Flak photo and more

I've been a fan of Flak Photo for a while now and subscribe to their daily email updates. I love getting a new image from the site in my inbox every day. Founder/producer extraordinaire Andy Adams recently teamed up with Center to showcase 55 of the photographers who were selected to take part in Review Santa Fe. The feature will run for 11 weeks total, ending on August 29th (which happens to be my lovely June's second birthday). If you're not familiar with Flak it's a "photography blogzine featuring distinctive work from an international community of contributors that promotes interesting visual approaches to seeing the world and celebrates the art of exhibiting quality photography online" as they state on their website. Andy does a great job of selecting unique and compelling imagery, and I think the layout is fantastic.

In regard to Review Santa Fe however, I have to agree with Sarah Sudhoff's assessment that overall the work seems to be, as she puts it, "Super Safe" (read her post on that here). I didn't apply this year so I can comfortably say it's not an issue of show-envy, and as Sarah is included in the review she too is coming at it from an unbiased position. Well, maybe I'm not being entirely honest...Let me elaborate:

There was the desire to apply to the Review, but I'm not at a point yet in my role as a mother where I feel comfortable getting on a plane and leaving Edie and June. It's not that I can't ever be apart from them--a night here or there to get some alone time with James is, trust me, fantastic. I'm just not ready for that physical distance, not yet. And I admit that it's intimidating to think about the amount of time and effort that would be involved in printing out large amounts of work. My focus is still on creating, and on not losing the passion for shooting and editing to the process of submitting.

But here's where I worry that I'm limiting myself, or that things are passing me by: I have yet to apply to or attend any portfolio reviews because of this fear of putting the work together in a tangible physical sense. This is not to say I haven't already printed many of the images, and know that they translate cohesively into a palpable photographic form, it's more the entire chain of editing, arranging, final printing and end presentation makes me freeze up. I do carry a fair amount of anxiety wondering whether I'm getting myself out there enough, and trying to find where the balance lies, as always, between motherhood and my photography. It really can be a struggle to keep on top of the multitude of submissions, and lately I've been giving myself a bit of a break by not applying to much. In general I've found that online venues are the most comfortable place for me currently because of their immediacy; if a show requires a CD to be mailed in I'm much less likely to get around to sending the work.

On this note I just learned of Blurb's Photography Book Now contest, and it sounds pretty incredible. The catch is I haven't created a photography book, one of the contest's requirements for entry. I've actually been thinking about making one for a good long while, but again (excuses, excuses) life has gotten in the way. Maybe this is the kick in the pants I need to put something together by the July 17th deadline. I've always been one of those people who gets fired up by the burst of energy that comes from putting things off until the last minute so perhaps this is my chance to hunker down and get rolling (though it's probably impossible to make the deadline given printing times, getting a hard copy in my hands, etc). Even if there's no way to finish the book before the 17th I'd like to make one anyhow--it may be time to at least try to take my work to the next level and put my fears about how I'm going to do it all aside by simply focusing on the task at hand.