The Center for the Visual Arts (CVA) Gallery is proud to announce the launch of its spring exhibition, Between Experience & Reality. This innovative showcase not only presents an eclectic array of photography from both Brookdale students and esteemed 20th-century artists but also pioneers a groundbreaking initiative in accessibility and technology integration within the realm of art interpretation.

Scheduled to debut on Thursday, March 21, and extending through April 24, Between Experience & Reality promises to captivate audiences with its dynamic blend of traditional and contemporary photographic works. From intimate portraits to sweeping landscapes, the exhibition offers a thought-provoking exploration of human experiences, and the ways photography intersects with reality.

At the heart of this exhibition lies a revolutionary approach to art accessibility: Alt-Text. Based on Bojana Coklyat and Shannon Finnegan’s “Alt-Text-as Poetry” model and spearheaded by a collaborative effort involving authors Oudai Al-Shuaibi, Sophie Jimenez, Gianella Rios, Anna Boiarchuk, Amy Farris, David Levy, and Barbara Russo, this initiative aims to enrich the viewing experience for individuals with low or no vision. By providing descriptive text for select photographs, the CVA Gallery ensures that art remains inclusive and accessible to all community members.

The exhibition combines famous artworks from Brookdale’s collection by artists like Walker Evans, Danny Lyon, Ansel Adams, Arthur Tess, and Bruce Davidson with pieces from current and recent Brookdale photography students. This comparison encourages discussions about how traditional and contemporary issues meet in photography.

Among the collection pieces is Bruce Davidson’s “East 100th Street, Spanish Harlem New York City, USA, 1966.” Davidson, an Illinois native, captured the essence of East Harlem with remarkable insight and sensitivity. His journey into the hidden worlds of East Harlem began in the early 1950s, spurred by a fleeting glimpse through a commuter train window. After receiving a grant from the US National Endowment for the Arts, Davidson photographed 100th Harlem Street. The piece in this exhibition demonstrates the intimacy and mutual respect between the photographer and the subject indicative of Davidson’s moral vision. His subjects are looking at the camera as he challenges the viewer to hold their gaze and consider their desperate circumstances. Davidson said, “I didn’t want to be the observed observer. I wanted to be with my subjects face to face.”

Another notable inclusion is Edward Weston’s “Dunes, Oceano, 1936.” Weston, a seminal figure in American photography, masterfully transforms ordinary subjects into extraordinary compositions. In “Dunes, Oceano,” Weston explores the contours and textures of shifting sands, blurring the lines between form and abstraction. His keen eye for detail and composition elevates the natural landscape into a realm of timeless beauty and intrigue.

Whether exploring the intricacies of Alt-Text or engaging with the timeless beauty of photographic art, Between Experience & Reality promises to inspire, provoke, and challenge perceptions.

One of the single most worthwhile investments you can make as a photographer is paying for a bespoke website. Whether you’re a commercial assignment photographer looking to showcase your best work, a batch shooter wanting to create a home for your purchase galleries, or anything in between, an online presence outside of social media is a crucial component of any creative’s toolkit.

The double-edged sword that comes with this, however, is that there are almost as many ways to do this as there are customers to pay for it. For those who are technically minded and willing to tinker under the hood, there are platforms like WordPress that offer nearly unlimited customization, and for people who just want a simple, all-in-one solution to get their work in front of more eyeballs with as little faffing around with plugins and add-ons as possible, we have a number of services promising to get us going quickly and easily. Having an abundance of options is great, but it can lead to option paralysis, which, if you’ve ever tried to comparison-shop something like a 50mm f/1.4 for your chosen mount, you’ll know is decidedly not great.

Here, I’m going to do my best to cut through the noise and figure out which of the most popular hosting services might be best for a given creative use case.

Let’s take the on-ramp to the information superhighway.

Built vs. Bought

The core difference between many of the hosting solutions on offer is the degree to which the website owner needs to worry about actually “building” their site beyond editing page content. As previously mentioned, if you’re willing to get your figurative hands dirty, you can put together a solution that is tailored precisely to your specific needs, using a site like WordPress. This path offers complete control over every aesthetic and technical component of your site, so if you’re well-versed in Javascript, CSS, or HTML, this might be the option for you.

