Evaluation

Evaluation – Matt Smith

International Markets & Contexts

I thought this project was best yet. Initially I wasn’t motivated at all as I’m not overly keen on shooting work for a gallery setting. However once we began talking as a group we started to throw some ideas onto the table. We first decided on Culture as a starting point and each began thinking of where we could take this. After a few sessions with the tutors we mutually agreed that culture was too broad of a subject and we would be better being more selective. We then decided on identity and I began looking for a photographer. Early on I came across Martin Schoeller and decided he was the photographer for me. This sparked the ideas for my own work and I initially wanted to get into the studio and emulate Schoellers work. I spent some time doing research for the festival and creating some designs amongst preparing for the presentation. I then decided that if I shot in the same style as him the work on display would be too similar. I began experimenting with portraits outside of a studio environment and after shooting 2 people I decided this was the method for me. I found it hard trying to balance to research and development of the festival alongside shooting my personal work so I decided to leave myself a week at the end dedicated to shooting.

On the photographic side of things I’m happy with my images. They’ve turned out exactly how I had hoped and I feel like I’ve stuck the balance between simplicity and effectiveness. The key element for me was to have the same composition throughout and similar tones/colours.  I had a clear set of aims when started I knew I could shoot 7/8 people and have enough content to create my exhibition. I was initially hoping to shoot males and females in a set age group but decided that all males worked together as a set. I only shot one female throughout and decided not to include that shot as it didn’t bring anything new to my project. I was very selective with the editing of my photos as I wanted a clean feel to them hence shooting in natural light. I used adobe lightroom to make small crop adjustments as well as correct white balance and exposure. This was made easy by the fact I shot RAW. When thinking about the framing of my work I took some inspiration from a few gallery visits and selected black frames with minimal space between complimented by vinyl lettering.

As a group I think we’ve worked very well. We allocated each other jobs and met up regularly to ensure we were all on track. I was tasked with the branding of the festival and used adobe illustrator to create an initial logo, which the group were very happy with. I then implemented the logo into the leaflet and letters etc. I took it upon myself to attend the photography show at Birmingham NEC and used this as an opportunity to research into frames and printing. I got several leaflets and spoke to several companies for pricing and then presented these to the group. We then decided on a company to use for each and began working on the budget.

Presentation

The presentation was a success and was well received by the audience. We covered everything that we set out to do.

Gallery Layout

Arguably one of the most important things at a gallery is how the images are laid out. I've always struggled with how to get creative with the placement of my images on a wall.

In this project I've seen several examples of gallery images as well as displays of frames at trade shows etc, so this time round I think I've got a fairly good idea of how I want my images to look.

The 6 images I'm going to use are all portrait shots with very similar composition. As a group we are using the same sleek black frames form Picture Bloc and overall we're looking for a very modern and clean display.

I've mocked up roughly how I want things to look in photoshop. I decided to leave a minimal gap between the images so that they can be appreciated as a collective. For the most effective viewing I felt like the images should be very uniformly placed and tidy. The sleek black frame helps draw attention into the centre and is complimented by the use of vinyl letters applied to the white walls behind.

I chose vinyl after seeing it in both Karin's exhibition and a few others. It's a very popular choice as it's a much cleaner alternative to mounting board with text on to the wall. I think it works really well, especially with the faded definition at the bottom giving an overall idea of the theme of the project without putting to much of a conceptual spin on things. I also decided to place the names of each subject above their retrospective photo. I feel this adds a connection between the viewers and the work knowing that they can put a name to the face, after all the whole show is about identity and a name is one of the biggest displays of our identity.

This is the before shot of the blank wall that formed the basis of my photoshop work. I then added a stock image of a frame and inserted my photographs and a small drop shadow to make it seem more real.

My shots

I have selected these 6 shots to form my personal exhibition. Although I didn't shoot many more than 7/8 people I had a wide selection of shots as for each person I took 5-10 images to ensure correct exposure and focus.

The first shot I took was the one below of Gaz. This sparked the idea and I loved the shallow depth of field and the way you get drawn into his eyes and facial features. This was everything I wanted to achieve without ripping of the work of Martin Schoeller and I think it's been successful!

Shooting the images outside really paid off, the shots are all bright and quite pleasant. I personally really like the backgrounds! They don't distract from the subject at all, if anything I think they draw attention to the centre of the frame which is what I was hoping to achieve. Some of the background worked better than others. I much preferred the backgrounds that were 'busy' and had a lot to blur our. The ones with simpler backgrounds were not that effective.

