project which featured her cousin, who has schizophrenia and is mentally challenged. And he has scoliosis as well. It made for a fascinating mix of family, malady, and personal connection.

Meike Nixdorf is an artist who was visiting from Germany. Again with the Japanese references, she was showing a project that was inspired by Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mt. Fuji.” She was looking for a mountain that she could photograph from many different angles, that would allow the structure of the pictures to change radically.

She found one, El Teide, in the Canary Islands. I asked her why there, as it seemed so random, and she told me she visited the mountain many times, flying over it in a virtual flight simulator. If that’s not updating Hokusai’s vision to the 21st Century, I’m not sitting at my kitchen table on a rainy day in the mountains. (In fact, I am.)

I also met Miki Hasegawa that night. (Two women with different spellings of the same name?) Miki had a series of images that she photographed from the vantage point of her young daughter.

As we all know, life is lived at eye level. We grownups make the world in our image, but our offspring are always looking up at a reality they must grow into. Terrific color palette as well, and the prints managed to capture the wonder and curiosity of childhood. I loved them immediately.

I had a long, rambling, roving review with the Denver-based photographer Benjamin Rasmussen, who’s originally from the Faroe Islands. (They’re in-between Norway and Iceland, so you don’t have to Google it.) He’s interested in issues of identity and displacement, and his project “By the Olive Trees” focuses on both.

He photographed Syrian refugees in Jordan. And he was apparently in Ferguson, MO, last week, so you can check his website to see what’s going on in America’s homegrown war-zone. (Hands up, Don’t shoot.)

According to Twitter, Russia invaded Ukraine today. Is that news? Haven’t they invaded several times already, including when they swiped Crimea? Hard to imagine a more topical project than one which examines the cross-cultural divide between the two countries. (Soon to be re-united?)

Sasha Rudensky was born in Russia, and studied in the famed Yale program. With her project, “Brightness, she has given us some seriously strange pictures that do just that. She photographed in both places, and the image of the thugs holding a giant snake was my favorite single picture at RSF. (Unfortunately, she isn’t ready to publish it yet.)

Finally, I got to see the work of Jeanine Michna-Bales, who was one of Center’s Prize winners. I’d seen a couple of her prints on the wall of the Center for Contemporary Arts, and was transfixed. You won’t believe the premise.

Ms. Bales was interested in understanding the reality of the underground railroad, that patchwork network that led escaped slaves to freedom. A beacon of light in America’s bleak past.

So, she recreated it herself.

She stopped every 20 miles or so, between Louisiana and Canada, which was the supposed average distance an escaped slave could have covered. Then, she made pictures at night. It was so sketchy that she had to hire bodyguards to protect her, out in the middle of nowhere, under black skies.

Obviously, the premise is terrific. But the pictures are every bit as good.

I’ve got a joke for you. You might have heard it before.

A black guy and a white guy walk into a bar in Alabama in 1955. The bartender looks at the black guy and says, “If you don’t walk right out of here this second I’ll blow your f-cking head off with this here shotgun.”

So the black guy leaves, with no recourse but to step out the door ass first, to ensure he doesn’t end up with a back full of pellets.

What’s that you say? That joke’s not funny? It’s tragic? Oh. OK. You got me.

It was actually just another one of my ridiculous intros, in which I try to make a point by not talking about what I’m talking about. Which in this case is race, a difficult topic in the best of circumstances.

To be fair, today I’m talking about “diversity.” Which includes such sub-topics as age, gender, gender orientation, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and class. All get cooked together in this melting pot we like to call America. (Or do I mean the Internet?)

I grew up in a fancy, former farming-community-nyc-suburb in New Jersey. I’m a white male, from a good family, so I’ve been afforded opportunities many others have not. But I’m also Jewish, and my people have been enslaved and exterminated, so I’ve got that going for me.

My town in Jersey had a large population of Asian-Americans, as a since-closed-legendary-Bell-Labs facility had many engineers on staff. We had Jewish/Italian/Irish Americans too, but that was about it. Non-ethnic-Caucasian-Americans from lower income brackets lived in other towns, like Union Beach. (There were no African-Americans or Latinos to be found.)

