ASMP (and my first gallery show with them)

So I finally joined ASMP this past month. For those of you that are not familiar with this organization... it's the American Society of Media Photographers. I want to try to take my photography to a higher level in the years to come, so I decided to join this group in the hope of making some more professional contacts and get me work out there.

Upon joining, I noticed that the Pittsburgh chapter was having a meeting that week. I figured that this would be a good time to meet some of the other members, so I went. One of the things I found out about at the meeting was that they were doing an "Object Show" for the upcoming gallery crawl in downtown Pittsburgh. Every year, they pick an object and have everyone submit a photo of their take on that object. This year's object was rope.

Unfortunately, the day of that meeting was supposed to be the deadline to turn your submission in... and I was just finding out about it. Luckily, they said that since I was new, if I wanted to try to get it into the show, that I could still take a crack at it.

So I had an idea right away that I wanted to do, but it required a particular wardrobe for a model to wear to pull it off. I was fortunate to have my lovely wife Monica volunteer to be the model, so we ordered the wardrobe and anxiously waited for it to come in so we could do the shot. One piece of the wardrobe ended up being on back order, so I canceled it, and ordered it from somewhere else.

The show was on a Friday, and I finally got all of the wardrobe needed that Monday. So Monday night, Monica and I went to my studio to take the shots. We finished up pretty late, so I spent Tuesday compositing the photo. Sent it to mpix.com to get it printed Tuesday night. (Highly recommend mpix.com for printing) They printed it Wednesday and shipped it overnight FedEx to me on Thursday. Brought it home Thursday night to frame, and then delivered it to the gallery show 2 hours before it opened! Whew. A lot closer than I like things to happen.

But everything turned out fine, and I was really happy with the results. The photo is still on display at the Bricolage Gallery at 937 Liberty Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15222 if you would like to see it. Only up for a couple more days, and then I'll post it online once the show's over.

So that's my whirlwind story of my first ASMP show. Hopefully next year's will be a little more relaxed!