Apologies if it seems I am beating a dead horse but I  have one more thing to add to my series on the unsung heroes of the photo world: teachers.

I have written before about the teaching profession here.

Photo teachers are massively underutilized as portfolio reviewers. There, I've said it.

Let's play this hypothetical out. I am rich (or not), I've gone to art school and I like galleries so I buy one. I like photography, although I didn't study it, and so I decide my gallery will be a photography gallery. Right away I am making decisions about who to show, what kind of works I want on my gallery's walls and what artists I want to represent. I also am now being sought after to do portfolio reviews, both locally but also nationally. My qualifications are suspect at best as I am new to the whole process. Yet people are sitting across the table from me at reviews, showing me their work and wanting my say whether the work is good, merits attention and recognition, and whether I will give them a show in my gallery. I look like and seem knowledgeable and to be an authority but I am not.

Second hypothetical. I am a career photo teacher. I have been through undergraduate and graduate study in photography. I am well versed in the medium's history, its contribution to the modern fabric of our society, am up on current technology and lecture frequently about photography's impact, its pervasive nature, assumptions and misconceptions people have about it and whether student work is effective, beautiful, powerful or not. In fact I am a trained and career-based photography portfolio reviewer. I review student work daily and weekly, sometimes of intro students and often of senior or second year graduate thesis students. Lastly, I am very connected in my community for I often use local museums and galleries for my classes, invite curators, prominent artists and critics to speak to my students. I do not own a gallery nor am I sought after to conduct reviews even though, arguably, I am among the very most qualified to do so. 

Why? Because I don't have the position or the power to award an exhibition or to agree to publish a photographer's work.

I think this should change and I believe it may soon. Portfolio reviews are a fairly new system, devised to connect people with decision making authority and photographers looking to increase the exposure of their work. And it works, to some extent. This is how curators, gallery directors and publishers are now choosing work for exhibition or publication, for the most part. But talk to the really good reviewers and they say that most often they are ladling out advice and their opinions about the work in an effort to make constructive criticism of the work, not to award a show. Furthermore, they counsel the reviewee that this is exactly what they are doing. Now, go back to the hypothetical clueless gallery owner. Do you really want him/her advising you about your work? Or would you rather have a career professional looking at your  work, someone who is hugely qualified and experienced?

I believe that we are beginning to see a maturing of the portfolio review business, at least I hope so. After all, when someone gets their work reviewed it is a business transaction, with a client (the reviewee photographer) and the reviewer (the service provider).There is money exchanged. What is needed is a balance with those that can offer things like exhibitions with those that can advise the client best on the efficacy, relevance and worth of their photography, and make helpful suggestions about how to improve.

Come on Photo Lucida in Portland, Photo Fest in Houston, Paris Photo, Review Santa Fe, etc. I understand everyone who's coming to be reviewed wants a show, but for the vast majority the benefit is having someone really qualified, really good, reviewing their work. It's the photo teacher every time. It is a no brainer. Put more teachers in place in portfolio reviews and do it as soon as you can.

I am now finished with my Teacher Rant. Whew! Thanks for reading.

Coming off the other day's post Oakesdale Again, where I explained that I returned to visit the cemetery where I first made a series of pictures in 1996 that were important to me, I have an offer you simply cannot refuse.

Back then, as I  wandered through this small cemetery on the side of a hill surrounded by wheat fields I came across this:

which is an upside down small headstone that says: Waldo 1898-1926. This image is the sixth in the series. To me, this is my way of explaining that I found Waldo (from the children's series of books called "Where's Waldo"), and that he is six feet under. 

Well, each year when I go back I walk the cemetery and look for that same headstone. I have never found it.

Here's my offer and I think you'll agree it is too good to pass up.  I will give to the person that finds that headstone, photographs it as proof and sends me the image, a signed black and white print of the original image made in 1996 of the "Waldo" headstone.

No time limit, no other conditions. Simply find Waldo, please. I can't take it, not being able to locate that headstone.

Oh yes, where is the cemetery? Oakesdale is about equidistant between Spokane and Pullman, Washington, not far from Steptoe Butte. Get to town and ask anyone for the cemetery, there is only one.

First one to nail it gets the prize. Please believe that I am in earnest here. This is a real offer. 

Ready set.... go!

I am about to head off to North Carolina to teach for the third time at Penland School of Crafts (here). I am driving  from Boston, which is a trip I partly look forward to and enjoy and partly dread. Certainly the first leg or day of driving is more pain than pleasure: from Boston down through CT and through or around NYC, then on the infamous NJ Turnpike, down to DC and past that. Will spend the first night in Hagerstown, MD and then the second night close to Spruce Pine, the closest town to Penland.

