April 6th, 2024

I spent my seventieth birthday attending the Ralph Gibson workshop. It was portfolio review day. There were sixteen of us, and we each had submitted 10–12 images for the review. With Ted Forbes running the projector, Ralph would run through each group of images and then return to the beginning to provide detailed comments. Each review took thirty to forty minutes. It was a long day.

Ted and Ralph decided to run the reviews alphabetically based on our first names, which meant my review was the last of the day. The portfolios' overall quality and subject matter varied greatly, as did Ralph's comments and suggestions. The portfolio before mine was a group of images by a photographer from Australia, Niv Novak, whose images of dancers were just stunning – you can check out his work here.

Based on the quality of Niv's work, combined with the fact that we had run slightly long for the day and my review was last, I expected the worst. Ultimately, Ralph was complimentary of my images, especially Grey Dice, Barber Pole, Family Owned, Two-Faced, Blue Chairs and Blue Cadillac. He believed the work represented a potential project on Americana or a similar theme. I was greatly relieved and pleased.

Later in the evening, I had a wonderful dinner with my friend to celebrate my birthday, which was a great way to end what had been a great day.