Meeting Minutes: Women in Focus, January 13, 2010

Taken By: Valerie Gruner

Meeting presided over by our president, Gittel Price

Members and Guests Present: Toni James, Gittel Price, Kelly Thompson, Jan Kapoor, Peggy Attaz (sp?), Debra Booth, Valerie Gruner, Cindy Michaels, Corinne Adams, Lorikay Stone, Aixa Caldera, Gail Des Jardin, Sheri Garza-Pope, Peggy McKinney, Joanne Green, and Carol Butz.

Guests and New Members:

Kelly Thompson has been shooting with a digital SLR for three years. She enjoys photographing old rusty things, macro, and is looking to do more people. Lorikay and Debra recommended our group to her.

Aixa Caldera is an architect who took photography classes in college. She started with a digital SLR in 2006, and got in deeper in 2008 with exhibiting her work. She mostly works with creative abstract images, but also does realistic. Corinne juried one of her pieces into a show, and in googling Corinne, she found WIF.

Peggy McKinney is a Registered Nurse who started by photographing football games. She has also done weddings. She went to Gwinnett Tech for some classes. She saw a WIF exhibit, and was impressed that a great many of our photographs were of people, which she enjoys, and has found to be unusual in photography exhibits. Her work tends to be journalistic.

Carol Butz was a member of WIF back in 2001 or 2002, but then moved to Birmingham, then Raliegh. She shoots weddings and children, and is getting back into it, now back in Atlanta. She still works with film, but wants to go digital.

Members in Shows:

In the Georgia Photography Show, through the Art School of Sandy Springs, exhibited at the Paper Mill Gallery in Marietta, are Cindy Michaels, Valerie Gruner, and Jan Kapoor, who is a Merit Award winner. There will be a closing reception on Sunday, January 31, 2:00-4:30 pm.

Gittel Price, Valerie Gruner, Debra Booth, and Kate Lynch all have work in the Southeastern Flower Show Photography Show. The Flower Show runs February 3-6 at the Cobb Galleria. Most of the photographers will be gathered at the exhibit prior to the show’s closing at 8:00 pm, February 6.

Lorikay Stone has five pieces at the Stuart McClean Gallery through February, and has work on display in a private gallery at StudioPlex.

Valerie Gruner has a piece in the Arts and Culture Alliance of Knoxville (TN) National Juried Show until the end of January.

Amira Price has work in the Puppy Love Show in Zebulon, GA.

Unique Opportunity: Field Trip to NYC with Susan Todd-Raque

The four-day trip is planned for March 17-21, 2010, during which Susan will guide the group to AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers), MOMA, ICP (International Center for Photography), and many galleries and museums. There will also be a day for photographing at Cold Springs, a quaint small town.

Transportation to NYC is up to the individual, and the cost could either be $50 a night if the group stays at a retreat, or about $100 a night if the group stays at a moderate hotel. Food and other expenses would be additional.

This is a terrific opportunity that Susan is offering, as she is a great proponent of seeing great photography as a learning experience, and she has been longing to take a WIF group on just such a trip.

Contact Gittel if you are interested. More details will become available through emails as the group firms up.

StudioPlex Push Pin Show:

Lorikay has arranged for an empty loft to be available to WIF for a Push Pin Show during StudioPlex’s monthly Art Walk on Friday, February 26. Hanging space will be first-come-first-served, and space available to each person will depend on how many members participate. Doors will open at 6:00, and pictures will come down at 10:00. This will be a membership drive, and a way for members to renew their memberships, as it will take a membership fee to participate.

Some new details since the meeting: WIF photographs will be sold through a silent auction, and for every sale made, there will be a charitable donation made to CARE Atlanta.

Plans are still being made, and a super-specific email will go out in February. Keep February 26th marked on your calendar, as the evening is shaping up to be another great WIF opportunity, and great fun, as well!

Other Announcements:

The show at Peachtree Hills Hagadorn Foundation Gallery, next to ADAC, is superb and worth a look.

In addition to suggestions from information polls, Dean and Jan from Showcase were suggested as guest experts for WIF critique meetings in the summer.

Many, great thanks to Lorikay for hosting our Holiday Party in December. A fabulous time was had by all.

The Portrait Photography charitable event with Girls, Inc. and Drake House was a great success in December, and is, hopefully, planned for November in 2010 for less rushed finished products.

Speaker: Member, Corinne Adams

It’s a new year, and it’s gotten Corinne to thinking. One of the things she’s thinking about has been how to describe herself. What set off this line of thought were numerous parties during the holidays when she would be asked, “What do you do?” The group suggested answers; I’m a photographer, I’m a goddess, I‘m an artist, I do pin-hole photography, etc.

Corinne began thinking about how people define themselves, and, through the ages, she’s come to the conclusion that it’s all tribal. We have religion, class, peers, etc. to define us, lend security, and as guides to live.

An article in Lens Work magazine was on this topic, and it concluded that photographers had begun describing themselves by describing their equipment (digital, film, pin-hole, etc.), and this was not a good way to think of one’s self. There are also terms like photographer, fine art photographer, portrait photographer, artist, artist that works with photographic processes.

This all led to Corinne asking herself, “Who am I inside?” “Why am I drawn to do this?” I need to get to the essence.

As with all of us, there are images to which she is drawn, like tents, birds on wires, hoses, and white things. She has to capture these things.

She wants her works to ask questions, or serve as metaphors, or be like an onion with layers to be peeled away. What is the thing about? Perhaps by looking into these matters, she can answer the dreaded “What do you do?” question.

Corinne brought examples of her work, and she likes to find new and different ways of displaying her work from only matted and framed. Some pieces are in small boxes like treasures, some pieces are painted, some are collaged, making her photography an expression beyond simply the image. She wants the finished piece to take her and the audience to someplace else, to transport.

From the group came comments that they like to find the extraordinary in and/or behind the ordinary. Also, a photographer can see something in an image after taking the photograph that wasn’t seen when actually shooting the picture.

Corinne maintained that there was nothing wrong with “I’m a photographer” as an answer to the dreaded question, but it was good to explore what one does to find an evolving answer. Self identity is not defined by a given tribe, but perhaps one’s tribe should be defined by one’s identity.

A member suggested that tribes is kind of a scary designation, and that identifying too closely to that notion could lead to difficulties

Behind her bird pictures, Corinne sees tension in shapes and the essence of the bird’s environment.

Gittel learned photo transfer from Corinne, and has loved it ever since.

Corinne also does humanitarian work in Central America.