For anyone who's kept up, knows us, or has got kick-back back email about us being away from our office at it, you know we were in Pennsylvania for a week in order to attend the Society for Photographic Education conference in Philly (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)! Today we want to share with you not only that crazy trip that we took for a week, but also our experiences and beliefs about a formal education in not only the arts, but in any career! We'll start with the later and explain why educations are important.
On Formal Educations: First of all, you may wonder what formal degrees someone in the arts field of photography can have. Well, there are undergrads of B.A.s and BFAs in Photography (commercial, fine art, etc.) as well as Master's and higher degrees of M.A.s and MFAs in (practicing) photography. While BAs and MAs focus on the field of photography, BFAs and MFAs go even further- they include the practice of photography i.e. they force you to also actually photograph weekly for assignments. An MFA is the highest practicing degree of photography (highest degree wherein you actually photograph and create art), so often MFAs can teach at universities much like PhDs can. PhDs DO exist in photography, but they are rare and often PhDs in Photography focus on Art History and are not practicing photographers or artists. Many do not know how to operate professional cameras, nor do they care to. MFAs (on the other hand) focus not only on creating Fine Art Photography (something not many have a grasp on, but generally does not include portraits, regular landscapes, etc.), but they also take courses on the history of photography, art history in general, grant writing, educating/ teaching, etc.
For BFAs in Commercial Photography from our alma mater where we met, there was a strict focus on lighting, composition, framing, etc. One could also say that this BFA was one of the hardest and best Commercial Photography degrees in the nation and world due to its strictness in learning very intense techniques to a T. Jason started out photographing at the age of 15 and through high school was the head photographer for his yearbook. He also has experience in stock photography and consulting, though he did start professionally photographing weddings over 9 years ago (which has been our full-time career for years). Among his other prior degrees and jobs at photo studios he also has his BFA in Commercial Photography from our alma mater and here are some examples of his college work in Commercial Photography:
MFAs in Fine Art Photography from our alma mater were pushed to think outside of the box and focus on very abstract, conceptual work that included a specific idea about a worldview, perspective, political belief, psychological focus, etc. Jenny has prior undergrad degrees from Miami University of Ohio in (social) Psychology and (social) Entrepreneurship, so this was her first formal Photography/ Fine Art degree, though she has photographed with film since the age of 8 and worked in dark rooms throughout high school and college courses rolling/ developing her own film and developing her own prints by hand. She also has experience in working at the studio of the largest online retailer in the world out in L.A., though she did start professionally photographing weddings over 9 years ago (which has been our full-time career for years). Here is some of her MFA work in Fine Art Photography:
We believe deeply in education... and formal educations at that (degrees). Without formal educations in photography we wouldn't know how to appropriately photograph, edit, price, print, or design most things to the highest level nor would we be as harsh on ourselves since literally weekly we had professors and fellow students publicly critique our newest photographic assignment work during our studio courses. Though there is an innate artistic sense in most within the field, there are also proper techniques, pricing, printing, etc. that most photographers who don't have degrees in photography are simply unaware of and uneducated/ miseducated on. Plus a degree in photography will humble the HELL out of you and make you realize how much you've grown and can still grow in order to become one of the BEST. That coupled with our experiences as professional photographers in the career/ business for over 9 years throughout 12 states (and a couple countries), we definitely have many professors to thank as equally as our clients. Since our field is photography rather than say, being a lawyer or M.D. (doctor), the barrier for entry into the field of photography is non-existant. Those with no degrees or high school degrees can enter into the career whenever they want. Why do we have such high degrees in it then...? Because we believe in perfecting your skills, knowledge, experience, wisdom, etc. from the best of the best. Someone ALWAYS knows more than you and is way more educated than you: Pay them well in a formal setting to teach you what they've learned over their careers as both practicing professionals/ artists AND teachers. We believe in working in all ways to be the best in your field and investing in a formal education in the field is a huge puzzle piece in doing so. (Really. Neither of us are college or high school teachers, so we're saying this as those who care about learning and perfecting a craft through studio coursework AND learning the history of photography.)