Don't know about Penland? Just about the best at pretty much all of it. Pottery, glass, book making, jewelry and silversmithing, printmaking, painting, welding and on and on over a full summer of two week classes taught by some of the very best. 

Three excellent meals a day, a community of artists and crafts people of the highest order, a location up on a hill in the mountains. Penland is a place to create. What's not to like?

This time I am teaching a class in combining images with words. The class is called "Word/Image" and I am co-teaching it with Christopher Benfey, a wonderful writer.

This means that my work on the blog will be sporadic over the next couple of weeks. I don't know if the blog is going on vacation but you may see it popping up less often in your in box.

I bet most of you know what the letters PRC stand for: Photographic Resource Center, a member-based non profit for the photo community in Boston and the region. In existence for over 30 years. And about to go down.

In its various locations and forms over the years it has held a very high place in the hierarchy of non profit arts organizations and has had some really wonderful programs and exhibits. Although housed on the campus of Boston University, BU has never provided much else than a free space and occasional use of one of its buildings for a lecture or an auction. 

Quite simply, the PRC's demise will be because it has nothing to sustain it financially. You cannot maintain an arts organization on memberships alone and the PRC has no endowment, no major sponsors, no continuing granting, no major donors with which to pay its staff or to fund its programming. So, it will go. Close its doors and be a memory soon.

Or not.

A couple of weeks ago a group of past and present board members, past executive directors, and concerned people met at a friends house to discuss the situation and to propose possible strategies to keep the PRC afloat and to investigate new systemsBu by which it could be continue and be sustainable.

The results of that meeting were twofold. Two working groups are now meeting to explore separate ideas that are united in the common pursuit of a PRC that would continue. These are not competitive proposals but both seek to explore the chance that one might succeed. One is grassroots based, working to see if a new structure can be built that relies less on paid staff and more on volunteerism, interns and a flexible model for programming. The other seeks to affiliate the PRC with someplace else, to merge it with an organization that can benefit from the model of "two down to one" to streamline costs and to increase effectiveness of publicity and funding efforts. 

Will one of these work? I sincerely hope so. The history and legacy of the PRC is far too rich and varied to see it just fade away due to no money. These are very different times than when the PRC started out. The nature of public support of non profits is a far different geography than then and photography itself is a very different discipline too. Part of the PRC's failure was that it didn't predict and move along with these changes. As a board member for 6 years and an executive committee member for many of those, I shoulder some of that responsibility.

One of the hits the PRC has taken in recent months is that it has not communicated with its members. This is true, as there has been no staff to keep communication     flowing. But I believe there is a large group of active and involved people who would interpret the PRC going dark as a real loss to the area. This is a simply wonderful organization that has done tremendous good over the years. I am writing this blog  this morning to try to help people know what is happening and to ask for their patience and support at a time when many are working to try to keep the PRC in existence.

Feel free to share this blog with others and/or to communicate with me directly at: Neal's email

The blog is back, after a break of ten days or so to work on adding new series to the site. 

In the mid 70's I was a few years out of graduate school and living north of Boston in Manchester (sometimes referred to as Manchester-by-the-sea). I was married and struggling to find my way as some sort of wage earner and also creatively. I was working for a couple of architects photographing their designs and teaching a few evenings a week at Northshore Community College in Beverly. 

At one point I heard that Fred Sommer was going to be at RISD (RI School of Design) in Providence so drove down to see him. By this time I'd had him as a teacher for a few weeks while studying at RISD but hadn't yet had the top of my head blown off  when visiting him in Prescott, AZ, where he lived (see Fred Sommer, which continues as Parts 2, 3 and an Addendum). That would happen a few years later.

At any  rate, the presentation was a "conversation" with Fred, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. It took place on the 2nd floor of Benson Hall, where the Photo Department was. Aaron and Fred and Harry sat at a table in the front of the room and students and guests sat in fold-up chairs facing them. My memory is vague from so long ago but I'd guess there were maybe 25 of us in the room.  Some students, maybe a couple of faculty and a few people like me who'd heard about it and returned to the school to listen to these three old friends reminisce about their times together.

I remember they did just that, with Aaron telling a story now often repeated about how he and Fred went photographing together in the Southwest at one point and Aaron shot several rolls of film only to return several hours later to where Fred was to find that Fred had made just one picture.

As the time together drew to a close I made one poorly exposed picture with a Leica of Aaron showing Fred where his new pacemaker was and how it regulated his heart beat.

I love this moment between them, two old friends reunited for a brief time, sharing in the effects of growing older. Sometimes we glorify our heroes and forget that they too are human. I think it is good to remember that they had lives apart from their art, strengths and frailties, tragedies and successes, just as we all do.