However, I, probably like most of you, am much more concerned about having things taken off my plate and having my website “just work” without having to fuss around with a bunch of technical stuff. For us, there are thankfully a bevy of turn-key solutions available that make going from nothing to a fully functional website a snap, and these are primarily what I’ll be focusing on here.

The Big 2

Darlings of content creators everywhere, Wix and Squarespace are undoubtedly top of the tree of consumer-level DIY web hosting when it comes to the sheer number of people using their platforms, at least when it comes to paid users. Each of these offers a similar purchase proposition – a visual website builder accompanied by a suite of back-end tools designed to make managing your site and generating traffic more efficient.

The actual product offerings between the two are similar enough in functionality to almost be the same. The drag-and-drop website builders are very similar, as are the feature packages available in the various subscription tiers. Of the two, though, Squarespace certainly seems like the better value, with each of its paid plan tiers being significantly less expensive than the approximately equivalent counterpart from Wix (the least expensive option that supports e-commerce is $23/mo on Squarespace and $29/mo on Wix).

The main problem I have with both of these platforms is that they do not seem to be particularly well-suited to monetizing your photos in the ways that I, and many photographers, would want to. Since they’re both designed to do everything pretty well, they forego a number of features that would be incredibly useful for a particular user.

As of the time of writing, neither Squarespace nor Wix seem to have any kind of support for uploading a gallery of many photos all at once and allowing visitors to purchase one or more. In order to sell photos at all, you have to upload each photo individually as its own product, with an individual title, description, price, and all associated data. This might not be a concern for a fine art photographer or someone who only wants to sell prints, since both sites offer integrations with 3rd-party printing services, but for volume shooters like me who come away from a shoot with thousands and thousands of photos, this is likely to be a dealbreaker.

To make matters even worse, Wix actually did have this function in the past. My site has been hosted on Wix for the entire time I’ve had it, and the Pro Galleries and Art Store features allowed my customers to browse the relevant galleries and purchase only what they wanted to purchase. It was exactly the functionality I wanted, and I was happy with it.

However, after a spate of external assignments that had taken my attention away from my normal work, I was shocked to find that the Pro Galleries feature had been replaced with the Photo Albums system, without any form of notification-no email, no text, no pop-up in the builder, nothing. This meant that rather than simply being able to create a new page for each album with a grid of photos for browsing, I would need to go into the back end of the builder and create what is basically an entire new multi-page site for each batch of photos. Clunky and slow, but I guess if it still works, it still works?

Except it doesn’t. At some point between the implementation of the Photo Albums system and the moment I first had to use it, they seem to have entirely removed the ability to monetize the photos in the albums on a per-image basis. I know for certain it existed at some point based on the help center articles I found, but I scoured the Wix forums and Reddit and everywhere I could think of to try and find some kind of workaround, and as far as I can tell, there is now no way to have this kind of gallery functionality on Wix. The kicker? I found this out while trying to get a previous day’s event album posted. That was fun.

At the end of the day, if all you want to do is create a portfolio site to showcase your best work and you want the peace of mind that comes with having your site hosted on one of the two biggest platforms in the space, either one of these options is likely to be fine. Just do your due diligence and make sure that whichever you pay for will actually fit your needs.

For the rest of us, though, we need a different solution.

Challenger Approaching

Newer on the block is Format, a website building and hosting service pitched as a “by creatives, for creatives” experience. It provides many of the same features as Wix and Squarespace, in the same general visual builder style, but since it is designed specifically for photographers, designers, editors, and other creatives, it supports more specialized functionality for our particular needs.

The Format user interface isn’t quite as straightforward as those of its competitors, but it is by no means difficult to use. Rather than a purely drag-and-drop system where all of your edits are done on a facsimile of the actual live site, Format’s editor is much more behind the scenes. However, subjectively, it’s definitely simpler to use in that you’re less likely to screw up the layout of a page by changing one thing incorrectly, and it’s much snappier to use than a fully-rendered drag-and-drop editor, which, if you’re like me, is almost as important as anything else.

