Hi all pinhole swappers !
As I wrote to you in my last post, it's now time to organize a little this
promising Pinhole Print 2004 Spring Swap , called PS4.
First of all, since until then it was not clear, it is important to
understand that 2 completely distinct swaps are starting now :
- the informal "Holiday Swap" for which you may get all info and sign in at
:
http://www.rahji.com/noindex/pinholenewyear2004.php3
I take the present opportunity to wish good luck and full success to this
swap and all its participants !
- "our" swap : the formal PS4 , which will be discussed there.
The present post is due only to pinholers interested in participating in the
PS4.
Where are we with PS4 ?
At present time , there are about 60 persons who expressed their intention
to participate in PS4. The exact number is not easy to determine because
there have been some confusion between PS4 and holidays Swap.
In any case, these were only intentions and you will have to "sign in"
(procedure explained farther) if you wish to participate.
Some ideas and suggested guidelines for this PS4 swap.
-1- Group size / number of swaps:
60 or more is far too much for a single Swap. I suggest we start with
several Groups (the Zero 2000 Swap was a 18 or 19 members group and I found
it really heavy to manage and to do all the work (print making, packing,
sending...).12 or 13 people is still a pleasure when 19 begin to be hard
work , time-and money consuming .
When the Sign-in period is over the exact count of participants will be
known and we shall determine the exact number of Groups (probably 5 or 6...)
-2- Groups coordination
a) Internal organization : If we agree on several print Swaps groups, I
suggest that each PS4 group gets his own coordinator for the internal
organization of the swap ; then I would have only one group to coordinate
and not 5 or 6, which really makes too heavy work.
Some of you have contacted me directly to help me by taking the charge of
coordinator in one of the future Groups. This is very kind and as we
probably shall need 5 or 6 coordinators, if some of you want to help, please
contact me directly.
b) Global coherence : it seems to me that having 5 or 6 Groups starting
does not necessarily mean that they ignore each other : after all, all of us
are pinhole-lovers sharing experiences through the discussion list and
surely, I'll be interested in seeing the other swap groups productions. It's
why I suggest that we try to keep close contact between the Groups :
starting together with some common rules, working separately, and joining
together at the end of the swaps to share our experiences. We are now at the
start of the 1st step which can be common for all the Swap Groups : agreeing
together on some basic rules; this step will conclude with the
constitution of the 5 or 6 PS4 groups (on some specific points the existence
of distinct groups may allow to manage different choices of the
participants, i.e. open subject matter / determined subject). At this time,
each of us, according to his (her) preferences will join one of the
Groups, each Group having his own co-ordinator. After that, each group will
manage its own functionment until the closing of the Swap. For the last
step, when all the groups have concluded their swap, we have to find the
best way to share the results all together (between all the members in all
the groups). I suggest that the 5 or 6 Group coordinators keep in touch
together during all the swap to ensure the global coherence.
PS4 Groups names : as soon as we 'll decide of how many groups we want
to
create, it would be useful to give each group a distinctive name, so
that we always know about whom we are speaking...
-3- Swap deadline :
I suggest that the date be the same for all the groups of the Swap. It
would make it easier after for the last step "sharing between the groups".
The date depends on the time we need to all agree on the organization and to
constitute the various groups but I presume it will not take more than 2 or
3 weeks after the closing of "sign-in" procedure!
I suggest the following deadline :
Saturday February 29 2004 (yes, it exists!)
"Deadline" date means : on this day each participant must have sent all his
pictures to other members of his group.
I chose this date by considerating 3 elements :
. by experience in previous swaps, I know that he delay must not be too
short because many people cannot hold the date
. several people will participate both in PS4 and holidays swap and this
will
be heavy load on December/January period
. I wish that we all get PS4 pictures before pinholeday WPPD4 (April 25).
For those of us who organize events for WPPD (exhibits, lectures,
workshops...), it may be a great benefit to show some pictures realized by
other pinholers around the world. I did that for the 3 last editions of WPPD
and I have really been glad to show the variety of pictures exchanged in our
previous swaps.
February 29 gives us enough time to do a good job (about 3-4 months). If you
agree, please respect this deadline...
-4- number of prints : 1 by participant
-5- only lensless pictures (pinhole, zone plate, slit, ...)
-5- Print Size :
I would suggest A4 format as the maximum size for prints : this allows
people willing to send "digital" prints to use A4 paper. Minimum format
could be "post-card" to keep some coherence. Of course, I mean sizes for
the support, not image sizes.
These dimensions would allow to mail and store the prints easily.
-6- Print Medium :
The global swap is open to both silver and digital prints. Though, I noticed
after the previous pinhole print swaps that traditional and digital prints
are really very different objects : it's not so easy to look at them side by
side and to display them in an album. Though a lover of FB fine prints, I
must say that in the previous swaps I really got splendid digital prints...
Those of us who would really prefer silver prints and absolutely don't want
digital prints, please let us know as soon as possible : it could eventually
become a criteria for the constitution of one of the Swap groups (if there
is 11 or 12 people).
-7- Print Subject :
We may probably satisfy everybody by having a "global" open subject swap.
Though, it may happen that some of us would have a preference for a certain
theme; if so and if there are sufficient participants agreeing with this
subject, we could build a "specialized" group. This happened for our last
Pinhole Swap for which I was happy to coordinate the "Self-portrait" Group
fascinating pictures!)
If you are interested in a special subject, please precise it when you post
your Sign-in message.
At this day, nobody asked for a "specific" subject.
These are indications of guidelines which can be modified, improved,
discussed, etc but which take into account the previous print swaps.
Now , the most important thing is to constitute the Groups, to have one
coordinator for each group and to start!
For this next step, we need to know exactly who wants to participate; this
leads us to the "Sign in procedure" which I send in a separate post to the
list.
Important ! PS4 communication place :
>From now, in order to not "pollute" the pinhole discussion list with
specific posts about PS4, please do not post to the list but to the
following address:
j.daubas.ph...@free.fr
with the mention PS4 in your subject line.
By advance, many thanks!
and let's go pinholing...
Cheers from France
Jean
