What I learned doing my first DIY exhibition

Last month I took a big step. I put on my first exhibition — Southern Shores. The experience helped me see things about myself and my photography that I wanted to share with you. I’m breaking this post into two sections. The first will deal with the practical and technical aspects of hosting an exhibition. The second will look at the emotional component, giving an insight into what I felt and learned through putting my pictures on show.

Part 1…

You can do it yourself and you can do it for cheap

From the beginning, I’ve approached photography with a DIY attitude. Over the past few years I’ve taught myself to shoot, process, and edit my pictures. I’m a strong believer in people’s ability to gain new skills. For the exhibition I wanted to continue with this ethos. Through organizing it myself I knew I would learn a lot and also have the freedom to create an event that aligned with my vision for how I share my work.

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the exhibition. My aim was to share my photos in a way that was not too costly for me, or the people looking at them. This meant I first had to find a venue that wouldn’t charge me to exhibit, or charge the people coming to the event. Luckily, there is a community space in my neighbourhood, The Hive, which offers just the right platform for this kind of thing. They support the arts and were happy to host the show. No cover charge. No venue fee. We agreed that if I sold any work they would then take a commission on the sales, which I think is a fair way of doing things.

To keep printing costs low, I opted to print my shots on photographic paper and not frame them. I got beautiful 18×12 black and white prints on Fuji crystal archival supreme paper. These cost about R50 each from my printer.

It’s easy to get caught up in art world anxiety. Feeling like people won’t take your photos seriously if they’re not in frames or printed on art paper. That’s something you want to fight against. Don’t buy into it. I didn’t have one person at my show ask me anything about the paper the photos were printed on, or why they weren’t in frames.

Collaboration brings calm

For Southern Shores I collaborated with Barry Christianson, a dedicated street photographer whose work I admire. Over the years Barry has been documenting life in his neighbourhood Sea Point. I thought his work would complement my work on Muizenberg. I got hold of him earlier this year with my idea for the collaboration and he was in. It felt good to have Barry’s support right from the beginning.

Working with another photographer for a show has many benefits. The first is just having someone to bounce ideas off. Another is that you don’t feel like you’re doing everything alone. This reduces anxiety. Working as a team helps a lot in the editing process. To decide on which photos we’d show, Barry and I went through a few rounds of editing. We shared a first digital rough cut of our selections and gave each other feedback. We then made some 4×6 prints and sat mulling over them with beers, moving them around to see how they’d fit together. I felt more confident in what I was going to put up on the wall after getting Barry’s input.

Joining forces with another photographer also means you can bring more people to the show since you’ve got two communities (friends, family, followers) who can come out to support. Barry and I were both pleased with the support we got on opening night. And I got to meet and talk to people from Barry’s network that I doubt would have been there if I was doing a solo show.

Publicity

If you want people to come see your work you’ve got to market yourself. The first port of call is to engage your community: tell your friends, family, followers. Instagram and the other social media channels are helpful here. Then look at the more traditional media routes. I listed Southern Shores at What’s On, an online events guide for Cape Town, and sent a write up to one of the local papers to include in their events section. I also put together a press release, which I sent to arts and culture site Between 10and5. They ran an article about the event which features a handful of our photos. Finally, I printed out some posters, which I stuck up in coffee shops around Muizenberg.

In retrospect, I realise I could have done more marketing. This is as important as getting a good venue and making sure you know how to put the photos on the wall. If people don’t know about your show they aren’t gong to come.

Prestick (what we call Blu-tack in South Africa) is your friend

For weeks before the show I battled through night terrors as I worried about how to put the photos on the wall. Without frames, photos are prone to curling and not that easy to stick up. Initially, I just wanted to stick them to the wall with prestick, like I used to do with the surfing posters in my room when I was a kid. My sister who is an artist told me this just wouldn’t fly. I then started thinking about gluing them to foam mounts. But, again the problem arose — how to stick the foam to the wall?

The woman at the local art shop advised me to use little metal bulldog clips, which are cheap (R1.20 each) but look smart. I liked the idea but came back to my eternal question: how will I stick them to the wall? Her answer: “prestick.” The trick with this is to use little balls of prestick on the back of the clips and make sure you push them hard against the wall. I also put little balls of the stuff on the edges of the back of my prints to help keep them flat to the wall. It worked a charm. Four weeks later the prints are still on the wall.

Photos look better when they’re level

Setting up an exhibition is stressful. It took us five hours to set up for Southern Shores. Five hours to set up 27 pictures. We devoted a lot of that time to making sure the photos were level and evenly spaced. You’ve got to make sure they look good on the wall.

To save time you need to decide on sequencing before you set up. You also want the right tools: tape measure, pencils, level. If you don’t have a traditional level you can download an app for your phone. It also helps if you can get help from someone who has done this type of thing before. We were lucky to have my sister, Jess Holdengarde, who is an artist and curator. What I learned from her is that it’s crucial to pay attention to the spacing between the shots. The way they sit together really impacts the overall look and feel of the layout. And don’t be lazy with the level. You’ve got to keep checking to make sure each photo is straight, otherwise you’ll run into a situation where the line of photos starts to slope upward or downward on the wall. You also want to make sure you set the photos at the right viewing level. That’s eye-level for someone of average height. I’m tall so I initially thought this would be higher on the wall. But Barry and Jess quickly reminded me that for many people what I consider eye-level is actually too high.

While setting up the photos and double-checking the levels and spacing can be a bit tedious it is very rewarding work. I’ll never forget the feeling of taking a step outside The Hive after we’d finished, taking a few breaths, and then walking back inside to see all our photos neatly lined up on the wall. I was proud of what we’d done.

Check back in a week or so for part two of this post, where I’ll share some thoughts on the actual experience of putting on an exhibition.