As well as being a generally good experience to use when building your site, the platform offers a number of tools tailored to the creative field. For example, included in the Format suite is a contract builder, a godsend for those of us who take on a number of one-off or short-term jobs, as well as an integrated file transfer function so you needn’t pay for WeTransfer or another service to facilitate delivery to a client, and can avoid the potentially-unprofessional impression that a Google Drive or Dropbox link might give. Plans are also pretty reasonably priced, with the middle “Pro” plan coming in at $17/mo annually.

Seems awesome, right? Well, again, frustratingly, there doesn’t seem to be a purchase gallery function, exactly the same problem that I had with both Squarespace and Wix. The print store and individual digital downloads are present, but support for a large batch upload from which site visitors can choose photos to purchase is conspicuously absent.

The King of Commerce

And that brings us to SmugMug.

SmugMug takes a different approach to the other offerings here in that it is clearly designed entirely to display and monetize photo and video content. Everything not related to achieving that goal has been gotten rid of. On SmugMug, you won’t find a slick marketing suite or other ancillary tools, but what you will find is, in my opinion, the single best platform for monetizing your work the way you want to monetize it.

This platform offers exactly the functionality I had lost from Wix, in a package that is both uncluttered and easy to navigate. I really do have an actual paid SmugMug site in addition to my Wix site, which I was forced to spin up in an afternoon when I realized I wouldn’t be able to use Wix anymore for selling my work, and while it’s still pretty basic, it serves my e-commerce needs to a T. Not only are purchase galleries easy to create and organize, but I can offer package deals and other discounts, which is something I hadn’t been able to do before.

The main gripe I have with SmugMug is that, because of its sharp focus on commerce, the site builder is a little basic. It reminds me of Format in that much of the assembly is done using fixed content blocks rather than a freeform system that allows you to put anything anywhere. I suppose, though, that this makes optimization for mobile much easier since nothing the user does can break the formatting. Aside from that, SmugMug seems to only support video up to a resolution of 1920×1080/30p, which might not be much of a concern for everyone, but personally, 4K has been my minimum standard for quite a while now since even many smartphones can display significantly higher than 1080p.

Given that it’s primarily a commerce-based solution, SmugMug does have a bit of a wider spectrum of pricing than the other options here. A basic personal site can be had for as little as $10/mo, while the “Pro” subscription tier can go all the way up to $32/mo when paid annually. If that still isn’t enough, there is an enterprise plan on offer, but at a starting price of $500/mo, I have a sneaking suspicion that that may be beyond the scope of most photographers.

Other Hosting Options

Aside from the previously mentioned offerings, there are dozens of other services available to create your own website. For the sake of brevity, I’ve picked a few of the best-known for a lightning round.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy started life as a domain registry, somewhere where you could purchase and register a specific web address to connect it to a website, an email inbox, or whatever else you might want to do. Nowadays, they’ve dipped their toes in the site-building market as well. Their in-house building interface is rather basic, being based around a set number of content blocks with a relatively small number of preset theme templates, and seems to lack very many customization features. However, GoDaddy offers managed hosting for WordPress sites as well for as little as $11/mo, so they might be worth checking out if you have a pre-existing WordPress site and want some help on the back end.

Web.com

Web.com is another relatively new player in the web design and building market, with a major component of its purchase proposition being an “AI-assisted” (yawn…) approach to getting set up. Indeed, their entire home page is festooned with mentions of AI in just about every line of copy. The general gist is that just about everything in their builder can be created and edited simply by telling it what you want to see in text form, and it will generate images, copy, and any number of other elements to fit that request. They also seem to be heavily cashing in on this aspect of their service – while a top-tier paid plan starts at only $20/mo, it balloons to $45/mo after the first year, which is a bigger jump than any other competitor I’ve seen.