This makes me believe that not shooting in the studio was the right move. Having the below images on a plain white background would not have been as successful in my opinion!

In the end I decided to stick with using all males in my final 6 shots. I felt this made them more effective as a set and having a semi broad age range has helped give the set some variation.

I'm really pleased with how the images turned out!

Poster

This was a quick idea for a poster that could be used to promote the event. It was designed using Adobe Illustrator and features several elements from the original logo idea and the leaflets.

The use of the fingerprint is a clue to the theme of 'Identity' without giving too much away. The job of the poster is to entice people into the festival. Alongside the poster there would obviously be information station a website address, email, social media etc so people who are interested can find more out about the festival!

Leaflet

We decided as a group that having a leaflet that could be handed out at the event would be the best way to tell people our reasons behind it and introduce them to the themes and photographers.

We decided we create an A5 booklet with around 15 pages which would include the 500 words written about every piece of work as well as a general overview about the festival and it's themes.

We have included the printing costs for this in our budget but we feel this is an essential advertising cost. We estimated around 5000 copies would be a sufficient number to have at the event.

I have created a rough mock up of what the leaflet would look like using adobe illustrator. I've kept it quite bare purposely as we've gone for a very minimal clean look throughout the festival. The colours we've stuck with are red, green blue and yellow. Again very simple but I think it's quite effective in the above leaflet as it shares continuity with the logo and other design pieces.

Included in the leaflet is a mock up of some of the images on display which will hopefully entice people to investigate the event and pass their own judgements on the work.

Flights

Obviously with us being an international festival travel is a huge part of the budget. We have sourced flights out from the UK to Riga for £207.19 which is quite fair.

Obviously with 10 photographers we will each need travel there which will form part of the budget.

Another consideration is getting the work over there, we have opted to seek sponsorship from the framing company to see if they will cover postage costs to Riga!

Hotel

10 @ £399.54 - £3,395.40

Another consideration with an international festival is accomodation. We have 10 photographers who will need to be there for 2 weeks and so we decided to look into hotels briefly. We found one fairly close to our venue at a fairly good rate. From 1st July - 14th July it's £399.54 per person bringing to total for the hotel to £3,395.40. It's a large spend but an essential part of the event!

Print Pricing

"We currently stock what we feel is the finest paper and canvas available for Giclée printing in terms of archival qualities, print fidelity and variety. The following papers offer a comprehensive choice including some wonderful new glossy papers for photo Giclée prints:–

William Turner, 310gsm 
This paper is simply exceptional for watercolours, drawings and other work and is our most popular choice. It has a beautiful textured surface and is a Natural white, with 100% rag content. With a mean pH value of 7, it has excellent archival qualities.

Photo Rag, 308gsm
A much whiter, smoother surface lends particularly well to black and white and colour photographs, and has a 100% rag content. We have also found that oils or acrylic work reproduces brilliantly on this paper if the original painting is on board or canvas, because rather than offering a texture to the paper, its smooth white surface shows the mark making of the original painting.

German Etching, 310gsm
Similar in tone to William Turner, it has a slightly smoother surface, is equally acid free and also mould made. Very suitable for a variety of print editions including fine detailed work, black and white photography.

Museum Etching, 350gsm
This paper offers the luxurious texture of a traditional etching board and a natural white point, an ideal medium for images with soft tints or fine grey nuances as well as more saturated reproduction prints. The extra heavy grammage also increases its appeal.

Sugar Cane, 300gsm
An exciting new inkjet paper with 75% of its raw material derived from “bagasse” pulp, a by-product of raw sugar production. The 25% cotton portion is made from recycled paper waste. Displaying the fine texture of a pastel paper Sugar Cane lends every image an artistic look and feel with sustainable approach.

Bamboo, 290gsm
The world’s first digital fine art inkjet paper made from bamboo fibres. Bamboo represents spirituality, naturalness and resource-saving paper production. Particularly suitable for warm-toned colour and monochrome prints, Bamboo really highlights the sensuality of images.

FineArt Baryta, 325gsm
This paper sets a benchmark for high colour depth, wide gamut and image clarity. This paper offers photographers a "wow" factor particularly to black and white prints with an extremely high dmax and the finest grey tones, utilising a bright white. Using barium sulphate in the premium inkjet coating ensures the typical gloss that makes this paper a genuine replacement for traditional Baryta papers from analogue laboratories.

