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The Art Show Booth Slide |
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I use the word "slide" to represent any transparency, picture or digital image used for jurying purposes. |
| scroll down to see some example booth photographs |
| One of the services I offer is to change the artwork in a booth of 2D work. I can change the pictures within mats and/or frames on any wall so that your old booth slide will now have your new work. call me for more information. 412-767-8644. |
| What is a booth slide? A common enough question for artists who have never applied to an art show. The simple answer is a picture of your display as if it were set up at an art show. And it must include your art. |
| How do art shows use your booth slide? Every show is different. Some art shows don't use it or even ask for it. Some art shows treat it with equal weight as any of your jury images or maybe even more so. Some only use it as a tie breaker if both you and another artist are competing for a single space. And besides showing the jury that you can set up a professional display, it gives the jury a sense of scale or size of your work. But since not knowing how important is, you should strive to put together the most professional looking booth slide you can. |
| If you've never applied to one, I suggest walking an art show and paying attention to how artists are setting up their booths. That will give you an idea of what kind of display props and tent you should be looking to purchase. |
| There are two schools of thought. One school thinks the booth picture should be exactly as your booth appears at an art show, bins and all. The other school of thought is that your booth picture should show your artwork as if it were being viewed in the finest art gallery or museum. Fortunately, art shows don't actually define the booth image or we would probably need a different booth image for each show we apply to. |
| Tip. I've recently started hearing that some art shows actually print out the booth image and use it for on site enforcement of how much is included in the booth. Tip. If you normally include more than one style of work in your booth, but only use one style for jurying, consider having all styles you intend to sell in your booth slide. It could save you from being asked to either put some work away or in extreme case being asked to pack up and leave the show. |
| Some photography guidelines. Use a tripod or some other means of camera support. An outdoor booth picture should be taken under a white canopy. I recommend hanging three canopy walls so nothing distracting is seen through your booth. Make sure to NOT include any identifying (or handmade) signs or people in your booth. Tip. The best booth pictures are taken when the booth is set up for the picture, not as an afterthought at an art show, though that's when most booth pictures are taken. If you do shoot your booth slide at a show, make sure to set the booth up for the photograph, then reset it up to sell after the photo is taken. Tip. A white canopy photographed in sunlight becomes a magnet in a jury room because your eyes automatically get drawn to the brightest part of an image, or brightest image when they're projected simultaneously. Therefore, when I work on images for artists, I crop to minimize how much of the canopy is visible in the image as you can see in the photography booth without bins. |
| With the introduction of digital jurying, artists seem to be coming out of the woodwork to apply to art shows. First time artists who have never done an art show usually have the most questions about a display. What most of the ZAPP shows have done is create an emerging artist category where either a grouping of artwork or just another individual artwork piece is specified as the booth in the ZAPP image upload. If you fall into that category, you must read the instructions carefully or call the show with questions on how the display image should be handled. For artists that get accepted in the emerging artist category, the shows (I know that Main Street Fort Worth does) usually supply the necessary display equipment. |
| Though it's mainly for 2D art, there are resources for purchasing display equipment on the companion web site of the Art Show Photography Forum |
| The photographs below are examples of different types of booth jury slides and can be used for ideas on how to photograph your own display. The one thing that they all have in common is the display items (racks, pedestals, canopy, etc.) and presentation of the art is professional looking. |
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| Photography booth slides - with and without bins of unframed work (below) |
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| Jewelry booth slides (below) |
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| Mixed Media booth slides (below) |
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| Sculpture booth slides (below) |
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| Thanks to all the artists that
contributed their booth images. Disclaimer. I'm not responsible for anyone getting rejected from a show based on reading the content of this web page. But you can give me the credit for any acceptances. |
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All photos on this site are available for stock or
fine art sales |
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| Slide scanning for ZAPP and other digital jury systems | |||
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Web site content © Larry Berman, Chris Maher, or the originating artists |
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Chris
Maher
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Larry
Berman
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