Personally, I’m not much of a fan of AI replacing creative work in general, so such a heavy emphasis on the technology kind of rubs me the wrong way. If, however, you just need to get online at absolutely the fastest speed possible, or are interested in messing around to see what you can come up with, this might be an interesting proposition. Just don’t forget that spike in renewal fees-yikes.

WordPress

WordPress is, more or less, the OG of getting yourself online for cheap. Whether that was a personal blog, small business site, or anything in between, chances are there was a way to do it on WordPress. That flexibility and freedom comes at a cost, however – having worked on a WordPress site for a previous in-house position, it is nowhere near as user-friendly or seamless as the other options here, and that’s before you even start talking about plugins and other integrations. The upshot of this, though, is that whatever your problem might be, there’s probably documentation to be found somewhere online on how to fix it. In addition, its popularity means that there are a slew of “on-top” services like Bluehost and Hostinger that promise to take some of the pain points away from building and managing your WordPress site – these are, of course, subject to an additional cost.

If you’re just starting to build your online presence, I would advise you to stay away from WordPress unless you’re willing to commit to spending quite a bit of time and energy managing your site, but if you absolutely have to have an environment where you can do pretty much whatever you want, it could be a good pick.

Closing Thoughts

Creatives today live in a world in which it is easier than ever to get our work in front of others. Starting off by building a social media following is a great idea, but ultimately, if you want to take your craft to the next level, it’s a good idea to make yourself a website. Depending on your needs, it may be beneficial to go with one over another. Here are my final recommendations:

Best General-Purpose: Squarespace. More-or-less equivalent to Wix, but cheaper. Good mix of customization and fixed elements that act as guard rails so you don’t get into too much trouble with broken formatting and other issues. Great for a portfolio, photo blog, or other site designed primarily to show off your work.

Best for Commerce: SmugMug. If you’re looking to sell your work, especially if you’re a batch shooter, SmugMug is in front by a country mile. It’s certainly not the most flexible or modern when compared to others, but given the lack of competition in this very specific use case, there is almost no reason to go with anything else if monetization is important to you. SmugMug is tailored specifically to working photographers, and it shows.

Best for Power-Users: WordPress. It’s pretty cheap, even with a paid building service like Bluehost added on top, almost endlessly customizable, and adaptable to just about any need. Its one major downfall is how much work it can be to maintain in comparison to the others. For the right person, though, nothing else will come close.

Honorable Mention: Format. Format strikes a good balance between general-purpose features and those a working creative can take advantage of, at a competitive price. It has its quirks, but overall is an excellent choice if you don’t need the overwhelming amount of features that come with Squarespace, Wix, or another platform, and would be an excellent main site companion to a dedicated purchase site from SmugMug if you’re willing to manage two.

CHICAGO (CBS) – A new book showcases where Chicago artists create their works.

Mark Ballogg’s home is full of art, mostly locally crafted. Each piece is meticulously displayed with the collection, almost mimicking a museum or an art gallery.

“I have a relationship with Chicago artists, and I try to collect a lot of Chicago art, and I especially like collecting people that are not fully at their peak exposure,” He said.

Ballogg is an artist, too, though it’s not a title he’s always been comfortable bearing through his 40-year career.

“I’ve always struggled with this idea that photography is an art form, and I always felt like we’re kind of second-class citizens, you know, it’s not it’s not as precious as a drawing or a painting,” he said.

As a commercial architecture photographer, he spent most of his career photographing other people’s work.

“Now I’m at a point where I’m semi-retired, and my focus has shifted to my own personal work,” Ballogg said. “So, I’ll be 73 in April, so now, now is my renaissance.”

The most recent act in his renaissance is his latest project – a photobook fit for a coffee table documenting the words and studios of the city’s artists – aptly named “Making Space.”

“Interestingly enough, in the end, I realized that I was in the process of making a space for my own practice.”

Ballogg spent six years photographing and interviewing over 160 Chicago artists in some of their most private spaces. Sometimes in their homes, always in their studios, and often, the two overlap regardless.

