Under pressure

From May 25 until June 19 I had for the second time an exhibition together with Bart van Rijsbergen and Hester Busse, with whom I establish Photo collective InsideOut. This time we exhibited together with our creative coach Ariane James, who also had very fascinating work on display. In the meantime we are quite a few weeks further, but it tasted good – we want more of that! Next year we’ll do it again, was our joint conclusion. Of course it is fun if (many) people enthusiastically come to visit – that’s what you are doing it for. And furthermore it is an honor to get the opportunity to exhibit at Fotogram / the Amsterdam Photo Academy. And as a bonus we got a beautiful article in FOTOgrafie, written by their editor Peter Maat who happened to open the exhibition and while he took a tour along the images got so excited that he immediately wanted to write about it. That gives you a kick.

But it also works as a tremendous stimulus to work together towards an exhibition. Consciously give focus and direction to your work, and being critical about what would fit and what doesn’t, and looking together to what may add to it. A kind of making series of series. So, we begin to feel the pressure.

That pressure you also feel when you get home with a mass of very interesting material that you want to post on your website. In my case images need to fit ideally in series of 5 (per row). With not more than 3 series (15 images) per sub-gallery (page), and not more than 5 sub-galleries per gallery - if possible less. In that way I believe my webpages look the best.

Certainly when you get home with nearly 850 images you have to select very critically, not only on quality piece by piece, but also to order them in those series and galleries where possible – and further strengthening that coherence in your post-processing. Working backwards you will be shooting on location in terms of series as well – with an eye for what is really creative or just nice and registration, and furthermore: to attempt to shoot in series, exploring more sides of the same in a comparable, extending fashion. 

Does that put yourself under pressure? Of course! But the satisfaction is so much bigger when things work out. Like with the results of that photo weekend in Dortmund (recently posted under the name ‘Fundgrube’) where I spent two days shooting with a group of fellow club members under the guidance of Hayo Baan.

One plus one is two you would say – so the material for the coming exhibition is ready? Don’t think so. But every successful shoot is another step in your development. And in that sense, indeed, it is coming closer: that beautiful exhibition in Summer 2014. Keep me posted?