Which takes us to the SPE Society for Photographic Education conference-!! This traveling annual conference in Philly was the same week as the annual WPPI - the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International- conference in Las Vegas. We chose SPE because we believe in education more than we do trade shows and gear. We already have the highest level of gear, papers, programs, etc., so there's not much of anything else we need at this point in terms of things to buy for our business. We hope to go to WPPI someday to check it out, but WPPI focuses more on gear, programs, etc. that they want to sell to you, whereas SPE focuses on broadening views, knowledge, wisdom, etc. via photography around those who also prize formal educations and bettering the world. The conference this year took place in Philadelphia which takes us 11 hours to drive to, so we decided to break the week up as follows:
To start off, we wanted to drive half of the distance (5.5 hours) and stay around Pittsburgh. We just bought an amazing vintage pop-up trailer in pristine condition and the weather was in the 60s (warm for us Midwest Lake Effect winter folks), so we decided to bring along our pets (who we don't have family or friends to watch for free). It was our first full family big trip with the 5 of us. On Tuesday of last week we drove to Rose Point Park campground (complete with dog park AND full, great bathrooms/ showers next to us) and we set up camp for the night. After that we fed and exercised the pets, then got them set up in their crates so we could go tourist around Pittsburgh.
While in Pittsburgh we went to the contemporary art museum The Mattress Factory and experienced some of the best exhibits that we'd actually been wanting to see (Yayoi Kusama who does the magical mirrored rooms with twinkle lights- we've tried to see her TWICE in California over the past couple years and her shows always sell out immediately) (oh, also James Turrell whose light works Jason saw in California and has been trying to tell me about for 4 years) ... and it happened to be half off for the day (which we didn't know prior- Tuesdays are amazing)-! We then headed over to try to check out a South African grocery in the outskirts of Pittsburgh (to also check out some cool batiked Ankara clothing), but since it was prematurely closed hours early, we got an extra large pizza nextdoor for $8. (Fantastic deal and reward after working out for 8 days straight and eating so much quinoa and avocados lately!) After that we headed down to the Monongahela Incline- a converted coal lift, now used as a means of travel between the waterfront and the top of the large hills that surround the city. Once we were wrapped up with all of that, we headed back to the campground to cuddle up near the heater with our pets so that we could head to Philly in the morning.
Once to Philly (after tearing down in Pittsburgh and re-setting up our pop-up in Jersey just 20 minutes over the border from Philadelphia- the closest spot we could find), we again got our pets comfy and headed out to merely check out a huge Russian/ European Grocery in Philadelphia. It was AMAZING. We love foreign groceries and when we travel we make it a point to check out things we don't/ haven't ever had in our cities. Among the great food we got there (for dinner and snacks) were gelatin meats (sort of like a jello soup), dill bread, cheap pate, a various types of pierogis and blintzes, a few dessert type items . Since the conference started the next day (this past Thursday), we then went back to the camper, ate, then headed to bed in order to get at least 6 hours of sleep prior to the conference.
The SPE conference started fantastically with a lot of fine art photography, graduate student presentations, and some educational panels discussions. Since there was a bit of down time before the evening lecture, we headed over to do a bit of walking in the historic district of Philadelphia amidst a bit of drizzle rain and visited an oddities shop our friend Karen recommended. At the Strange and Unusual shop we acquired our new "pets" (responsibly sourced) Richard the antique river otter and Jeffery the duckling! The store reminded us so much of our own living room (and was the first ever "oddities" store Jenny has ever been to). After the fun there, we rushed our new friends back to the car, then headed to the last speaker.
