Glyphs of Time :: a blog by jarvis grant

October 30, 2010

Coming Home and PhotoPlus Expo

New York City and the Harlem River

Leaving Penn Satation on my way to the New Rochelle station.

I came back to New York to take care of some family business and to attend PhotoPlus Expo 2010 on Monday. The train ride from DC was a bit more crowed than normal for a Monday afternoon. I was oblivious to most of it as I slipped in and out of cat naps, while two Swedish ladies sitting next to me had non-stop conversation. I didn’t realize how tired I was from a week finishing up projects and prepping for family meetings  with my Mom, daughter, and my Mom’s lawyer. Being back in Westchester to see my family is good, and I’m fortunate that everyone is OK. Looking after your aging parents and adult children, seems to be a missing part from the manual of adulthood people never  remember to tell you about. Yet, as a creative professional I seem to be figuring it out well enough.

On a lighter side of my NY trip, there was my annual trip to PhotoPlus Expo, which I think of as Toy-R-Us for photographers. There were no toys on my list this year, but I was looking forward in checking out new technologies with inkjet papers and Print on Demand books. I also attended a couple of seminars, Publish Your Photo Book, with Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson, and  Affordably Simple Marketing: Best Practices for Marketing Your Creative Business, with  Juliette Wolf Robin of FoundFolio. I always like checking out the conference seminars, there’s always something to learn. I was also thinking of checking out John Paul Caponigro’s Book Publishing: From Concept to Bound Book. I ran into Ken Hipkins on the expo floor Friday. He informed me that he wanted to check that one out too, but it had sold out. I was thinking about it, but felt I know as much about design as JP, and I’d save myself $80.00! (No offense JP!).  Also ran into Welton Dolby and Lorenzo Wilkins musing over carbon fiber tripods on the expo floor.

At this writing, I’m still in NY, or I should say, Mt. Vernon, NY. Catching up with a couple of my buds, and hanging out with them in the Village. We’ll see what happens with Halloween Eve on Saturday night. Should be pretty interesting. Even though we’re a bit older when we would go to the Fillmore East oh those many years ago. But as Bernstein said, or really Comden and Green, “It’s a Wonderful Town”!

Friday morning on Metro-North

Friday morning on Metro-North, heading to PhotoPlus Expo. Just leaving the 125th Street Station going to Grand Central Station.

 
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July 15, 2010

Get ready for PDN PhotoPlus 2010

Filed under: Education,Observations,Photography — Tags: — Jarvo @ 6:58 pm

PhotoPlus Expo 2010Well, the 2010 PDN PhotoPlus Expo is October 28-30, and is once again at  the voluminous Jacob Javits Center in New York City. PhotoPLus Expo, also Toys-R-Us for Photographers, is were you’ll see all the lastest stuff you may not really need, but still want to have right there for ya. When you go to the web site, there are a lot of elaborate placeholders with the overall message being, Register Now! There are no official exhibitors nor are there any seminars to register for yet, but if nothing else, you can go ahead and make your hotel reservations. The earlier you book in New York, the better the deal you’ll get. PhotoPlus has their travel site up, but you may want to check out travel sites like Travelocity & Yahoo Travel for a little comparison pricing.

The first time I attended PhotoPlus Expo, it was in 1983 at the old New York Convention Center.  To paraphrase Paul Simon’s Kodachrome, “When I think back on all the crap in learned in art school!” None of it was how to make a living. PhotoExpo East as it was then called, really opened up the door, and shed some real light on the whole industry of photography. For example, at one seminar call, How Art Buyers Choose Photographers, there were three agencies from New York City there that billed $600,000,000 in creative talent between them! $600,000,000 between three agencies! Man, all that poor artist stuff I was fed in college was a load of crap in deed.

There was another seminar at that fateful PhotoExpo, about marketing that laid out a roadmap for getting my share of that $600,000,000 plus in potential income from the creative industry. It all seemed so clear for the very first time. Now during the 1980s, the cash was flowing like rivers, and alas,  those days are over. While the money may not be busting out of advertising agencies like in the “good old days”, the money is still there for us to get. The lesson of all this, is that, one needs to stay sharp and competative on how the big guys & girls stay big and a head of the pack! So, if you have never gone to NYC for the PhotoPlus Expo experience, it’s definitely worth a trip. Even if it’s just a day trip.
The PhtoPlus Expo crowd

 
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