Goddess of Spring © Suzette Troche

The Center for Fine Art Photography is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the art of photography and supporting the creative growth of photographers. It has gained international recognition for its exhibitions, educational programs and a creative approach to promoting the art of photography. The Center has also been growing by leaps and bounds, which is no small feat for an organization that was founded a mere four years ago.

Birth of a Photo Center
The Center’s Executive Director and Founder, Larry Padgett, developed a passion for photography even before he began a 25-year career in marketing and business development. “I recall that on the way to a 1966 Michigan State University Rose Bowl game, I had a camera with me and started taking pictures of the trip,” he says. Throughout the years, he used a little photography in his business, but eventually decided to switch gears and get involved with this discipline professionally. He studied under a master of commercial photography about 12 years ago and started his own business, which involved travel, teaching and a lot of commercial work. “I’ve gone from doing commercial photography to doing mostly fine-art portraiture,” he says. “I get a lot more satisfaction from telling people’s stories photographically.”

Padgett took a four-year sabbatical after closing down his business in Michigan and traveling throughout the western U.S. “I was teaching workshops and doing commercial photography, and really felt a need to teach on more a formal level,” he explains. After arriving in Fort Collins, Colorado, he started to set up a workshop program, but had an opportunity to put on an exhibition of 50 masters of photography, “including work by three generations of Westons side by side,” he says. It was so well received that people asked for more. “Six month later, we had the largest international juried exhibition of photography in the United States (Mary Virginia Swanson was the juror).” Thus, The Center for Fine Art Photography was born.

Proposed facility for 2010

Rapid Growth
With several exhibitions in demand, Padgett’s initial plan for the Center evolved rather quickly. And because he had worked most of life in marketing and was able to do the research to support it, he put his own workshops on the back burner. “Somewhere between the first and second gallery exhibition, I drew up some plans, brought photographs of museums to an architect, and said, ‘this is what I want to do—draw it for me.’”  Today, he has a rendering of a projected 45,000-foot facility that will house three galleries, state-of-the-art classrooms, studios, a bookstore and an atrium that will open its doors in Fort Collins around 2010. “It will possibly be the third-largest of its kind,” he adds. “It’s a vision and we’re building towards that right now.”

Padgett points out that the locale offers a great diversity of photo opportunities. “For those who haven’t been to Fort Collins,” he says, “It’s one of the unique spots in the U.S. because it’s within an hour of Rocky Mountain National Park, an hour north of Denver, an hour from the Pawnee Plains, and an hour from Wyoming, and all that these places have to offer.” In September 2006, the Center installed the first of four traveling shows at the Denver International Airport, which ran through July 2007. “Two of them were seen by half a million people a day,” Padgett says. “It got so much notoriety for the artists.”  

Outbound © Agnieszka Skrzypek

Currently the Center offers workshops and forums, such as a three-day workshop recently given by Kevin Moloney, a TIME magazine contract photographer. “We have a number of workshops dealing with everything from fine-art digital printing to shooting techniques,” says Padgett. The Center combines workshops—which may be three days long—with a public forum on the third Thursday of the month. “We discuss a subject that is a precursor to a workshop,” he says. In 2008, The Center will begin offering local classes in cooperation with a local university. “They’re pretty excited about what we’re doing,” explains Padgett, “and they have a very fine BFA program in photography. The idea of a Master’s degree program is very exciting to them, with The Center providing the core photography courses and the students getting all the other courses at the university campus.

Benefits for Artists
“Considering that our mission is to promote the growth of fine-art photography and support the growth of creative artists, we provide a number of venues in which they can show their work,” explains Padgett.

The Center announces a Call for Entries for various international competitions about 10–12 times a year, and hosts around 10 gallery showings a year. In January 2006, it began publishing “Artists’ Showcase,” a published 16-page feature section in each issue of CameraArts magazine, featuring selected work from The Center’s in-gallery exhibitions. The sponsors distribute reprints of the publication at trade shows, Padgett adds. “Artists are getting a lot of exposure that way.” A new showcase edition of CameraArts will be available in the January 2008 issue. In July 2006, the Center launched “Artists’ Showcase—Online,” a website dedicated to promoting the sale of fine-art photography. Photographers manage their own portfolios, and the Center takes a very small commission when their work is sold.

An Annual Collection CD, which features all the work that has been displayed in the Center’s gallery the previous year, is distributed to major galleries and

Soaring © Eleen Kennedy

interior design studios. “This way, they’ll see all this photography and will find artists who do really great work,” says Padgett. “Then they can contact the artist directly.”

Looking to the future
An International Festival of Fine Art Photography is being planned for 2009. Similar in concept to the International Photojournalism Festival in Pergignan, France, this festival will focus the world’s attention on photography as an art form. The Center anticipates that it will draw over 5,000 people during its first year for the four-day event.

“We’re non-profit, but we work on a ‘for profit’ model,” Padgett notes, as the Center relies very little on contributions and grants. The Center for Fine Art Photography has gotten a lot of positive feedback, and has affected many participants’ lives for the better. “It’s very rewarding,” says Padgett.

To learn more about The Center for Fine Art Photography, visit www.C4FAP.org

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