Here in Taos, we’re lucky to be a mountain community that has any diversity at all. So many ski towns are as white as the snow on their famed jagged hills. Here, we have Native Americans, Hispanic folks, and us gringos. That’s a lot, for the American West. Highly limited, though, compared to you urban dwellers.

But New York? Fuhgedaboudit.

Everyone on Earth rubs shoulders. It is one of my favorite feelings. Walking around amongst humans from all countries, skin colors, sexual orientations. You name it. (Well, perhaps not walking around. Sitting or standing on a train. Underground. Pressed up against a lot of strangers.)

Being around other types of people is good for the soul. It imprints deeply that we are so much alike. Personified, the other begins to seem like a neighbor. And it’s cool to like your neighbors.

In-person-contact subverts racism.

Too often, in our photography world, we hear that it’s too white. Or too male. Right? How many times have you read a blog post about a contest jury that was all white. Or an art exhibition that was 90% male. Right? I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Why is it like that, when all smart people know diversity is a good thing?

Inertia. That’s my answer. A lot of people assume things will come to them. That communities grow naturally, and it will slowly get better over time.

That’s one way to go about it.

It’s another to actually call/email/text/FB/tweet/snapchat your contacts about an event, and ask them to do the same with theirs: to reach out and tap up large networks that are different than yours, with the belief that the spiders crawling around various webs will make beautifully diverse babies.

You saw from the title that this article was meant to be about the NYT Portfolio Review, and so it shall be. The above paragraph describes the strategy invoked by David Gonzalez and James Estrin, the NYT Lens blog co-editors who facilitated the review.

Like a lot of people, they believe getting various voices to the table is inherently good. So when they announced the 2nd New York Portfolio review, rather than wait around for whatever submissions came in, they did extensive outreach. “The goal was to make sure we had applicants of all kinds,” Mr. Estrin said. “So we did a special reach-out to make sure that we had the photographers. I know the photographers are out there, both in the documentary world and the art world, so we made special effort to have them apply.”

He shouted out En Foco, among other organizations, for helping to encourage photographers of color to send in their work. Mr. Estrin also stressed that they are interested in including people across class divides as well. “The core of this was the free aspect,” he added. “We wouldn’t do it otherwise. Plain and simple. We just wouldn’t do it.”

I report here that these guys succeeded in creating one hell of an integrated crowd.

As I thought about how to approach a second article, after dropping the fire alarm story last week, the thing that stuck with me was how amazing it was to be surrounded by talented, passionate people from so many backgrounds. I personally reviewed male and female photographers from Japan, China, Norway, Germany, Ecuador, and Brooklyn. (And then had beers at the Half King with a Japanese-Korean guy from Germany, a German guy living in Estonia, and a long-haired Mexican dude who shoots for Sports Illustrated in New York.)

The Lens team needs to be commended, and I’d suggest others follow this model. (They walked the walk, as it were.) Mr. Estrin stressed that his colleague, Mr. Gonzalez, as a person of color, was particularly adept at handling these issues.

“I once asked the editor-in-chief of a publishing house why one of their survey books had so few Latino or African-American photographers,” Mr. Gonzalez chimed in, via email. “He was refreshingly honest in his response: curators and editors often stick to whom they know. Well, I know lot of different people.”

“In fact, I would argue that I might know more people than some of the more noted editors out there. This is not a boast, but a reflection of my cultural/social roots and experiences: as a Puerto Rican, New Yorker, Yalie, Times-man, I’m aware of photographers, journalists and issues that might go unnoticed by others who do not have that sensitivity.”

Beyond diversity, though, there has to be great photography. The second part of the strategy, I was told, was to have enough diversity in the applicants to ensure they could make individual yes/no decisions based strictly upon the quality of the work.

Last year, some of what I saw was not very good. This year, every photographer had work worth showing. So let’s get to it then.

Motohiro Takeda showed me his pictures on Saturday. I’d heard about the project in the grapevine at Review Santa Fe last summer. The prints are very dark, and he hands you a flashlight to view them. They’re insanely gorgeous, but don’t deliver the same experience on the web at present. I wanted you to see them anyway.

