Why Swap?

It’s so easy these days to become absorbed in the dig­i­tal lifestyle we all embrace so openly. We upload pic­tures from our cell phones to flickr or twit­pic or any other photo shar­ing ser­vice you can think of. For so many peo­ple pho­tog­ra­phy and design has reached a new level of almost instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion. Shoot, upload, share, enjoy. I still remem­ber the smell of the dark­room the first time I walked into Black and White 1 six years ago and how amazed I was when I pulled my first print out of the fixer. Some­thing I had put so much work into, the cre­ative process before I ever pushed the shut­ter release. The fum­bling of the film in the dark try­ing to load my roll into the film can­is­ter. The “pre­cise” mea­sure­ments of chem­i­cals that smelled so new and even more intrigu­ing. Then finally, the pay­off… my work, for­ever pre­served through a unique inter­ac­tion of cre­ativ­ity, hard work and sil­ver halides.

Night Moves

Are you a pho­tog­ra­pher or designer who would like to share your work with oth­ers and receive some orig­i­nal art from cre­atives like your­self in exchange? I will be facil­i­tat­ing a print swap monthly start­ing in Jan­u­ary with the first topic being “Night Moves”. A few rules…

1. Prints must be between 4×6 — 8×10
2. Prints must be mounted to acid free board
3. Prints should be signed on the front or back and include some level of insight or story about your image if you feel like sharing
4. Images or designs must fall within the range of the monthly topic

Still Inter­ested?

If you’ve never printed and/or mounted your work before you can get 4×6 prints printed and mounted for $2.60 a piece, 8x10’s would be $4.50. If you have an art store nearby, you could mount your own images for far less and enjoy the pay­off of some cre­ative hard work. For Jan­u­ary we will open the swap up for 10 peo­ple, the first 10 to com­ment! No need to post any per­sonal infor­ma­tion in your com­ment, just show inter­est and I’ll get back to you and let you know what to do next. Once we have the ten par­tic­i­pants, every­one will need to pre­pare 11 prints and pack­age them up for ship­ment to me. I will do the leg work and re-package each col­lec­tion and ship them back out to each participant!

Every month I will include a gallery of the par­tic­i­pants work online after the col­lec­tions have been re-distributed… I would hate to spoil the surprise!

What are you wait­ing for? Do it!!