Gallery Show Reception Recap

Saturday was the reception for my very first gallery show and thanks to you guys, it was not only a huge success but also a total blast.  I wanted to thank all of you who have supported me in my photographic ventures through purchasing prints, commenting on photos here and on my photoblog, sharing my photos with your friends and even helping me select the photos for the show!

Thanks to the Perlow-Stevens Gallery for hosting my photography and Sycamore restaurant for providing all the delicious food.

Thanks to Sam who had the forethought to make it a Facebook event.  You’d think that I’d be all over that since, well, I kinda do that sort of stuff for a living haha.  Well I forgot and was pleasantly surprised to see that Sam had already setup a Facebook Event and invited dozens of people!

Sam and I hung out at the photolab for a while before dropping some stuff off at my apartment and heading to the show. We played with some old photography equipment at my place, Sam has the 50mm f/1.8 pancake lens I’ve always wanted!  Took this image with it.

It had some back focus issues with my Nikon D80 but worked pretty darn good with my Nikon D700.  Ultimately I’ll stick with my 50mm f/1.8, that is until I move up to the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G which is an incredible lens, albeit a bit pricy compared to the 50mm f1.8

A ton of people showed up at the gallery to check out the new work by Patty Oblack, Cat Tesla, Elaine Fleck, Susan Bostwick, Joel Sager, Michael Bauermeister, Derrick Breidenthal and of course, ME!

One of my photography class besties came out too, actually almost all of them!

Leah brought her camera and was kind enough to take a few pics of the reception. I’ll hope I can get them from her today and share them on the blog. Until then, here’s one of Leah checking out her shots and a couple of mine.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to support me, drink some wine and eat some delicious food. 😀  Oh and don’t forget, the show continues through May 15 so if you didn’t get a chance to see it yet, there is still time!

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Perlow-Stevens Gallery Show

I posted a few months ago about the potential for me to have my very first gallery show.  There was a HUGE outpour of support here on the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter and beyond.  So first off, thanks for all the help, the suggestions on what to submit and what to leave out.  Your thoughts were incredibly helpful to me.

Guess what, I got the show!  It’s up right now at the Perlow-Stevens Gallery and it looks great, can I say that?  Seriously though, everyone I’ve talked to has said great things about it and apparently a few people have shown interest in buying a few of the prints, which I would of course welcome!

Here is a preview of what you’ll see when you go there.  Of course everything looks different in a gallery setting.  I have always felt my images look best big and have printed each photo 20×30 inches with a four in matte mounted on archival board and put in beautiful, white Nielsen frames.  All put together they are 28×38 inch, white frames, white matte and mostly white images.  The lighting mixed with the choices on the matte and frames really helps the colors pop.

I had a great little evening last week with several friends, Chase, Sam, David, Korrie, Laura, Eric, Justin R, Sydney and a few others all joined me at Top Ten Wines for drinks to celebrate the opening of my show. Turns out it was Ping Pong Night at Top Ten, which was kind of fun to watch haha. Drunk people playing ping pong, ahem, table tennis, is always a fun venture.  It’s the reason Google added a drunk-test to Gmail for those of us who have sent unfortunate emails while under the influence… LoL  They really take it serious, brackets and all!

Perhaps the funniest part of the night were these photos captured by Sam or David, I can’t even remember, of Chase.  Make up your own story, I’ll provide the series of images…

There will be an official opening for my show, as well as a few other artists  this Saturday.  The reception is on April 10th, 6:00-9:00p.  I hear there will be free booze and food so you really have no excuse not to come!

Don’t forget you can follow the Perlow-Stevens Gallery on Twitter @PSGallery.  You can use the hashtag #PSGS and/or an @reply to them if you visit my exhibition with your thoughts.

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Wishing Everyone a Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving all of you out there.  Hope your’s is wonderful.  Here’ a picture I took that makes me find peace, just in time for the season!

Ryan and I are having a wonderful time here with family and visiting friends.  Today we celebrate Thanksgiving at a family friend’s and who knows what the night will bring.  Perhaps the holiday lighting ceremony.  Maybe more time with Jena and Melissa.  Eitherway, we’re all havea  great time and I hope you are too!

-justin

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Defiance – Followup Post

Thanks guys, so much, for all the wonderful, constructive and flattering comments on my last post.

One big massive comment reply. Ready for it? Here goes!

@David Bickley

Thanks for your thoughts. The idea for the project isn’t just defying gravity, it’s defiance in general or surreal or… just things that don’t seem right. Though the post does say gravity… haha

I went through and removed the hand, as you can see now. 🙂 It was pretty easy to do. I couldn’t decide if I liked it there or not, definitely know now that it’s better w/o!

P.S. Did you get my email last week?

@Chase

Looking forward to the concert!

@Matt

Yeah there really is a lot going on in that picture! I want to do some more pics like that. I kept looking for a seesaw (teeter-totter) but I couldn’t find one out here! Crazy huh? I had a really cool idea for one of those. Oh well.

@Karen

As usual, overflowing with kindness and wonderful, thoughtful comments.

The swing set picture was actually taken at around midnight! The light appears to be a sunset from the use of an extended exposure. That picture was a three minute exposure!

Yeah, climbing up to that door was hella scary! There really aren’t any stairs!

@Newsy

Whether you’re on KATG, Twitter or my blog, you always make me laugh out loud!

@Hilly

Ditto!

My professor really likes my idea (whew) and I’m excited to stage some more fun, gravity and time defying scenes.  If anyone wants to model in them for me, lemme know!

Here are a few more from last night.  Again, thanks Micheal for being such a great model/sport.

If you have any suggestions of other things that defy logic, gravity, time etc etc… please let me know in a comment.  I have a few other ideas but I need a total of at least 20 really great pictures for this project.

Restoring Faith

One of the benefits of having a blog like this comes from the interaction I get from my readers, both the regulars and then more sporadic ones.

I would like to thank all of your for your supportive and inspiring words today either through comments on this blog or through Twitter (@justex07).

Through your comments I have come to realize that it shouldn’t matter what other people think, if they are capable or willing to show enthusiasm for my future.  That I should follow my heart, do what makes me happy without being destructive.

So, as soon as I am able to, I will apply to graduate school at Yale, Stanford and UCSF.  If I get in, what an incredible opportunity.  If that doesn’t work out then there are other options.  Work for, or run a photo studio.  Take over the company I’ve been doing work for over the past ten years through one facet or another.

I guess I’m lucky, I have options ahead of me and the chance to make a choice.

Thanks for helping me realize that.

Again I’ll end with a few more pictures of mine which have never been put online.  Sometimes going back through your catalog of pictures can be fun.  Even if they aren’t any good, it helps remember where you came from.

This one doesn’t fit with the other two but I like it, not sure why.  Just not a picture I’d typically take.

Time to get back to work on a paper.  Thanks again.