ATPI Winter Conference 2023
The Association of Texas Photography Instructors (ATPI) Winter Conferences are basically two days worth of things that I wish I could be doing all the time. This is the first in-person winter conference we’ve been able to have in three years. You can skip the commentary and go straight to all the ATPI photos here.
The Place: (UTA Fine Arts) I have come to love this building. It felt like a maze the first time I was here (which was in 2012 I think, with C, who is prominent in the images below). I love the art galleries, the stickers and signs and flyers on all over the place, and the student work they display on every floor. I remember getting to these hours early just so I could walk around.
These things are like summer camp. I get to see a bunch of people during these few days that I never see the rest of the year. If I’m lucky I get to sit in on their classes or otherwise catch up on what they are doing. And I get to see their work (faculty contests) and their student’s work.
The Big Event this year was the unveiling Best of Texas Scholastic Photography Volume V. (Several of my former students had work selected for this book. (And I got to write a section description, which was super fun to see in print.) The keynote is always interesting, and during awards we get to see the best that the faculty and students have come up with this year.
I got to teach four classes and help judge a contest. This is really the only time I am in front of a classroom anymore.
I sat for a few students in my intro to studio lighting class (which is fun because UTA lets us use one of their studios chalk-full of equipment.) One student sent me these after class. C was good enough to sit for me for about five minutes (above).
The people are the best part. I love seeing the cool shit that the other teachers get up to. Like this super awesome lady, who did a class on shooting instant film on large format and then made portraits for some of the staff afterwards. Or the gentleman who carried around a little paper shoot camera because he’s shot on everything else for such a long time and just just wanted to use something weird (both below). And these are just the people I got to talk too. (Emily and TJ are friends, though, so I had an in).
