In previous articles I have mentioned Fotofest, a photography event that occurs in Houston, Texas every even year in early March and lasts several months.  It was started by documentary photographers and journalists Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss in 1983 and allows photographers from all over the world to meet with gallerists, book publishers, magazine editors and others in the world of photography.  Besides these interviews, which occur at The Meeting Place, there are photography exhibitions and events all over the city, which last way beyond the time of interviews at The Meeting Place.  Although my photographic colleagues had encouraged me to attend this event in the 90’s, I didn’t make my first journey there until 2000.  Once there, I had to admit that I should have gone earlier.  I made quite a few contacts with galleries for exhibitions as well as publishing opportunities—and I met many photographers from my own city of New York who are now close friends.  I continued to attend Fotofest and was in Houston for the event in 2002, 2004 and 2006 the year I had an exhibition of  my Holocaust Project “Two Side Sides of the Coin” at the DeFrog Gallery and sold work from it to the Fine Art Museum of Houston—opportunities which were a direct result of going to Fotofest all those years.

This year I was not able to attend Fotofest, so I decided to interview three photographers working in the New York City Area who were there:
Melissa Fleming who has an interest in the “transient and often unseen aspects of the natural world” and teaches at both Parsons and Pratt Institute; Andreas Rentsch who is from a small town near Geneva, Switzerland, has lived in the United  States since 1989, is currently drawing on Polaroid Type 55 film to produce a body of work, and teaches at the International Center of Photography; and Keliy Anderson-Staley, who produces portraits using a large-format camera and the wet plate collodion process, as well as a documentary project of twenty families who live in northern Maine without electricity or running water.   

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© Melissa Fleming

Robert Schaefer: When did you start going to Fotofest?  What got you there?

Melissa Fleming: This was my second FotoFest.  I went in 2006, which was also my first major portfolio review event of any kind.  I was on spring break in graduate school and thought it would be a productive thing to do.  I was looking for critical feedback on my work outside of an academic setting.  It turned out to be an extremely valuable educational and professional experience for me.  I returned this year with two completed bodies of work and a focused approach to finding opportunities for that work.  

Andreas Rentsch: I believe my first Fotofest was in 1994. My good friend,  photographer Anne Arden McDonald raved about it as a way to promote one’s photography, and she was right.  After my first experience, I went thereafter every two years until 2002. I returned again this year after a six-year break.

Keliy Anderson-Staley: This was my first trip to Fotofest. Before Fotofest, 2008 I had never been to a big portfolio review conference. I went to Fotofest because a few photographer friends of mine highly recommended it and claimed that it had led to some valuable contacts and even shows for them.  I was very hesitant to go because of the money involved, but they convinced me.  Since going, I can truly attest to its value.  

© Andreas Rentsch

RAS: Has it promoted your photography well?  How?

MF: Yes, absolutely.  It gets your work in front of people who are in a position to exhibit your work in galleries and/or buy your work for museum collections.  I feel very lucky that I have met both gallery directors and museum curators who are interested in my work.  I had a very positive and productive experience and would attend again in 2010.

AR: Yes, definitely. A good part of my resume is a direct result of Fotofest:
- Aperture published a portfolio, Photo Metro published 2 portfolios
- The Museum of Fine Arts/Houston, the Museet for Fotokunst/Odense, Denmark and a Houston collector bought prints
- Exhibitions at the Houston Center of Photography, 2 shows in Colombia (Bogota and Medellin), Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto,   Museo Leon Trotsky in Mexico City and was part of Month of Photography in Merida, Mexico and San Miguel de Allende, at the International Photo Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brasil

KAS: As a result from having met Chuck Mobley, the curator from San Francisco Cameraworks at Fotofest, SF Cameraworks is going to publish my “Off the Grid” Project as a photo essay along with a written text.



RS: Fotofest with the flight to Houston, hotel and eating expenses—aside from all the preparation one has to before even boarding the plane for Houston, is very expensive.  Do you feel that the overall experience as well as the promotion of your work made it all worthwhile?

MF: Yes.  Fotofest is not cheap, but I look at it as an investment in my artistic career. Attending events like this is both a wonderful way to promote

© Kelly Anderson-Staley

your work with art-world professionals and to meet fellow artists.  Often, opportunities arise from the friendships made with fellow participants outside of the official review sessions.  On a practical level, there are also ways to reduce your costs if you plan ahead.  For example, book your hotel early with the event’s discount rate and fly to Houston with airline miles.

