Lehigh Valley Photo Club Talk

I will be giving a talk at the Lehigh Valley Photography Club on Thursday night. I will be discussing the production of my book, in the still air.

here's a press release that should be going out later on today...

Scott Nichol is a professional, published photographer whose works have appeared in American Photo and Photographer's Forum magazines and is a regular contributor to Lehigh Valley Living Magazine. Scott's fine art photography focuses on figurative work studied mostly in formal studio environments. Last summer, Scott took a step to move his figure photography into the great wide open. It was an adventure that found him in remote forests, lakes, and beaches seeking the seclusion of early mornings when the quality of light was good and onlookers were scarce.

From this series of photographs, Scott has produced a limited edition hard cover book of this work. The book will be produced in an edition of 50 signed and numbered copies. Pricing for this edition will be $125. Selected original signed prints from this series will also be available for $40 each. Orders for the book and prints are being taken at http://www.silverystars.com.

Scott will speak Thursday night about the process of producing the book from a photographer's point of view. He will discuss details of how the how the page layouts were created, how the printer was chosen, and show slides of selected plates from the book.

into the wild

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.
- Alexander Supertramp, Into The Wild

this morning and last night i was just simply racked with self doubt. i was so happy with last summer's series of outdoor work, so pleased that i actually made a book of the photographs. and i had scheduled a shoot this morning with a wonderful model named susie b and was planning to explore shooting in the falls at Glen Onoko up near Jim Thorpe, PA. but to be honest, i was looking for a lot of excuses to just shoot some safe studio work with Susie and not make the trip. the reason, i think, that i didn't want to do this was simply because i had gotten it in my mind that i wouldn't be able to find the killer locations and bring that level of emotion back again.

in a way, i pushed myself through and decided that it wasn't raining hard enough to justify another safe studio shoot. i kept hearing the voices of my friends Olaf and Rick encouraging, practically begging me to go up there. i think they knew with that location, i could create some real magic! i got lost on the way to the location, re-established my bearings, and we arrived to find some of the most beautiful waterfalls in PA. hiking in with susie was a treat. she's an avid hiker and was so thrilled after coming in from NYC to be out in the natural elements. the miles of hiking snapped my mind back to where it needed to be and we worked effortlessly to create some truly beautiful pieces. i felt like i was back in my element, back where i want to belong.

i think the key is that you need to trust in yourself. its always easy to say, i'll never be able to do that again. but you have to trust that you already know how. i couldn't have been more happy with the shots we came up with and i'm glad to share one of them here with you. leave a comment, let me know what you think. enjoy for now, but there will be more to come in the weeks ahead!

scott

print sales

i am making a growing selection of my prints available for sale now through my web site. if you're interested to purchase signed original prints, you can take a look right now at my gallery of collections.

the prints are all produced by me in my studio using an archival inkjet process. some people call this process a glicee process. this is really an invented term, but basically is a process of using archival fine art papers such as the cotton rag papers from Hahnemuehle, Crane, or Ilford combined with pigmented inkjet inks.

my weapons of choice for making my fine art prints are the Epson K3 inks in advanced black and white mode. this prints using pure carbon pigmented inks which have a longevity of 100+ years with no visible fading. the papers i use are Hahnemuehle Photo Rag for matte finish prints and Crane Museo Silver Rag for semi-gloss prints. the Photo Rag paper is 100% cotton rag and has a slightly textured almost watercolor-like paper look and feel to it. the Silver Rag has a semigloss finish that has more than a passing resemblance to traditional silver gelatin black and white prints. both papers produce excellent image quality and make a fine addition to any serious art collector's gallery.

two collections are available right now and more images and collections will be available as time goes on. if you're interested to purchase some of these prints, links to the collection are here:

White Series 2008
Summer Series 2007


thanks!
scott

ok, so i've been working on a book design of the series of images i made last summer. i decided to have azukabook.com print it because i thought their Laminate Matte paper and overall presentation of the book was superb. did my 40 page layouts and created my PDF. i uploaded everything and placed my order. my plan was to do a very limited edition of the book for collectors. the quality is outstanding and i'm very anxious to see how it looks.

however, today i got a call from a nice sounding woman at asuka book with some "concerns" over some of the images in my book. apparently, pages 11 and 27 contained photos of exposed women's genitalia. she had to inform me that this is a no-no in japan (where the asukabook headquarters is and where all their books are printed) and that there was a risk that the printers might reject it because of japanese indecency laws. here's a PDF of the book in question:

book.pdf

now, i don't know how many of you have seen japanese pr0n, but man its some seriously screwed up shit. as my pal marcus put it:


"I've seen shitloads of japanese pr0n. Have you noticed that they always block out the pubes?? You can do a video of a schoolgirl getting live eels stuck up her ass while being throat-fucked by a guy in a rubber space alien costume -- but you'd damn well better not show a single pubic hair or square millimeter of genital tissue. Anus tissue is just fine, though it's gotta be hairless.