For painter Tim Anderson and his cats – George and Frankie – their home and studio space are one and the same. 

“A lot of artists have never had people come to their studio for any reason except their friends, you know, and it’s so cool to see some of these studios. I mean, it lends credence to your mess,” Anderson said.

“And then he, he did it the way he wanted to do it, with no superfluous stuff from publishers, and it’s just brilliant. His premise of not necessarily the artist.”

“That’s not what he was after. It wasn’t really about my work. It was about the space and how it looks,” said Phillis Bramson.

Bramson’s studio also made it into the final edit, and like many artists in the book, her first in-person introduction to Ballogg was when he came over with his camera.

“I just. I just trusted him, you know, I felt that he was… I hadn’t met him before, but I just felt that it was a valid endeavor,” she said.

He may have ended up with 166 artists in the final copy, but he reached out to over 500.

“My initial goal was to expose everyone to the Chicago artist community and its diversity, and I wanted to try to represent everyone,” Ballogg said.

“I think it’s really important to expose people to that. There’s kind of a myth, I think, around artists. They’re damaged, or they’re unusual. They’re unique, and we’re all artists.”

Each artist in the book was included to show a different facet of Chicago, not just within the art scene but across the city as a whole. 

EBL sent us their Updated 808U Battery Charger with eight AAA batteries. It has a flexible design that might appeal to photographers.

Note: EBL sent us the Updated 808U Battery Charger. However, this is a completely independent review. All thoughts about this item are our own.

Pros

• A clever design allows you to charge AA or AAA batteries in each bay.
• Each bay uses independent IC control, meaning that you can charge a combination of AA and AAA batteries.
• Has two USB ports for charging other various items…and they have a nice, snug fit.

Cons

• I can’t really think of any.

EBL Updated 808U Battery Charger — Technical Specifications

All of the technical specifications for the EBL Updated 808U Battery Charger are from the EBL website.

Battery charger

• Input: AC100-240V 50/60Hz 15W Max
• Output 1: DC 1.2V 1000mA
• AA: 1000mA Full load single slot charging current: 230~250 mAh
• AAA: 500m A Full load single slot charging current: 125mAh
• USB Output: DC 5V 2A
• Product Dimensions 1.1″D x 3.7″W x 7.2″H
• Item Weight 9.87 Ounces

Battery specifications

• Voltage 1.2V
• Battery Type Ni-MH
• Rechargeable Yes
• Weight of Single AA Battery 24.8g/0.87oz
• Weight of Single AAA Battery 13g/0.46oz
• Dimensions of AA Batteries (50.3±0.3)*(14.3±0.5)mm
• Dimensions of AAA Batteries (44.35±0.3)*(10.35±0.25)mm

What’s included in the review copy (there are numerous options on the page):

• 1 X EBL 808U Battery Charger
• 1 X AC Power Cable
• 1 X User Manual
• 8 x 1100mAh Rechargeable AAA Batteries

EBL Updated 808U Battery Charger — Ergonomics and build quality

Ergonomics

It is easy to place the batteries into the charger. The charger is large enough so that it lays flat. I know that sounds ridiculous, but sometimes if there is a kink in the power cable, accessories such as battery chargers can sometimes flop over.

USB cables fit snugly in both the USB ports. I’ve had numerous devices that don’t offer this. I like to know that my USB cable is less prone to falling out and has a good connection if I am charging my flashlights, camera batteries, phone, and other devices.

Build quality

The Updated 808U Battery Charger seems to be solidly. As mentioned, the USB ports are nice and snug, and there are no seams or ill-fitting pieces anywhere to be found.

The battery bays are also snug. I turned the charger upside down and shook it several times. All of the batteries remained in place.

The batteries

The eight included batteries use what EBL describes as “ProCyco technology”. I Googled this, of course, but it seems to be a proprietary phrase from EBL. EBL says that this technology helps batteries maximize their fullest capacity, enabling them to charge and recycle up to 1200 times, and up to 500 times for deep charging and discharging cycles. The website states that a normal amount is 400 times.