AR: Yes, it did. The good thing about it, it's over in four or five days and I saw 20-30 potential people from the photo and art world who might do something with my work. Just to get 2 or 3 meetings in NYC for example is not only difficult, but all the time spent trying to get them, traveling back and forth is very time consuming, and the expenses add up as well. You have to look at the trip to Houston as a business expense. If you are a serious artist and want to make a living with your work, trip like these are necessary, and unfortunately part of being an artist (unless you have a good selling gallery who takes care of everything).

KAS: I felt Fotofest was completely worth the time, effort and money that it took to go.  I estimate that I spent about $2200, including the cost of the conference itself, the airplane tickets, the hotel room for 5 nights and the cost of food.  That doesn’t include the cost of preparing and printing portfolios for the review.



RS: Who were some of the reviewers who inspired you?

MF: I met with a lot of great people.  Some I chose to see and others were assigned to me randomly in the lottery system.  In both situations, it was a wonderful feeling to have an intelligent and knowledgeable conversation with people who understood what I was doing with my work.  For example, I had a

© Melissa Fleming

great conversation about the interplay of art and science, which is an important part of my work, with both Karen Sinsheimer of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California and Matthew Shaul of the University of Hertfordshire Galleries in the UK.  Our discussions even brought up some work that I did not have with me for a formal presentation, including photo-based installations and sculptural work that I do.  We improvised this aspect of the review and looked at that work as jpegs on my I-phone. Another example is Ann Jastrab of the RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco.  She was very enthusiastic and we had a fun conversation about experimentation within the medium of photography and the genre of landscape. Each of the 20 reviewers I met with brought something unique and valuable to the conversation about my work.

AR: I had some very enthusiastic responses to my work from Howard Bossen from the Kresge Art Museum,  which is part of the Michigan State University in East Lansing. I have already followed up with them. I know they had a meeting recently. I'm not sure what came out of it. As we all know, it has to go through different boards and acquisition committees, so nothing will happen right away Also, I met with Karen Sinsheimer from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art). Although the overall response was very positive, nobody promised me anything this year, but both museums are interested in acquiring work for their collections.

Following up is critical as these reviewers get inundated and bombarded during the four days. It's important to follow up soon after Fotofest to remind them of your work, especially if they were positive about it. For example, Melissa Harris from “Aperture” was very interested in my work. I sent  her my slides  two weeks after FotoFest many years ago and  within a few days she called back to inquire about publishing it, which eventually happened.

© Andreas Rentsch

KAS: I saw over 20 reviewers in four days—I was assigned 4 reviewers per day for 20 minutes each. Reviewers are selected for you based on a list that you rank the day before.  There were 44 reviewers in the first session at Fotofest.  I heard from a friend that you can try to get extra reviews in at the end of a day by going up to the table of a reviewers whom you didn’t get to meet and begging them (in a nice way) to take a look at your work.  I managed to see six additional people this way.  Reviewers included editors, curators, museum directors, and critics, and it was a great experience to get a range of responses to my work.  I found listening to what other photographers were saying about reviewers really helped in the selection process.  

The reviews were intense! 20 minutes is not very long, and I brought two very different projects with me: one, my color “Off the Grid” project, and the other a wet plate collodion tintype portrait project. This proved to be a good idea because some reviewers were drawn more toward one or the other.  But twenty minutes was barely enough time to talk about one, let alone both.   Honestly, I might have gotten more focused feedback if I had had only one project, but sometimes one reviewer loved one project and really didn’t care for the other.  I tried to anticipate, based on the biographies, what project a reviewer would be most interested in, but in a few cases I guessed wrong, or was really surprised to see which project they were drawn to.
           
A number of reviewers expressed interest in showing or publishing my work, and I had good conversations with most of the reviewers I met.  Of course, there is always talk about the future, and a lot of vague promises were made:  I’ll be in touch; your work is perfect for an upcoming exhibition; I want to give you a show; please send me more of this project, etc. I wasn’t sure how to read peoples' feedback because I hadn’t been to one of these things before.  Positive feedback is, of course, flattering, but the whole time you are also hoping that the meeting will turn into something.  The reviewers know this too, though.

© Kelly Anderson-Staley

RS: Have you been to other photo reviews like Santa Fe or Photolucida in Portland, OR?  If so, compare them to Fotofest.