Photo Rag Baryta, 315gsm
Photo Rag Baryta uses the best combination of a luxury cotton paper and a traditional baryta board to produce a exceptional print. The very fine surface texture with the baryta gloss gives life to Photo Giclée and is a welcome addition to the range offering similar qualities to FineArt Baryta yet with a more natural tone.

Canvas Artist, 340gsm
This is a matt artists' cotton canvas with a high quality texture with a natural white tone. It can also be stretched and then varnished after printing which is a popular choice for digital canvas prints. Its coating gives a very good water resistance and print reproduction fidelity.

We have chosen to use A3 size prints for our exhibition. We have sourced printing through a website called gicleeprinting.co.uk. They offer a very varied selection of fine art prints. We have chosen Photo Rag Baryta as we feel this is the best print for our photographs.

The costing for these prints is £10.13 per print. We need 60 prints bringing the total cost for our exhibition prints to £608

We have also decided to have 5x7 prints available for sale. The frames are sourced through Picture Bloc. We have found a very cheap printer for these prints enabling maximum profits. Individual 5x7 prints from DS Colour Labs are 16p on 150gsm photo paper. The total cost for these prints is £24 (160 prints at 16p)

This brings the total cost for printing to £632.

We are aiming to sell framed 5x7 prints for £40, the cost price of each unit is around £12. We are having 150 prints (15 per artist) which will return £6000. Once we take out the cost we will be left with £4200 profit on the print sales.

A rough total of our budget so far

Frames

After having several discussions about the display of the work we decided to stick with conventional frames. We didn't want to get too experimental with the display due to costs and the sheer number of images that would have to be produced.

We looked into acrylic prints, prints on metal etc after hearing about Karins AAA exhibition and decided the costs were too great for us to warrant doing it. I undertook some research while at the photography show and found that there were several printers and framers offering alternative methods of display such as prints onto wood, metal, plastic some of which were a very acquired taste. I can only imagine these methods will become much more popular and slightly less expensive in the near future as companies compete with each other.

image capture

Here are some of the examples I was looking at during the photography show. It was a great opportunity to see the frames up close and get detailed pricing on them. I took some leaflets for companies I liked and in particular Picture Bloc stood out as the best quality frames for the money.

After returning and sharing my finds with the group we had a look into Picture Bloc. Everyone liked the styles of frames they offered and it was time to decide on which frames we would have so that we could price them into the budget.

We needed 60 frames in A3 size so we began with this in mind. The group decided that black frames would be best as we wanted a clean look in the gallery! We came across the 'Avondale Range' which were very well priced and I actually got my hands on one of these frames at the show and they were great quality.

I particularly liked the small depth of the frames, this meant they would sit on the wall nicely without extruding too much.

The price for this frame in A3 was £40 each. This meant the total frames for display would cost £2400 which is very reasonable.

Next up we had to decided on the frames we would use on the prints we plan to sell. Obviously the cheaper the costs, the cheaper we can sell the work at/the bigger the potential profit.

We decided it would make sense to stick with Picture Bloc, especially with us applying for sponsorship. We went through their brochure again and decided we liked the look and pricing of the 'wooden desk range' which are a budget wooden frame but again very high quality.

We decided to sell 5x7 prints at a low price at the event in order to bring some money back in and share the work with visitors. Realistically most people won't buy a huge print because it would cost a few hundred pound. Cheaper smaller prints seemed like a much better idea so we decided that each photographer would have 15 prints for sale at around £40 each.

The cost price on these 5x7 frames is £11 each or £1650 all in. With print costs on top (around 60p a unit) there's a potential return of around £4300 on the sale prints.

Sponsorship Letters

In order to make our festival as successful as possible we have decided to look into sponsorships for extra help and funding. We have been quite selective with our choice and have decided to approach 2 companies, one based in Ireland the other in Latvia.

The first company we have addressed is 'Picture Bloc' who are framing company. I came across them during a visit to the photography show during the project and I really liked the frames they offered and they were very competitively priced. I showed the group some of their brochures as well as the online catalogue and we decided together that they were the company we wanted to use for frames.