God makes people move in mysterious ways, don't he?"

and if you want read more interesting stuff, there's actually a wikipedia entry on japanese pornography that might open your eyes. here's just a couple of entries from the sub-genres section of the page:

Broken Dolls This is a sub-genre of the popular 'medical fetish': young girls in hospital beds, covered in casts, splints, gauze, and fake 'bruises.' It usually involves rape and forced bondage.

Burusera - ("bloomers") Fans of this genre collect panties,urine, socks & uniforms of actual schoolgirls.

Chikan - ("pervert") It involves, usually males, who pay 'extras' to sit in a stage constructed to look like a train car and act submissive while being groped.

so, seriously folks... medical fetish, collecting urine, and groping submissive train passengers? that's OK! but a photo of a person in a pastoral setting where you might see a pubic hair... that's indecent!! i've always contended that what i'm doing here is not pornography, but rather photography with serious artistic merit. in the end, the nice lady at asukabook.com told me that they could submit it anyway and just see what happens. i politely told them that if they weren't able to print it that i would have to take my design and my business elsewhere. she politely understood.

Warehouses

i spent the day today riding around town looking at dilapidated spaces. warehouses, old factories, and abandoned garages. any place like that today caught my eye. i'm just thinking of the potential that any of these types of places might hold for hosting the group show. one place is actually not in a terribly bad part of town and... if rent was cheap enough, i might consider renting to form a studio. then i'd just have my own space to do as i please. i thought, "how cool would it be to just put the kind of art that i like on display whenever i want".

i mean, i walked around to some of these, "fine art galleries" that are established in downtown bethlehem, pa and if i see one more fucking painting of christmas time in bethlehem i think i will vomit. i would love to just turn my nose down at any one of those artists and say, "we don't show that kind of stuff here!

Exhibiting - Venues

well, the coffee shop/book store/gallery place decided to go with the original artist they had scheduled for june. this is actually the, "right thing to do". apparently, they had booked an artist for the space in june and were beginning to have doubts that she could pull it off. they wanted to know if i would be interested to take her place. of course. the hard part of prepping the artwork is all but finished. i would only need to make some prints and frame them up.

so, i started to get really excited about exhibiting in just a few months. but talking to them this week, they seem to think that she'll be able to pull off the show, so they want to know if i would be interested in their next available month which is January 2009. 2009?!? that's like... next year! i hate not having instant gratification anymore. the internet has decimated my patience. but i'll take it and it'll serve to give me focus over the next couple months, carefully planning out shots that i think will work well as a collection to show in january.

in the meantime, there is the Lehigh Valley Skin Industry Invitational. I'm thinking of reserving a booth there since i've goto so much tattoo themed work. for now, i'm thinking to concentrate on showing some fine art pieces along with some portrait work. the goal would be to sell some prints-only (unframed, in poly envelopes) cheap. framed prints at an affordable price. then try to sell some portrait bookings as well.

Exhibiting

I've been working with several local galleries here in the Lehigh Valley, trying to find a outlet for my work. The ultimate goal, of course, would be to sell some prints. But truth be told, I really just like to show people my work and get feedback from their reactions. However, it really seems to be a difficult sell, trying to exhibit fine art nudes in public galleries. One gallery owner I talked to explained it to me in a very rational sense. In his experience, exhibiting and selling photography as art is much more difficult than just about any other medium. The reason seems to be that everyone these days has a digital camera and "taking pictures" is easy, right? So why would I want to pay someone else $500 for a photograph of a nude woman crouching in a stream. "I could get my girlfriend to do that. She's hawt!" So, selling fine art nude photography as art tends to require a much more sophisticated art crowd. And I'm not sure the Lehigh Valley has this kind of crowd.

But right now there's one gallery with a high level of interest. When I sat down to show them my work, they seemed to be impressed. When they asked me if I would consider showing in their small book store/coffee shop/gallery I asked them if they were certain that they would have no problem showing nudes. Their reaction was simply, "controversy is always good for business!"

My kind of people.