Installation Plans, Exhibitions, Budgets and Framers (Week 15)

This week has been a ‘doing’ week and my head has been filled with installation plans for my Exhibition at An Crubh from 20-26 October 2019: choosing the images (not just in terms of necessarily being the best photographs but more about how they will work together as a series of panels of images) and deciding on the final image and overall frame size in consultation with the framer.    I have six large panels to fill 4 foot by 8 foot that will be placed by a wall near to the entrance and adjacent to the very busy cafe area. I have been drawing various different panel layouts but have finally settled on this option:

I have changed my mind a number of times and found it difficult to visualise the size of the images against the space I have available, but the key decision points are as follows:

1. I wanted to place large images on the panels facing the main entrance (1, 3 and 5) to catch people’s eye.

2. I wanted to make sure the panel’s were sufficiently covered but allowing enough space for the images to ‘breathe’.  The panels allow flexibility and precision in the hanging plan I can achieve as they have holes where I can place hanging hooks.

3.  I printed my images on a number of different papers to determine which produced the best print for my purposes – I tried Fotospeed Cotton 300, Ilford Gloss and Fotospeed PF Lustre.  I was pretty sure I did not want to use a matt paper and the test prints proved this theory with the PF Lustre paper giving a much crisper and luminous outcome.

4. I needed to take account of using tables to display greetings card and mounted prints for sale.  I intend to set these up adjacent to the first panel so I am able to greet and talk to my visitors about my work before they start looking at the images.

5.  One of the other things that I have been working on this week has been budgeting and how to ensure that I develop my inventory stock available for exhibitions but, at the same time, not holding more stock than I can reasonably hope to sell (or store!).  I decided on the mix of 40 x 40cm and 60 x 60cm framed images with my budget in mind. Larger images would require the services of an external printer.  I am able to print up to A2 size images on my Epson printer.  This decision was also driven by a need to allow my framers time to produce what is, for them, a large order.  I have now placed an order for 4 x 60 x 60cm framed prints, 10 x 40 x 40cm framed prints and 20 mounted images.  This is in addition to the 10 x 40 x 40cm framed images and 10 mounted images I already have in Skye.  So, in total for the Exhibition I will have 4 large framed images, 20 smaller framed images and 30 mounted but unframed images.

I have also decided which images will be displayed on which panels.  I am not able to show all of these in this Journal as some of my framed images are in Skye ready for the Exhibition.  Apologies for the quality but they are for indicative purposes only:

I have a number of things to follow up this week:

6. Take all images to the framers for mounting and printing

7. Investigate electronic payment methods.

8. Finalising my ‘Artist’s Statement’ and ‘My Story -About the Photographer’ text