Holger Keifel was there on Saturday as well, and showed me a series on Boxing that was subsequently published on Lens. I loved six images of donated organs, in transit to be transplanted. He claimed to have 7 seconds each time to get the shot, and wanted us to know “the idea of this series is not about death. It’s about saving lives.”

I also met Linda Bournane Engelberth the first day, when Mary Virginia Swanson grabbed me and said, “You have to look at this,” before handing me a laptop. The Norwegian photographer explores disaffected youth in Latvia, where the opportunities are few, and an Empire-hungry Putin is looking over their shoulders.

Evan Ortiz grew up in Brooklyn, and is a journalism student at RIT. He showed me the project with headphones in video form, which I thought was strange, as it meant we couldn’t talk. But I liked the video piece very much, so he was right to do it that way. The powerful series focuses on a fellow student who overcame addiction and depression when she came out as a lesbian.

Gina Pollack showed me images of women in their underwear. They’re accompanied by audio about the project “Bikini Season,” which examines how women view having their private areas waxed. It’s a smart subject, as the audio manages to be hilarious and poignant at the same time, which is a difficult mix to conjure.

I first met Kayle Schnell on top of a mountain. Honestly. While hiking to Kachina Peak at Taos Ski Valley this winter, I stopped to talk to someone because she carried a heavy, pro camera up a very steep mountain. Not an amateur move. It was Kayle, who’s a journalism graduate student at CUNY. Her long term project focuses on a recovering drug addict on methadone. (And nicotine, apparently.)

Santiago Arcos Veintimilla is a from Ecuador, and was recently awarded a Fellowship to work with the Magnum Foundation. His project, “La Cienega,” depicts the only town in Ecuador that has no children. That snake photo is going to haunt my nightmares for years.

James Lawler Duggan is a young photojournalist who’s worked all over the “Arab Spring” territory in the Middle East, and in Syria as well. He described asking the Syrian man to take off his shirt so he could make the photograph, and how hard it was to do that, not knowing what was underneath.

Grant Hindsley is currently based in Provo, Utah. I liked some of his single images, and a project on same-sex youth couples as well. The Mizzou Pride picture was one of my favorites of the weekend, and it felt proper to end today with Al Sharpton, straight outta NYC.

The fire alarm chirped voraciously, like a cricket in a bad mood. Immediately, every eye in the room was focused on me, the idiot that opened the fire door.

I saw them staring.

Rather than hide, which was my natural instinct, I raised my hand and waved it around. “It was me,” I said. “I did it. I’m the idiot.” That done, people went back about their business. As I’d made fun of myself, it made no sense for them to bother.

I stood in the middle of the lobby in the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, awaiting the beginning of the second day of the New York Times Portfolio Review, and I’d just made a fool of myself. (Albeit briefly.)

The day before, as everyone filed out after Saturday’s review, I was instructed to use the Fire Exit by the gruff-yet-friendly security guard behind the desk. So I approached her, after my faux pas, and said, “You told me it was OK to use the Fire Exit yesterday.”

“That was yesterday,” she said, glaring at me sardonically. “Today is today.” Is that not the perfect incarnation of New York City herself? Take nothing for granted. Make no assumptions. Or you’ll end up looking like a schmuck.

I only mention this to you, as it seems like every time I head out on the road, something embarrassing happens. Last year, at the same event, I mocked a dude in a Mexican wrestling mask only to find out I knew him. Poor form.

But I was there for a reason, which was to review portfolios and then share work with you, our loyal readers. In so doing, we at APE get the chance to give a boost to deserving young photographers, and also show you what is being made by the next generation. (In the 21st Century, we call that a win-win.)

This was the second year of the event, and it is free, which is rare. It’s announced via a Lens blog post, and then the photographers are selected from applicants all over the world. Even the application process is free, so you might consider applying next year.

As is often the case with start up ventures, the second year was definitely smoother than the first. Last year was fun, but this year was more efficient. I reviewed a few portfolios on Saturday, as a rover, but mostly focused my attention on the younger photographers who were invited to Sunday’s event.

Last year, we showed the work of two photographers. This year, everyone I reviewed had something worth sharing with you. As is often the case with younger artists, the work was inconsistent. Great images would be followed by clunkers, like the end of the batting order on a bad baseball team.