MF: Yes, I attended the Review Santa Fe in May last year.  In essence it is very similar to FotoFest in terms of the portfolio review process.  That said, they have very different strengths.  Review Santa Fe is a juried event and is much smaller in scale.  Fotofest is a very large open ticket event.

AR: Photo Lucida in 2004. I found  it to be a more relaxed, nicer city (it's a walking city!!!). The quality of the reviewers is the same, but unlike Houston, all of them are there at the same time which is a great plus. I think Houston is too "bloated" with three different dates. Many reviewers I wished to see during my time there were not there at that time.

KAS: I had such a positive experience at Fotofest that I decided to go to Review Santa Fe in June later this year.



RS: What are some of the negative aspects you encountered at Fotofest?

MF: I think the organizers of FotoFest do a wonderful job and try to make the reviewer scheduling as fair as possible with a lottery system, but sometimes you get a reviewer you did not request and who may not have any connection to the kind of work you do. Having access to your reviewer schedule the night before as opposed to the morning of your meetings would be helpful. It would allow you time to better prepare for your reviewers and/or trade reviewers with another participant.

© Melissa Fleming

AR: As I mentioned before, I think Houston is too "bloated" with three different meeting dates. Many reviewers I wished to see were there at different times.

KAS: One downside seems to be that there are photographers at Fotofest with very different agendas and portfolios—fine art, documentary, fashion, commercial and conceptual photographers.  Many reviewers are quite particular and explicitly request on the sign-up sheets to not be bothered with certain kinds of work.  It’s not always clear what people hope to gain from these relationships, and I think with certain bodies of work there are so few reviewers who might be interested that it may not be worth the trip.

There were a ton of photo shows to see in Houston, but not enough time to see them and no really easy ways to get around town.  The hotel restaurant had a very limited vegetarian selection and was really overpriced, and on the weekend there wasn’t really anywhere else to eat unless you had a car to drive around Houston.  Next time, I going to fill half my suitcase with food from New York.  Another problem is following up on all the reviewers.  I have only gotten half of my thank you letters out; however, I will send the rest.  Better late than never.  



RS: Would you recommend other photographers to go to Fotofest?

MF: Yes!  If you have a serious body of photographic work and are looking for opportunities to present that work to galleries, museums, and publishers, as well as receive constructive professional feedback, I highly recommend attending Fotofest.  As an interdisciplinary artist, I wish there were events like Fotofest for other artistic mediums.

© Andreas Rentsch

AR: Absolutely. Especially somebody starting out;  it's a great way to get exposure and probably get some exhibition and publication on your resume. There is also the potential to sell.

KAS:  A lot of great things came out of this trip.  In between the official reviews photographers all spent time looking at each other’s work.  One photographer really liked one of my tintypes and decided to buy it from me right there.  


RS: I, too, would recommend Fotofest to serious photographers who want to promote their work.  As all of you have mentioned, it is expensive and requires a lot of planning before arriving in Houston; however, the rewards in the form of gallery contacts, publishing opportunities and meeting new colleagues can be invaluable if one does the necessary follow-up after the event.

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Melissa Fleming can be contacted at: mf@melissafleming.com and
You can see more of her work at: http://www.melissafleming.com

Andreas Rentsch can be contacted at: rentschphotography@verizon.net
See more of his imagery at: http://www.andreasrentsch.com   

Keliy Anderson-Staley can be contacted at: keliyas@gmail.com
Her work can be seen at: and  www.andersonstaley.com

More information at The Center for Alternative Photography: www.capworkshop.org

Visit the official Fotofest Website at: http://www.fotofest.org

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Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. is a founding member of Photoworkshop.com, and has been a fine-art photographer for over 30 years. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, France. In 1999—2000 he had a 25-year retrospective of his work at the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, his home state. His exhibition, Two Sides of the Coin—which deals with his German family and the Holocaust—was held at the DeFrog Gallery in Houston, TX in March, April and May 2006 as a part of Fotofest. Two images from this exhibition were then purchased by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Most recently he had a one-person exhibition (November 10, 2007 to January 8, 2008) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama. This work is a body of documentary images of a farmer in North Alabama. Schaefer writes about photography for Double Exposure and The Photo Review in Pennsylvania.  He teaches photography in the Department of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. His work is represented by the Domeischel Gallery, Ltd. in New York City and the DeFrog Gallery in Houston,Texas.
 
Robert can be contacted at rasjrpro@earthlink.net  and www.schaeferphoto.com

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