The gift that keeps on giving

“The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.” – Robert Mapplethorpe

The group exhibition for the workshop I attended at the Griffin Museum of Photography started at the beginning of May and will run through to the end of June. During this past Thursday, we had our reception at the Wincam gallery in Winchester. We were blessed with a great turnout for the party. As a pleasant surprise, each of the workshop participant was interviewed by our esteemed workshop instructor, world renowned photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Arno prepared some thoughtful questions for the interviews. It was nice to see our work being on display at the gallery. It was nice when audience made inquiries about my work. It warmed my heart to see people showing interest in wanting to know more about my photography.

Art is a way of expressing emotions uniquely. Techniques are only effective if admirers can see and understand them. Exhibitions help bring the essence and emotions of art to the people who will admire and understand it. While having the easy access to all the beautiful photographs online is nice, it is altogether a different experience seeing the artwork on display in person. Exhibitions are a way for artists to communicate with the world. Often, artists display their most complex emotions in their best works. They can now share with the world these feelings through an exhibition. There are times when these artworks provide a powerful platform to highlight the issues we care about, and I find the visual impact ever more powerful viewing the work in person. Exhibitions are valuable venues for any artists as they are an effective way of communicating with interested audiences.

It is a gift to have this opportunity to display my work in public. Having the opportunity to be part of a group exhibitionwas not a major consideration when I signed up for the workshop, in hindsight it added a lot to the learning experience. The process of curating our work, finding the three images that speak to the spirit of “power of three”, the printing, framing the images and showing them nicely on the wall, have all added to the already tremendous in-class learning experience. The unexpected opportunity to speak about our work with the one-to-one interviews during the reception was another icing on the cake. This workshop, while it was short in its duration, covered a lot of ground because of Arno and the Griffin Museum staff’s thoughtful planning. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to attend such a unique workshop; truly a gift that keeps on giving.