But all of them had a voice, and showed me at least one picture I found worth publishing here. The only problem, such as it is, is that I ended up seeing more than 10 artists, which can make for a muddled viewing experience below.

So we’re going to break it up into two articles. This week, I’ll show you half of the artists, and next week…the rest. I was genuinely impressed by the passion and talent in the room both days, so I can only hope you’ll respond to some of what you see over the next two weeks.

__

I reviewed Andi Schreiber’s work on Saturday, and we met briefly in Santa Fe last summer. She’s a photographer, and mother, based in Scarsdale. Andi makes pictures with an honest-but-not-quite-pitiless view of family and aging in America.

Wenxin Zhang is an artist based in San Francisco. She describes her photo series as novels, and hopes to figure out innovative ways to present the work in book form. Her portraits were my favorites.

Arno De Pooter is a painter, photographer and digital artist from Belgium. Most of his work was pretty good, but one series in particular, called “Bleach,” was really terrific. His symbol choices were perfectly now, and the desert mirage aesthetic heightened the futurism.

Cassandra Giraldo showed me a portfolio of images made of “Gentle Punks” in St. Petersburg, Russia. As opposed to Skull-crushing-Aryan-racist Punks. She shoots mostly editorial, but is also pursuing photography as art.

Patrick McNabb, from NYU, was working in a theatrical, stage-it all-and-go-big-on-drama, kind of style. Some felt heavy-handed, but a few were really smart, strange, cinematic and believable.

Mark Dorf is based in Bushwick, and is working on some fresh digital images that manage to feel relevant without being too Geeky. Some, but not all of his work, is also somewhat photographic in nature.

I believe, when done right with a little luck/good timing thrown in, portfolio reviews can be very beneficial to photographers. I joined the Board of Directors at the non-profit Center in Santa Fe (full disclosure) over a year ago and have really enjoyed getting to know the people behind it and the inner workings of the portfolio review they put on called, Review Santa Fe. I took the opportunity of their annual call for entries to interview the Executive Director, Laura Pressley. She brings together a very high level group of Gallerists, Curators, Photo Editors, Book Publisher and Photographers annually for the event, which is no easy task. What’s always impressed me more is her ability to network, forge relationships and engage a group of people who have zero time for anything extra. Ask any additional questions you have in the comments.

Give me a little bit of your background and how you got started working with CENTER?

I’m from Chicago, received a BFA from the College of Santa Fe. After I graduated, I moved to the San Francisco area and worked at the Richmond Art Center where I witnessed the transformative effects of public art and community based art projects on families and cities. I felt myself align with the ethos of art service organizations and the public sector.

When I came back to New Mexico in 2000, I got involved with PhotoArts Santa Fe, a city-wide celebration of the medium. Through the event, I met the Director of the Santa Fe Center for Visual Arts (our old moniker) and was later recruited to be their Programs Coordinator after their success of the first Review Santa Fe. I have been here ever since. The name of the organization and the programming keep evolving, but the organization has maintained a sincere purpose and campfire quality that has been there since the beginning.

You are in the middle of your call for entries, tell me about the programs you have this year?

Yes! The call for entries (http://www.visitcenter.org/callforentries) is targeted to photographers who are looking for support and exposure opportunities. The award recipients receive a professional development package including online and traditional exhibiting platforms. This is not a “contest” but rather an opportunity to work with an art service organization in expanding your reach.

PROJECT LAUNCH (http://www.visitcenter.org/competitions/overview/project_launch_2014) is a grant for documentary, journalistic or fine art projects with a $5,000 cash award, two exhibitions with one during Review Santa Fe and the other at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center later in the year, also publication in Lenscratch, invitation to Art Photo Index and more. The Selection Committee is Fred & Laura Ruth Bidwell, Bidwell Projects & Transformer Station; Roger Watson, Curator, Fox Talbot Museum; and Patrick Witty, International Picture Editor, TIME magazine. Deadline: January 22, 2014

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT (http://www.visitcenter.org/competitions/overview/project_development_grant_2014) is a grant for works-in-progress for documentary, journalistic or fine art projects with a $5,000 cash award, two exhibitions with one during Review Santa Fe and the other at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center later in the year, also publication in Lenscratch, invitation to Art Photo Index and more. Juror: Lisa Hostetler, Curator, George Eastman House, formerly Curator at the Smithsonian Museum. Deadline: March 12, 2014