On Friday at SPE we again started day 2 with an 8 a.m. speaker and presentations/ lectures throughout the day. This day was much more photojournalistic focused and we attended lectures on bodies of work focusing on racism, the prison system, natives living in the tundra of Russia, the drug addicted and downtrodden of Philly's West side, etc. We also made a friend who is getting her BFA in photography in Virginia (and is from Maryland)-! (Shout out to Marissa!) We then made it over to the Reading Terminal Market next door for our first real Philly Cheesesteak and during that walk the rain started to morph into snow and rain. Apparently an unforecasted Nor'Easter was blowing through and resulted in a semi blizzard of 38 mph winds coupled with 60 mph gusts. FYI: Our camper pop-up with cloth walls was a TROOPER and was not damaged at all (thanks in part to Jason taking down the awning porch extension in the frigid rain & campground flooding the night before), but we did need to purchase a heat blanket since we did not bring our 3 heat blankets. Our animals survived with many sleeping bags covering them.
During the last fully day of SPE on Saturday it was thankfully a sunny day! This day included a cool mixture of fine art and photojournalism in most bodies of work that we saw during presentations. There was a lot of work pertaining to refugees across the world- going along with the conference's title this year of "Uncertain Times: Borders, Refuge, Community, Nationhood." We learned about several international programs to help educate refugees, as well as were shown projects created by some refugees themselves . The day culminated with not only more snacks (Philly infinity symbol pretzels and mini cheesesteaks) and a visit to the Reading Terminal Market again, but an amazing speaker: Sara Lewis. Ms. Lewis is an author and a Sarah Lewis a professor at Harvard University in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of African and African American Studies. Her presentation was a meaningful and amazingly well spoken piece on the importance and power of imagery and was a perfect way to end the last full day of the conference. Afterward we said goodbye to a few of our friends and headed on our way. Though there was no snow or rain, we did still run into something fun on this last night: Someone blocked our car in in our amazing parking lot that we paid for for 3 days and there was no lot attendant OR phone number anywhere for the lot. After fully internally laughing and panicking, a woman pulled into another spot across from us. Jenny sprung into action and asked the well-dressed woman what to do in this case. She took one look at a paper on the car blocking us in, then explained that a Philadelphia boy chorus was having a silent auction and party at the building touching the lot and that we were touching. She brought us into the party (as we felt fully underdressed in our business garb around those in night party auction garb) and the heads of the large event kindly gave us refreshments and announced the car that needed to be moved so that we could leave and head back to our pets/ prep to pack up and leave Sunday morning. It was quite an experience and we sadly thus forgot to get our non-rain/ snow photo of the Philadelphia skyline that night amidst the terror/ shock/ chaos.
On Sunday and Monday we moved from New Jersey (right outside of Philly) through Pittsburgh for another night and following day in Pittsburgh (in New Castle just above Pittsburgh). From there we headed through Ohio and returned to Indiana and our home with our pets on Monday morning. We were SO thankful for not only the tourism we got to experience, but for the fact that BOTH campgrounds surprised us and put us directly next to full bathroom/ gorgeous showers AND the dog parks at both campgrounds! We HIGHLY recommend the KOA South Philadelphia AND Rose Point Park near Pittsburgh! (They were also a couple of the only campgrounds opened in these cities of the Midwest amidst February/ March winter!) **Below is a portrait that we took before we tore the pop-up trailer down for the last time on Monday evening. Note: The antique otter that we acquired from The Strange and Unusual in Philadelphia is center stage on our dining room table <3
Since returning Tuesday we have been working on our very last prints to update in our 40 frames and display at the Morris Park Country Club in South Bend for their 3rd Annual Bridal Expo THIS Sunday the 11th from 4 to 7 p.m. We're the ONLY photography company who has gone all 3 years that they've held it (shout out to Elena!) and we can honestly say that we love the more intimate and less chaotic setting of the Morris Park Bridal Expo.
****Here's the link for this expo: 3rd Annual Morris Park Bridal Show
We hope to see you this Sunday at the Morris Park Bridal/ Wedding Expo here in South Bend-!! We are truly so excited to move out of the wedding "low" season into the wedding season so soon and in the meantime will be continuing to meet with brides and grooms to chat about their 2019 weddings while also creating some last physical wedding albums and large prints for our last 2017 wedding couples who have been diligently choosing their photographs as they work full time at their amazing careers-!