Exhibitionism

I went to talk to Javier today. Javier is the very helpful bloke who looks after the Marble and Wine Museum in our local town of Pinoso. I went because I am considering trying to mount a little exhibition of my photos.

Although I take a lot of pictures I'm not a very committed photographer. I have pals who are. It's obvious, from the quality of their results, that they spend a long time in front of their computers fine tuning their photos with Lightroom. I don't have that sort of patience. When I go somewhere, or do something, I generally take the camera with me. I try to point it in the right direction but if the result is no good then it's no good. My post snap editing is about as basic as it could be. I've never joined a camera club and I've never entered a photo competition so the idea of an exhibition wasn't mine. I'm still not so sure if I want to do it.

All I thought about when Maggie suggested an exhibition was the cost, the work and the possibility of humiliation. Goaded on by her, I did sort out some snaps, taken in and around Pinoso, for printing. I don't think I've ever turned a digital image into a print before now. I used to nearly always print 35mm film. Bang the cassette into the envelope and off to BonusPrint - nice set of glossy 6x4s a couple of days later. Funny story there. A Briton I knew, here in Pinoso, took a film to be developed maybe 10 to 12 years ago. In his rudimentary Spanish he asked the photo shop for 6x4 prints. When they came back he was shocked - the cost was astronomical and the size was tiny. He seemed to have forgotten he was living in Spain. He was thinking in inches but the processors weren't. They did as they were told and produced the six centimetre by four centimetre prints and it was the bespoke size that cost him the money.

Whenever I see enthusiast paintings or photos for sale I'm always mortified by the price. Thinking about doing it myself I've begun to realise where the prices come from. Exhibition quality prints cost a fair bit of money. Individually the price is reasonable enough but if you're looking to do 25 then the final total looks horrifying. It's the same with framing. A few simple sums and you soon realise that if you do pretty well and manage to sell, say, half of the photos then simply covering your costs will make each individual framed photo quite expensive. And what about your profit, the price of selling your "art"?

I take my photos in the classic 2:3 ratio and so I bought 20x30 and 30x45 centimetre prints to mirror the same ratio. It doesn't seem to be a format that the ready made frame makers like. I wanted to frame up a couple just to give me an idea of what the finished thing might look like but it took a fair bit of hunting around to find anything of an appropriate size and those I could buy were hardly pretty.

So, back to Javier and my asking him about the process for mounting an exhibition. The Town Hall cedes the exhibition space in the museum for free provided that the councillor in charge OKs the exhibition content. Javier said he could help with hanging the pictures but the publicity and any sort of launch costs would be mine. It was then that I finally showed him the framed snaps. Dull as my people skills are it was pretty obvious that he wan't impressed by my photos. "Is this one of your friends?," he asked, pointing to the picture that accompanies this blog. It's a picture I like. Maggie doesn't like it much either. It was also pretty obvious as I looked at the cheap frames lying on the table that they weren't good enough - too flimsy.

Maybe I should stick to uploading the snaps to Facebook.

Freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism

It's Constitution Day today. We're celebrating the 39th anniversary of the document that formalised the new order and the end of the dictatorship. 

In Pinoso Town Hall yesterday there was a reading of some of the articles of the Constitution by members of the community. Obviously it couldn't be today. Today is a holiday and the Town Hall wouldn't be open on a holiday.

I thought I'd go and have a look. I got there nearly at the beginning, the Mayor was doing the opening spiel but I couldn't get into the room where the reading was taking place because the door was blocked by the throng of people waiting to read their bit of the document. I'm not sure if there were people inside the room, an audience, or not. Peering in all I could see was someone standing behind a tripod videoing the whole thing. When I said hello to Colin, there to read his bit and presumably a representative of my clan, someone shushed me so I decided to give it up as a spectator sport.

I did listen to the reading on the local radio. Colin did OK and I recognised lots of other local people from their voices. The Constitution sounded good - all those rights to fair and equal pay, to work, to holidays, to a decent home, to a justice system. Someone got to read Article 155 which is the one that was used in Cataluña, the one that says that the Government, with the approval of the Senate, can take over a region which is not fulfilling its obligations. Interesting choice I thought.

It wasn't the only time I saw the mayor yesterday. In the evening there was a "Musicalised wine tasting" to celebrate the third anniversary of the local wine and marble museum. Marble and wine are two of the pillars of the local economy. The wine tasting was accompanied by music some of which was played on wine bottles and lumps of marble. Ingenious I thought.