THE CHOICE AWARDS (http://www.visitcenter.org/competitions/overview/choice_awards_2014) are in three categories Curator’s, Editor’s or Gallerist’s Choice and you can choose to enter 1, 2, or 3 of the categories for your work. The recipients are featured in the Award winners exhibition at Center for Contemporary Arts during Review Santa Fe. They also receive complimentary participation in Review Santa Fe, Lenscratch publication, invitation to Art Photo Index and more. The jurors are Curator’s Choice – Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX formerly Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Editor’s Choice – Cheryl Newman, Director of Photography, The Telegraph, England; and Gallerist’s Choice – Steffi Schulze, Gallery Management, Camera Work, Germany.

REVIEW SANTA FE (http://www.visitcenter.org/reviews/overview/review_santa_fe_2014) is a juried portfolio review event and conference scheduled for June 26-29, 2014 in Santa Fe, NM. Review Santa Fe is designed for photographers to get their work seen by those that can help them achieve maximum impact. Scholarships and payment plans are available for photographers upon acceptance. Deadline: January 22, 2014

I see portfolio reviews popping up all over the place, tell me what separates Review Santa Fe from the rest of what’s out there for photographers to attend?

Review Santa Fe has changed the course of many photographers careers with dozens of actual outcomes every year. The juried component elevates the experience for all involved as it attracts not only committed photographers but also reviewers from high distributions magazines and high profile museums who don’t go to other reviews. The reviewers talk amongst each other giving CENTER’s reviews high marks. Many have stated that it is the best review they ever attended.

I just sent out our e-news yesterday with part of a testimonial from Alec Soth, here is the whole thing (from 2005): “A few years ago I felt stuck. I’d completed a project and received some attention in my hometown but I had no idea how to get the work out nationally. Out of the blue I was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize. The award and the attention were terrific, but the real prize was the review experience. The exposure to prestigious professionals and fantastic fellow photographers gave me access to an invaluable national network. It didn’t take long for this experience to reap huge rewards. Within a year of my experience at Review Santa Fe, I had a solo exhibition in New York, a book contract and was invited to participate in the Whitney Biennial.”

I do a lot of the research on who is using photography well and paying. Our reputation and our alumni have allowed me to cultivate key relationship with those picture professionals. At Review Santa Fe, you may have opportunity to meet with someone who can add your work to our nation’s archive in the Library of Congress. In one day it’s very possible you could meet with decision-makers from The Library of Congress, the Whitney, the Getty, TIME magazine, The New Yorker and many others who are looking for content. So, there’s fertile ground at Review Santa Fe that attracts not only some of the best reviewers and photographers.

Our alumni list is hot, hot, hot with editorial and fine art photographers – Alec Soth, Chris Jordan, Julie Blackmon, Hank Willis Thomas, Brian Ulrich, Tamas Dezso, Cristina de Middel, Carolyn Drake and Ben Lowy…the list goes on and on.

If I’m a photographer thinking about going to a portfolio review tell me how should I evaluate what’s available and how do I know I’m ready for one?

Regional reviews at your local photo art centers are great for getting feedback on a work-in-progress. It’s actually quite nice for reviewers to know that there is no expectation and allows for a really authentic and engaging conversation that can lead to insights and next steps. The more national and international reviews, you are ready when you have a cohesive body of work within a polished presentation that may be relevant to a broader audience. It doesn’t have to be fully completed but having a resolved concept and direction and being able to communicate clearly what the work is about is important.

In terms of criteria, I would evaluate the organizations track record and, if you can, ask a reviewer to speak candidly about their experience at an event. The most important thing are the reviewers attending. Ask yourself, are there reviewers on the roster that you want to meet? If so, are they accessible in other ways? You want to try to use that opportunity to meet with people you could not otherwise.

