|  Soft Light on Garrapata Beach I recently had an exhibit of my work open near my home, in Ceres, CA. One of the best parts of having your work shown is the reception that usually takes place to announce the show to the world. Receptions come in all shapes and sizes, from grand galas to more quaint events with family, friends, collectors and general art lovers. This most recent reception was one of the latter varieties. One of my favorite things to do during a reception, or anytime I see someone looking at my work, is to hang back and listen to what they say about it. This recent event was the perfect opportunity to be a fly on the wall because I didn’t have a name tag stating “ARTIST” or my name. Many of the casual viewers had no idea who I was and therefore didn’t hold their tongue when I was near. Generally the response to my work is great and fun with “That’s cool” and the occasional “Wow!”. Midway through the show I met back up with my wife and we compared notes as to what we heard. For me, nothing really jumped out but she told me of a woman that looked at one of my pieces and proudly declared to her friends that “This is clearly Photoshop’d, you see the water, that just doesn’t happen in nature.” After hearing that I immediately got defensive and angry, not throwing pictures off the wall Incredible Hulk angry, but a little miffed. I don’t “Photoshop” my images the way this young lady “knew” I did. Now of course I use Photoshop as my digital darkroom and I use it to its fullest extent, but I only do so to perfect the images to more closely match the scene that was in front of me and the emotions I felt while creating the image. I don’t add anything or change anything drastic; I let the beauty of nature take hold of the viewer. I simply record what’s there. My wife didn’t want to tell me who it was that commented on my image out of fear that I would try and explain my process to them and point out the errors they were making, she knows me very well. So I walked around the gallery chatting with different people, all-the-while keeping one eye out, visually trying to read the inner thoughts of everyone there, determined to find out who this lady was. Truthfully, it didn’t bug me that much, I’ve heard stuff like that before, it just annoyed me a little. Never-the-less I wanted to see what she thought of my other images. Later that evening I was talking with a friend at the event and I could hear a young lady speaking with the gallery owner mention my name several times and the gallery owner pointing me out to her. I continued chatting when suddenly a shout from across the room asked if I was Edward Mendes. It was the young lady talking to the gallery owner, “Yes,” I replied. She then shouted “You’re freak’n awesome, you’re an awesome photographer”! I thanked her from across the room but by the time I finished my conversation she was gone. My wife then came up, I told her how weird that was and she said, “That’s the girl that made the comment about your picture.” I learned something that night. You can’t dwell, no matter how little, on what people say about a single piece of your work. Whether they’re wrong or not in their assessment, you're probably worrying about nothing. The image above was the one in question at the reception, Last light on Garrapata Beach, Big Sur Coast of California. The effect of misty water that she thought was Photoshop was simply the result of a shutter speed of a few seconds. |
