I feel like it's been "booth image" week. Since last weekend, over a dozen artists sent me their booth picture to get it ready for jurying. Most to apply to St Louis before the deadline tonight. Obviously in a two minute image review, you can spot more problems than in under 20 seconds, but if possible you shouldn't have any issues that the jurors notice.
Two fiber artists (clothing) purchased new display props and got rid of their grid walls. One even purchased a new canopy. A few had me walk them through setting up their booth at their house for the picture. Another artist had a patterned rug in their booth and needed it to be made solid gray after the image review.
Besides all the booth critiques from the St Louis image review, there was critique of background of jury images. An artist who paints silk scarves was told her black background was too dark and she should "shoot on a graduated background like everyone else." Because her scarves are translucent, the graduated background totally washed out the color so she had to go back to the black background images which really made her work look good. Another artist was told the gray her photographer used was too light so I had to cut the work out and drop it into a graduated background where the lightest area was darker than the light gray the photographer had used.
I wonder how many artists tweaked their booth or art images to apply to St Louis.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
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LOL! We need more visitors to the nursing home to stop and buy!
I set my booth up in my parking lot and totally reshot it. Being able to choose exactly which direction to face it for maximum light with out any sun streaks sure helped! My neighbors were very entertained.
But did they buy anything? I worked with a jeweler about three years ago who set her booth up in front of her house. While she was shooting the pictures, someone stopped buy and purchased a piece. When artists set their booths up at my house, we always get some interesting comments (never a sale though) from people visiting the nursing home next door.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
We haven't set up our booth yet because our first fair will be this fall - They are asking for a picture of our display and booth and we were planning on setting up our tent and mesh walls just for practice and taking a picture of it at the same time - Do you think this will this be good enough for now? or should we set up the tables and everything and actually put our work up and then take a picture?
Your picture should be representative of what the booth will look like at a show. So I won't know until I see the pictures. But if you do want to work with me, please start by following my instructions, which will help you take a better booth picture even if you don't work with me.
http://bermangraphics.com/artshows/photograph-booth.htm
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100
Thanks for the helpful advice Larry =)
Can't blame them, can you, Larry? There are so many pieces to this pie of what makes a jury entry that will get an artist into an art fair. I hope some of them listened to the podcast I did with three artists last week where they talked about how they choose their images for their applications. Some people tweak it all and it sounds like you were in the heart of that this week. That is mighty strange about the jurors telling an artist to change the background and then her work washed out...sometimes we know best!