I’ll quote EBL for the batteries’ structure: “Embedded seal structure expand the space of crystal lattice, make more room for hydrogen, so EBL batteries will holds 80% power after 3 years benefit from its concentration to low self-discharge project.” So yes, the batteries are designed to hold their charge longer.

EBL Updated 808U Battery Charger — In the field

I took the charger and batteries on a short night photography trip. The included power cable was reasonably long for the desk area.

Some of my other small, lightweight devices are prone to twisting on their sides if there is a kink in the power cable. Not so with this battery charger, which lays flat.

I found the addition of the two USB ports to be valuable. The EBL charger was able to charge almost all of my devices. You won’t need to hunt around for as many outlets. I plugged in one Pentax battery charger and one USB-chargeable flashlight, and didn’t need more than that.

With the added ability to charge any combination of AA and AAA batteries simultaneously via the independent IC controls, this battery charger quickly became rather useful. AAA batteries are used in a number of photography-related gear, including intervalometers and remote intervalometer devices.

Final thoughts

Here’s where I make my usual comment about chargers. I am red-green colorblind, also known as deuteranopia. Approximately 8% of males have this, so it’s not unusual. 

The EBL smart charger uses red and green lights to indicate the status of each battery. While ordinarily, this poses a problem, EBL designs their green lights so they glow considerably brighter. You have no idea how useful this is.

Of course, I do wish that manufacturers of charging devices used different methods to indicate when they were charging, and when they were fully charged. For instance, chargers could have blinking lights to indicate charging, then simply stop blinking. Or they could use red to indicate charging, and blue to indicate that it’s finished.

But how EBL addresses the lights is an effective one, and for that, I am grateful.

This week a collaboration between fine-art photographer David Yarrow, Gib Singleton Gallery, Relévant Galleries, and The Lodge at Vail announced a special unveiling of David Yarrow’s new Vail collection. David Yarrow enlisted legendary model, Alessandra Ambrosio, to depict iconic locales in his first Vail series. 

Locations include The Lodge at Vail, Vail’s original hotel built in 1962, and historic locations like the Minturn Saloon. Connecting to Vail’s rich history, David Yarrow’s new artwork evokes the destination’s style and elegance. Some of the destination’s most iconic locales reach new heights through David Yarrow’s artistic interpretations. 

Join David Yarrow as he unveils this new collection on March 15, 2024, at Relévant Galleries’ 4,000 square foot Vail location on East Meadow Drive. Interested guests should visit the event page and RSVP to join from 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.  

Scottish artist David Yarrow is now considered to be one of the best-selling photographers in the world. He is represented by over 40 galleries in America and Europe and over the last six years, sales of his work are in excess of $140 million. David refuses to be conveniently categorized within a genre of photography and his career, which started with the famous photograph of Diego Maradona in the World Cup in Mexico City in 1986, has taken him on a relentless journey around the world. His subject matters have included sports stars, wildlife, supermodels, and frontier towns. Since Covid, he has spent much of his time working on a personal anthology of the Wild West of America and tried to tell new stories that entertain rather than teach. He identifies as a storyteller as much as he does a photographic specialist. 

Philanthropy is core to the business culture of David Yarrow Photography and over the last seven years, over $13 million has been raised for charities across the world. The focus was initially on conservation, but now there is more of a focus on health, and in particular, pediatric cancer care. 

In 2023, the David Yarrow Family Foundation was established to raise further funds for cancer care and research, but also to support the arts in Scotland. The foundation is run by Jane Yarrow and David and Jane’s two children, Jade and Cameron. 

David Yarrow Photography is based in London, but the print shop and studio are in Los Angeles, where David’s son Cameron spends much of his time overseeing the U.S. business.  In 2019, David was flattered to receive the Great London Scot Award for Outstanding Achievement. 

What makes a “good” photo? This is a difficult question to answer because, like many types of art, determining whether a photo is “good” or not is an extremely subjective process. Perhaps this is why one photographer is under fire on TikTok for mentioning their starting rate is $8,500 for their laid-back, sometimes blurry, wedding photography aesthetic.

