The thing that I’ve found is that it’s best to follow just one horse as they’re racing, rather than trying to get a good shot of the whole pack.  That way your attention is focussed following one point rather than trying to scan the whole race for an exciting image.

What do you think of the results?

My wife went along, and was quite happy with the number of people we had through the door. Considering that the advert only ran once in the local paper, and the showhome is in a cul-de-sac rather than on a main road, I was pleased with the turnout we had.

The feedback I had was very positive, and the experience was definitely worthwhile.

Although a wide variety of people looked at the photographs, they seemed to like the same images.  The ones most frequently commented on were the monochrome/colour reflection of Jerusalem,

the mud buggy,

the sheep,

and the panoramic still shot of the Watt Fountain in Wanganui.

The hours before the exhibition actually opened were some of the most frightening of my life.  If I could have been somewhere else, I would have been.

But some of our friends arrived, and wandered through the house.  And then, a few more arrived and wandered around.

They seemed to like the prints, and wrote some nice comments in the book my wife had put out.  We all sat and drank Paddy’s wine, and chatted about the photographs on display, and after a couple of hours I had to dash off to my son’s Christmas concert – a welcome opportunity for somebody else to be in the limelight.

I did survive the ordeal.  And maybe the next one won’t be so scary now that I’ve done it once.

Hell! That meant I HAD to go through with it!

So then I had to decide what I would exhibit, and where I would site the prints.

I walked through the house a couple of times, and looked at the décor and set up.  Finally I decided that rather than having one theme for the exhibition I would have a grouping in each room that was appropriate to the set up of the showhome.  So the garage would host classic cars and motorsports, the girl’s bedroom would see floral prints, the boy’s bedroom seemed the right place for racing horses and greyhounds, landscapes looked best in the master bedroom and living room, while the kitchen/dining room provided the backdrop for the miscellaneous prints – abstract and quirky things.

I decided to hang the pictures using the hooks that stick to the wall and can be moved without damaging the paintwork (you know the ones I mean!), but didn’t realise that to hang 25 prints I would have to pay nearly $300 on hooks!  I do still have them, of course, and can use them again in other sites, which makes them more of a useful investment.

And then of course I had to get the photographs printed, and framed.  Boy, this exhibition lark is an expensive business!

A truly beautiful building just off the Great South Road.

And now, there’s nothing else that needs to be done.  I’ve got nowhere else to hide.  I’ve actually got to put myself WAY out of my comfort zone and start to sell my products.

This will involve a bit of travelling, some cold calling, and hopefully some meetings with possible clients.  And at the end of all that I might get somebody to sign on the dotted line and commission a panoramic tour from me.

This is possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever done – exciting, exhilarating, but scary as anything.

Cross your fingers and wish me luck.

I did get to the point when I realised that the only way to move forward with my business was to make more people aware of my work – and the best way to do that seems to be exhibiting. However, that thought scared me witless. What if nobody liked my work?  What if nobody came to see it?

My wife came up with a solution, and my first exhibition was born.  A contact in the building trade offered me the use of his new showhome to hold the exhibition, and he also offered to do some advertising and provide the wine for the opening evening.  All I had to do was provide the nibbles for the opening evening…. And the prints, of course!

So we decided on just a weekend exhibition – almost a vaccination against nerves about exhibiting. And once that decision had been made there was no going back.

I entered this image into the Carey Smith Art Review 2011, was delighted that it was accepted for exhibition in the Sarjeant Gallery next month. The exhibition opens on July 1st, and runs for about 6 weeks. Drop in and have a look if you’re in the Wanganui area!

ripples

I love to work with HDR in nature. Helping to promote it’s natural beauty.  The results you can achieve are amazing and hypnotic.

Just a small drip in the rain whilst walking on Mt Taranaki. Simple, elegant.

Memorial Tower Wanganui New Zealand