Imaging USA 2019: Day 1

by Francesco Carucci

Imaging USA is the longest-running photographic conference and exhibit in the USA, drawing 10,000 professional photographers each year, dating back to 1880. It's big.

The keynote was hilarious. The guy, Scott Stratten, basically a comedian turned marketeer and keynote speaker, packed his session with jokes, but was a bit light on content. 

Enjoyable nonetheless.

 

Day 1 was very light with sessions, so, like last year, I was free to wander around the International Photographic Competition exhibit to admire other people's work and, why not, look for my print being exhibited.

Who doesn't love a little bit of validation? I do.

And here it was, after six months of traveling half way across the USA, Golden Wave in all its exhibited glory!

 

That guy looks pretty happy, doesn't he?

The Merit Award is not only usable for bragging rights, it's also another step towards my Master Degree in Photography: with last year's merit I now have only eleven to go...

 

The most interesting, and useful, part of Day 1 is always the mentoring session with one of the trained judges of the IPC: people with decades of experience in photography.

I was very lucky to meet Mark, who used to manage the whole IPC for a decade or so. I had the chance to exchange few jokes that involved, somehow, wine and beer before our allotted time together.

Canonically, each mentoring slot is 15 minutes long and they run a tight ship over there. It must have been a combination of my Italian accent and the earlier jokes, but Mark had me there for more than half an hour, showering me with extremely useful insights on my images, uncovering several potential improvements to be implemented. 

I'm now ready for this year's submission.


Oh, and I met Bon Jovi, the entire band, who were posing for a band photography workshop at the Canon stand: I used to listen to them when I was fifteen; time has passed very fast. For them too. I love doing music and band photography when I have the chance, so the workshop was also very interesting.

 

 

Towards the end of the day, I attended a session by the Wasio couple about the value of printing: though focusing on wedding photography, which is not my cup of tea, it was refreshing to meet another printing geek in the speaker.

Life behind a large format printer tends to get pretty lonely after all. 

Bonus track 
 

 

It's dad's life!

Don't forget to give a look at Golden Wave Limited Edition.
 

 

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