Katie (@Tripp.photo) posted a TikTok about their wedding photography rates after someone with a $2,000 budget inquired about their services. The video has a song that says, “You think I’m psycho, don’t you, mama?” To which TikToker @hausdrama responded, “Maybe just a tiny little bit.” They then walk viewers through some of Katie’s photographs to see if the price is, in their opinion, justified.

“What I did see is she’s a really big fan of blurry photos,” they say while showing a picture of rings Katie posted on Instagram. “I just feel like the jewelry placement—it’s just not working.”

They go on to show images of wedding dresses and a few brides that Katie photographed.

“I would say posing wedding dresses for a photo is not her strong suit,” @hausofdrama says about Katie’s photographs.

The video by @hausofdrama has over 2.8 million views and over 4,000 comments as of this article’s publishing.

Many in the comments section agree with @hausdrama’s critique of Katie’s photographs.

“It’s giving … astigmatism,” says one comment.

“Some of these photos remind me of the artsy ones I took with my iPhone 4s…,” mentions another.

@haussdrama 8.5k 😮‍💨 #photographytips #photographersoftiktok #trippphoto #weddingphotographer #weddingphotography #photographypricing #dramatok #haussdrama #trendingnow #viralvidoes #unpopularopinion ♬ original sound – 🍉Haussdrama🍉

Considering the buzz that @hausdrama’s video got, they decided to make another video where they compared Katie’s prices to those of other wedding photographers featured in an article on Brides.com. In this video, they explain that several other photographers in the article charge more than Katie for their starting rate. However, many also mentioned that they adjust the packages they offer to be compatible with their client’s budgets and that they’re open to conversations. @hausdrama states that it doesn’t seem like Katie did this and that making a video talking about people who can’t afford their services is rude.

In a twist of events, many folks in the comments section of this video disagree with @hausdrama’s drag of Katie’s rates and photography.

“Sh*t like this is what made me stop making content. The internet is full of bullies. She’s a mom. This is her livelihood. Imagine trying to ruin that just because you can’t afford her/she’s not your specific style,” says a comment.

“Why are you so mad at artists making good money?” another viewer asks. “Let her be successful & thriving girl it doesn’t hurt you.”

“If a client inquired with me and said their budget is 2k and I charge 6.5k (minimum) nothing I offer will fit their needs. it’s literally fine if you can’t afford my services,” another photographer mentions.

As you can see, the internet is at odds about whether Katie’s prices are justified and whether @hausofdrama even has a right to comment on them. While some say the photos lack skill, others believe it boils down to personal preference and that photographers have a right to set prices that work best for them and their livelihoods.

The Daily Dot has reached out to Katie via email and @hausofdrama via TikTok for comment.

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Metamorphosis will showcase four artists whose work highlights how experimentation, process innovation and relentlessly pushing boundaries can unlock eco-consciousness and impact. The four multi-media artists, Almudena Romero, Hannah Fletcher, Edd Carr and Scott Hunter, were selected on the strength of their innovative and unconventional approaches and early critical acclaim as emerging artists.

Riccardo Pasqua, CEO of Pasqua Wines, said: “As we approach our centennial year, we are delighted to be supporting Saatchi Gallery to instigate this show, underscoring our cross-generational commitment to innovation, creativity and unconventional approaches. Each of the artists demonstrates what we have always believed to be true – that through experimentation and pushing boundaries we can unlock progress.

“This international collaboration builds on Pasqua’s strong heritage of arts patronage, its commitment to making art accessible to the public and its unique belief that innovation is born from a profound, appreciative knowledge of history and tradition. We believe that creativity needs to be cultivated with love and care, just like the land. Pasqua has spent almost a century innovating the future of wine production – and we couldn’t be more delighted with this pairing.”

Since 1985, Saatchi Gallery has provided an innovative platform for contemporary art. Exhibitions have presented works by largely unseen young artists, or by international artists whose work has been rarely or never exhibited in the UK. This approach has made the Gallery one of the most recognised names in contemporary art.