It made sense to approach them as a sponsor since we were planning to spend a large amount of money with them anyway. We decided together that it would be best to approach them and ask for a discount/no cost shipping agreement in exchange for exposure at the festival. We felt this was the most enticing deal for them. We didn't want to ask for all the frames for free as we didn't feel such a large company would realistically go for it.

This is a letter that we would forward on to Picture Bloc in order to gauge potential interest and further some negotiations.

We have included our logo in order to be as professional as possible which would only further our chances of receiving sponsorship.

The second company we decided to approach was a Latvian catering company called International SV. We felt it was important to source food locally in order to fit in with the cultural and international aspect of our festival. We did some research and came across this company fairly local to our venue and approached them with a letter very similar to the above sent to Picture Bloc.

Sponsorship is a huge part of any event as it offers relief on costs and added exposure. We felt it was important to choose companies who would represent the festival in the best possible way which in our case meant going for some smaller companies as apposed to the big names such as Canon, Nikon etc.

http://riga.international.lv/lv/content/galven%C4%81

http://www.picturebloc.com/

Critial Review - Matt Smith

Matt Smith – ID Festival

Matt Smith is a Manchester based photographer with a keen focus around people and city lifestyle. The main focus of his work is often the people that surround him and the strangers he interacts with on his life journey.

The body of work featured at ID Festival 2014 is no exception. A series of 6 portraits are on display in the main room. The work focuses on the theme of identity and places particular emphasis on the face as a tool for expression. Internally we all share the same bone structure, organs and feelings, however on the outside we are tasked with finding a unique way to represent ourselves. Be that through the display of tattoos, fashion, hairstyles or the many other options available for expression and individuality. These things form the foundations for our identities.

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“The fact of being who or what a person or thing is”

                                                                            

The portraits focus on a group of British males all in University Education. When seen full size the apparent use of selective focus is very clear. The old saying “eyes are the window to the soul” is a very fitting phrase for this body of work. As a viewer you are given an intimate look into a seemingly normal group of strangers that would look at home in any urban UK landscape. How does someone gain an identity? Is it a natural process or one that is moulded and crafted until perfection?

The uniform appearance of the photographs when hung en masse compliments the brightness and clean look that they share as a set. The appearance of the 6 images together take us back to a basic concept that we are all brought into the world with the same foundations. On an appearance basis, we have 2 eyes, a mouth, a nose and some hair. Within the 6 images we see apparent trends and styles that make up the identity of the subjects. Alongside the images we see a simple caption stating the name of the subject. No last name is given. This is a bold stance when faced with a theme of identity, which has been said to somewhat challenge conventional means of ‘identity’. Photographs such as these are often seen alongside a full name, date of birth, place of residence and other intricate details. When these are taken away we are left with only the appearance for identity.

Location

When considering location it was hard to find a place to start! The world was our oyster and that was a daunting thought. As a group we decided we wanted to host outside the UK and take full advantage. We began to throw some ideas around for the typical places, Paris, New York, Milan etc but thought these were a bit overdone.

Luckily we had decided on an initial starting theme of culture and in a group talk the 'Capital of Culture' came into conversation. It was previously held in Liverpool in 2008 which is how a few of us were aware of it. We decided to investigate if and where it would be held in 2014.

After a quick search online we discovered Umea in Sweden was named along Riga in Latvia. We decided to go with Latvia and then began out search for a venue!

Our next step was to find a venue in Riga to hold the festival. This was proving difficult at first, and as a group we decided to move on and research this at home and bring all the ideas to the Facebook group. In the end we decided to go with a venue Rachel had found.Riga City Exhibition Hall "Riga Art Space" It had three great rooms we could make great use of and also where it was set, we could possibly have an outdoor exhibition.

Rental Information:
Riga Art Space also offers venues for various activities:

Riga Art Space also offers venues for various activities:

• Concerts and performances

• Seminars

• Meetings

• Exhibitions

• Fashion Shows

• Outside View

Riga Art Space is a multifunctional exhibition hall which is primarily aimed at popularising and supporting the contemporary visual arts at the local and the international level.

 

Riga Art Space is a multifunctional contemporary art space, which in its activity strives not only to the contemporary visual art representation but also to the production of world level art projects by taking relevant and professional organisational measures.

http://www.makslastelpa.lv/en/partners 

We decided we will hire out the main room to hold all 60 images.

Were also going to hire out one other room for the social side of the event and to hold all the small prints on sale.