
I've never made it to New York for the Photo Plus Expo before this year. Through my
ASMP membership, I was able to have a portfolio review by Elaine Totten Davis. Living in New York has never been that enticing to me but visiting is always a nice time. It turned into a reunion of sorts from the Maine Photo Workshops (now the
Maine Media Workshops) '02 lab intern days. I didn't know it then, but the 3 other interns I worked with would become great friends as we all headed into our photographic careers. Back then, we were mixing chemicals and keeping the lab working. Now, I'd have to review my notes a bit to make sure my developer, stop, and fixer would all do their jobs.

Anyway, the night before the review, I stayed with
John, living in Brooklyn and with one more year to go in his MFA studies. He's also starting up his own BW custom lab service. One of us had to rebel against the digital revolution. We stayed up showing each other our work and talking shop over bourbon and beer. John pointed me in the right direction towards the Expo the next morning.

The right direction included passing the
Adorama Store where I had to pick up a print for my review and then I walked past the
B&H Store a bit later. I've done plenty of online shopping at both of these stores but never visited them in person. Wasn't sure what was more impressive, the selection or the organization of the places. Some type A's definitely had a field day. B&H has a track system going throughout the store so that as you shop your items will stack up and wait for you and your credit card at the check out counter. They are lifted out of the basement and then roll over the ceiling floor on their way to check out. This way, there's no items taking up floorspace... and all the customers get be enticed by the gear whizzing by like toy train sets.

Past B&H, I bumped into intern 3 and 4,
Julie and
Dutch... now married. We all headed to the Javitz Center. You knew you weren't in the typcial street crowd as you started to hear things like, (in nerdy photographer inflection) "Look at this light, it's more like afternoon than morning." We're a hopeless bunch sometimes.

The show was mayhem. All the stores and brands you've ever dealt with packed into an exhibit floor space showing off their latest wares. Sensory overload happens pretty quicly. There's plenty of marketing comedy too like photographers shooting models in cheesy set ups and poses so you can see the latest whatever at work live. I stopped by the
KEH booth to talk about used SB-800 flashes, the
Nikon booth to see lenses and cameras that I might rent some day,
Lensbaby to see their new bendy lens, and the ASMP booth for my review.

It went well. I showed my Guatemala work to Elaine and we talked about getting more education, portrait, editorial work and taking full advantage of my new studio set up. On the way out, I picked up some business books from the
Allworth Press corner of the booth. It was very nice getting to see some of the folks behind the various stores etc. I've dealt with for years but 2 hours was just about all I needed.

Got to hang out with Julie and Dutch on the Post Office building steps with tons of other people before getting on a bus headed back to Boston and my business.