Also, many of us are becoming conscious consumers. There is a critical difference in the priorities of a non-profit art service organizations and other types of businesses. We are accountable to all of our attendees, as well as donors, the city, the state and sometimes the federal government. I have a responsibility to have actual outcomes in my programs and for our attendees to have worthwhile experiences. I would look to see if the program is aligned with a mission-based organization as that instills a level of trust and mutual investment. Essentially, non-profit organizations are for photographers, not for profit. On that note, another important question: are there scholarships or payment plans?

What advice can you give specifically with regards to Review Santa Fe?

– When in doubt submit the edgier series.
– Bring two or more projects with you to the event.
– Submit fewer images, and the tighter edit (you will be judged by your weakest, not your strongest image).
– Pay attention to your sequencing, make it like an album. When it doubt, have a strong #1, #4, and other signature pieces sprinkled evenly throughout the series. End strong.
– In your reviews, realize that you, as storyteller, are as important as the work, in building key relationships. In other words, your bedside manner is very important.

What can people expect to get out of the event? I heard from someone who had great reviews last year but they were frustrated because 3 months later nobody had responded to any of the follow up including yourself. Then in another 3 months a big magazine is publishing a portfolio of their work, so they are relieved obviously, but there was a long period where they were not happy about the time and money spent on attending and the lack of response afterwards. I know it can feel real chummy at the event, but then everyone goes back to work and reality. Can you comment on that?

Given the work is strong, it all comes down to patience. There is a lot of content needed these days for hungry image consumers. I tell a story during Review Santa Fe orientation about a three time alumni who showed her black and white images of bumblebees back in 2006. It didn’t get published until 2010 from a publisher she met at the event. That was when bees were on everyone’s radar because they were disappearing and made the news. Sometimes the reviewer is waiting for the right moment, when the audience is ripe. Editors are managing a bunch of assignments and don’t have time to take a moment to tell you that the timing isn’t right yet.

In terms of my experience, which is also reflective of some reviewers, emails that are non-urgent may wait a season or longer to be addressed. I know it’s almost absurd, that amount of time. The thing is that I love talking to photographers and this particular one, I eventually communicated when I was able to properly engage with her. If I just wrote back “be patient” and explained editors and others heavy work loads, would that have helped any? That discussion needed to be within a context of a sincere conversation that is specific to each individual at a particular moment in the life of their projects and careers.

I see that photographers get discouraged and that’s hard especially when some of their fellow reviewees seemingly get recognition right away. This year within several weeks of the event, we had two photographers on the Wired blog, one on the Smithsonian blog, two others on the New York Times Lens Blog, and a gallery exhibition. The thing is that you don’t know how long each individual has been working on their projects prior to that recognition, and how many times they tried to get the work out prior to the event, if they have an established connection to the reviewer and perhaps Review Santa Fe was that impetus to finally show the work. Each story is different.

But absolutely stay in touch. What prompted me to finally write back was that particular photographer’s holiday card made me laugh. Please keep in mind that once you put the work out there it is not on your time frames or your needs anymore – it is on the magazine, the gallery, the business, or the organization’s schedule. Since they are the ones you are hoping to work with you have to trust their judgement and trust that they are savvy business people who know when the moment is right.

What you can expect is to get your work in front of people who have the power to distribute it to a broad audience. You can expect to be around a group of people all working at a high level and who are dialed into the field. You can expect to make friends you may have for years. You can expect reviewers to be mutually invested in looking at new work. You can expect that although they may not write back in a timely fashion, they will remember your work and reach out when the time is right.

CENTER is celebrating its 20th anniversary, do you have anything special planned?

Sure do. It includes expansion into the central downtown Santa Fe outdoor venue location (the Railyard) and projections of the 2014 photographers works during the simultaneous international multi-media festival called Currents. This parallel festival has a series of programs and installations happening along with evening events with DJs and projections that our participants and encouraged to attend. Its all right down the street from our new location, the Hotel Santa Fe. We are also hosting a Saturday night Fundraising Gala with the Center for Contemporary Arts who are celebrating their 35th anniversary and the Santa Fe Workshops attendees are also invited to the gala as they are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.

Plus, the 100 participating photographers will be invited to give artists presentations scheduled throughout the weekend at the Center for Contemporary Arts. We will have two of our high profile alumni – Julie Blackmon and Phil Toledano – to give evening presentations. There’s more planned but basically its going to be non-stop forward momentum infused with some fun.