The rain still cascaded down upon the Capital Region as I began this blog post. There was enough rain and foul weather in the sky to put Noah back in the shipbuilding business.
So here’s the deal. Last month, I discovered that the Association of Photographers, an organization in Shoreditch, London, will host a gallery exhibition featuring the stunning imagery of 75 years of Kodachrome film. The show will run from January to February, 2011.
Photographers – both AOP members and those who were not part of the AOP organization – were encouraged to send up to five Kodachrome slides, and I went through my archives and pulled five different images – the ones listed below – scanned them, burned a CD with the images, and shipped them off to Shoreditch.
And here they are. These are the five images I have chosen to enter for the gallery show, and hopefully one or more of them will be accepted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The original November 12th deadline was extended to the 29th, so I patiently waited and waited, hoping for a good result.
While I waited for the results, I looked over the requirements if any of the photographs are accepted. The AOP has held successful theme shows with some of the world’s top photographers. In 2008, for example, they held a very popular gallery show featuring the works of Polaroid photographers, as that iconic instant film was on its final exposures. If I could get my pictures shown in this gallery, it would be a major coup in my photography career.
But of course, all this is academic and speculative. I haven’t received any notification of acceptance or rejection yet.
In fact, let me go check my e-mail. May as well, since I’m blogging right now…
Facebook alert… approve a TU blog comment … Facebook alert … misdirected spam … Oh wait. Here’s an e-mail from the UK. It’s the AOP Gallery.
Oh Lord. It’s a response to my submission.
If any of these pictures are selected, it will be the first time any of my Kodachrome photographs have won anything. I gotta keep thinking positively. Do not give up. Do not give up. If you don’t get anything in, Chuck, it means you have to try harder next time. Don’t obsess over this like it’s Altamont. Don’t do this to yourself. You can do this. You will do this.
I open the e-mail. And I start reading it.
Dear Chuck Miller,
Thank you for your entries into A Celebration of Kodachrome. Apologies for the delay in notifying you as to whether your images have been successful / unsuccessful but we received an overwhelming response to the show! Having limited space in the gallery, the selection process for the exhibition has been really tough. We are very pleased to inform you that some of your images have been selected to feature in the exhibition.
2 of your entries have been selected for the exhibition, please see the descriptions below:
The Railsplitter, August 2010
Toll Gate Ice Cream, March 2010
Excuse me for a second.
WOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO!!!!!!
Oh my Lord in holy heaven…
 |
 |
TWO of my five shots have been selected into the AOP Gallery, and will be my first photographs ever shown in an international exhibition!!!
One of them was taken with the first roll of Kodachrome 200 I ever acquired (the Toll Gate photo)…
And one of them was taken as part of a photography collection chronicling the Albany County Rail Trail (the Railsplitter).
Oh my Lord… One year ago I would never have worked with film … let alone a film that Kodak has completely divested itself of ever manufacturing … and today I have two Kodachrome photos scheduled for exhibition in a London art gallery for next January!!!
I gotta get these slides scanned into 50cm x 60cm prints… I gotta ship them to London… and pay my entry fee… oh man… a hundred thousand things going through my head right now… a hundred thousand things…
But right now… I’m just going to bask in the moment… because on a rainy day like this, these moments of joy are so few and so far between.
And maybe folksinger Cris Williamson was right. Sometimes it really does take a rainy day just to let you know everything’s going to be all right.
Chuck The Writer 
YEAH!!!! Congratulations for a job well done. Wish I could go to London and see the pictures being exhibited. I hope you go!
LikeLike
Holy Moly!!! That’s wonderful !!!!!! Kudos to you, well deserved ones!!!!
When life gave you lemons, you not only made lemonade, you set up a
franchise and taught the rest of us the power of never giving up !! You truly
inspire me!!
LikeLike
That’s great, Chuck, congratulations! Did you tell Glenn Slingerland about the selection of your shot of one of his long time sponsors?
BTW, I saw a tape of your TV debut on the Situation, and you were great, even if the camera did catch you lying down on the job.
Best,
Mark
LikeLike
SO AWESOME Chuck! I’m jumping up and down for you! What a great pick me up for you, cool, cool, cool.
LikeLike
Congratulations, Chuck!
LikeLike
2010: The Year of Chuck Miller’s Revival!
LikeLike
Many congratulations sent your way; are you going to London to see them in the gallery?
LikeLike
Colleen –
As much as I would love to go to London, the gallery show is right in the middle of my PBL basketball season. I can only go to London in spirit, I guess. But what a spirit it is!
LikeLike
Congratulations, I can’t even imagine how excited you must be!
It must be so satisfying to have your work recognized on that level of competition.
Keep showing us your pics… we are after all your greatest audience!
LikeLike
Congratulations, Chuck. Great news. Keep us posted. We’re pulling for you.
LikeLike
Nice! Wonderful timing, too…
LikeLike
Thanks everybody – this really feels good, and the support from all of you makes it even more satisfying!
LikeLike
Nice going, Chuck.
LikeLike
That’s great. Do you have to ship the slides?
LikeLike
B-
No, all I have to send them are the finished prints; the gallery will install them in frames for display. The slides will remain in my archive.
LikeLike
Congrats! I hope you know someone with a metric ruler!
LikeLike
That’s pretty bizarre. I could easily doctor a digital file to look like a Kodachrome, in fact there are scripts and actions to do just that, and 19.5″ x 23.5″ wouldn’t be a problem with 12MP. I’m really surprised they aren’t being more stringent!
LikeLike
Bennett –
If there’s any question about whether I shot these pictures in Kodachrome, I will gladly provide all the slides I took as proof. I have nothing to hide regarding this. The organizers, if they have any questions, can open up the mounts and see that the pictures were shot on Kodachrome film. Besides, some of the exhibits will actually feature the slides as part of lightboxes or other constructs. I just simply chose to send my winners as full-size prints.
LikeLike
Uh, Chuck, not what I was implying. No need to get defensive.
But I question the credibility of the event itself if someone can just send in some files that “look” like they were shot with Kodachrome. Which is very easy to do. As I said, I find it bizarre. The AOP seems to be a solid organization, which makes it even stranger.
LikeLike
B –
I think that some of the entries will actually be the slides themselves as part of a lightbox display. There are several displays of Kodachrome photography as part of the AOP exhibit. Sure, there are probably a dozen ways to “simulate” Kodachrome on a computer; however, my suspicion is that many of the entries may not have been photographed this calendar year. It will be interesting to see if some of the Kodachrome images are from the 1960’s or 1950’s or even earlier.
One of these days you and Sebastien and I should all go out and have a photo day. It might be fun.
LikeLike
Chuck, I try to get to as many of the events for the Albany Photography Meetup (on meetup.com) as possible, other than that I don’t have a lot of time for general photowalks these days 😦 But if you hit up the meetup or are just out & about for local events we’ll probably run into each other.
LikeLike
No probs. We’ll set something up.
LikeLike