Pasqua’s support of the show – which is announced as family winery, Pasqua, heads into its centenary year – reflects the inherent creativity and innovation of the brand’s DNA and values, which was recognised on internationally after the company won the coveted “Innovator of the Year” Award by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, for unlocking a series of remarkable evolutions for the wine industry. The coveted award recognized Pasqua’s longstanding investment in research and innovation, which led the winery to be dubbed “laboratory of research”, by Wine Enthusiast Magazine and is the result of three generations of stewardship by the Pasqua family.

Info about Metamorphosis: Innovation in Eco Photography & Film
29th May Private View – Strictly invitation only

Images and works of the artists HERE

Image Credits
© Scott Hunter from the Entropy Series, Entropy #11
© Almudena Romero. The Act of Producing. The Pigment Change.
© Hannah Fletcher Redox Reactions. Studio Waste Waters on Canotype Coated Paper, 2022
© Ed Carr. FILTHY BEAST WORSHIP, Print on Japanese Shrine Paper, 2023

About the Artists
Hannah Fletcher is an artist based in London, working primarily with photographic materials and processes, and is the founder of Sustainable Darkroom. Hannah Fletcher works with and researches the intricate relationships between photographic and not-so-photographic materials, questioning the life cycle and value of materials by incorporating waste from her studio and workshops back into the system of making. Fletcher also co-directs London Alternative Photography Collective, is a facilitator of sustainability within the arts, and has been mentoring and tutoring in ecologically minded art practices since 2019.

Almudena Romero is a British and Spanish visual artist based in London. Her practice uses photography to explore ways of representing, seeing and understanding. Romero’s works focus on how perception affects existence and how art shapes perception.  Almudena Romero holds an MA in Photography from the University of the Arts London and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communications. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has delivered courses, lectures and talks at universities, museums and institutions nationally.

Edd Carr is an artist based in the UK. Adapting photographic processes into moving image – his work depicts our relationship to ecological crisis and the wider nonhuman world. Edd is also one of the leaders of the Sustainable Darkroom, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the research, development, and advocacy of eco-friendly alternatives to analogue and digital photography.

Scott Hunter is a multidisciplinary artist based in Kinghorn, UK. He studied MFA Contemporary Art Practice at Edinburgh College of Art. Through the use of experimental photography, scientific processes, and ecological research, Hunter’s work challenges anthropocentrism by creating new representations of the landscape that contest traditional attitudes of landscape photography. His artistic exploration extends to sculpture and installation, pushing the boundaries of the photographic image.

About Pasqua Wines
PASQUA VIGNETI E CANTINE is a Veneto wine company, owned by the Pasqua family. Founded in 1925, the winery is recognized worldwide as a producer and ambassador of prestigious Veneto wines. The company’s ambition is to bring into the future, with renewed stylistic codes, all the winemaking experience consolidated over 100 years of history. Today, working alongside President Umberto are his sons Riccardo, Chief Executive Officer, and Alessandro, President of Pasqua USA. With the presentation of the Pasqua House of the Unconventional manifesto, today the company aims to be a research laboratory, a space for dialogue, where quality and creativity are the protagonists.

About Saatchi Gallery
Since 1985, Saatchi Gallery has provided an innovative platform for contemporary art. Exhibitions have presented works by largely unseen young artists, or by international artists whose work has been rarely or never exhibited in the UK. This approach has made the Gallery one of the most recognised names in contemporary art. Since moving to its current 70,000 square feet space in the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, London, the Gallery has welcomed over 10 million visitors. The Gallery hosts thousands of school visits annually and has over 6 million followers on social media. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity, beginning a new chapter in its history.

For further information, samples or imagery, please contact Colangelo & Partners:
Carlotta Ribolini: [email protected]
Irene Graziotto: [email protected]

Media Contact

Carlotta Ribolini, Colangelo & Partners, 7186038827, cribolini@colangelopr.com

SOURCE Pasqua Wines