Ingrid Spangler is a freelance social media consultant living in New York. She’s been snapping pictures since she was a child and involved with social media since before it was called social media. Before going out on her own, she handled the social media for AdoramaPix, the photo lab division of Adorama Camera, for four years. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, flickr, 500px, Google+ and Pinterest. In this post, Ingrid shares her experience at the second day of PhotoShelter’s Luminance 2012 photography conference in NYC.
Credit: Michael Treola, PhotoShelter
The second day of Luminance, PhotoShelter‘s first-ever photography conference, was marked, at least for me, with the idea of authenticity. Zack Arias started things off by urging everyone to “remember the social” in social media and to not worry about separating your business from your personal account on Twitter. Just “tell your story,” he said, and “your story feeds your community.” I loved hearing this because as a social media consultant, it’s one of the things I tell my clients, contribute to the discourse (as Zack says, “have something to share!”) and be authentic. On the touchy subject of professional photographers sharing images online, Arias drew an analogy to fishing: when you put your bait (your images) out there, it’s true that it might get taken, but then again, you might catch a really big fish!
Credit: Michael Treola, PhotoShelter
Sara Friedlander from Christie’s spoke about value. “What creates value?” she asked, and provided several touchpoints for what contributes to an artworks value: uniqueness, provenance, scale, hype, condition and the strength of the market. Friedlander showed us the Andreas Gursky photograph that brought over 4 million dollars at auction recently and explained how all the factors above contributed to the lofty purchase price. She touched on the theme of authenticity when asked by Allen Murabayashi about digital manipulation in fine art photography, answering that it wasn’t a concern as some manipulations actually rendered the work more painterly.
Jen Bekman is the CEO and founder of 20×200, an online gallery that sells affordable (and GOOD) art at budget prices ranging from $20 up to $10K. The higher priced works are a function of the uniqueness of the work (limited editions, for example), but the same artists typically have offerings in the $20 bracket as well. She summed it up with the line: “20×200 is the gateway drug to the art world.”
Credit: Michael Treola, PhotoShelter
In “The Instigators” part of the afternoon session, Tyler Shields got us going with his provocative images and great quotable quotes. Bringing up authenticity when answering a question about inspiration, Shields told us “it’s you against yourself, what others do don’t mean shit.” I was impressed with how he described his beginnings of having one crappy camera and a lamp from Ikea. Responding to an audience member’s question about where he draws the line with authenticity, not using Photoshop, but using actors, costumes and makeup, he threw out, “When you really set somebody on fire, they shit their pants.” Now that’s authentic.
It was a thought-provoking and exciting couple of days, and mad props to PhotoShelter for organizing and presenting this feast for our brains and imaginations. As photography continues to evolve, we need more opportunities like this to get together in the same space and think and talk about where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.
