This weekend I participated in Planket ("The Plank"), a one day photo exhibition in a park in Malmö, Sweden that was back on after a year's hiatus. I’ve done this event a few times before, but this year it was the first time we were actually IN the park, rather than along the fence of it, next to a very busy foot and bike path with lots of potential viewers. I admit to being somewhat apprehensive about this new location, but that was entirely unfounded; this new spot was a great place, with oodles of visitors throughout the whole five hours it lasted! The park was so happy to have us there too, that there'll most likely be an event next year too!

*We had people of all ages looking at the photos on display.*

*My dad in front of his six frames from the Viking Market on the left, my nine black and white frames on the right*

All the 25 participating photographers got a six by six foot part of a fence to hang their pictures on, and I managed to fill it almost to capacity with my nine 16 x 20 inch frames. The pictures were part of what might some day be a bigger collection on the “Old World - Old Photographs” theme where I process them to look like photos from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Isn’t that cheating you might ask? Well...if this had been journalistic or documentary work it probably would have been, but not when it is “art” (I even used air quotes to myself as I typed that). Then it most definitely is fair game! As far as I'm concerned you’re free to do whatever you want to your images to make them look the way you want them, which is pretty much what I did!

*Some of the many visitors we had during the 5 hours the exhibition was there.*

One of the "downsides" to being at a photo exhibition. You run the risk of ending up in a picture! Here I'm gesturing about something with Klas Svensson, a fellow exhibitor who showed some very fine nature photographs. Photo by Ulf Nilsson

One other aspect of events like this, other than showing your own images to the general public, is to see what other photographers have come up with, and that was also very interesting. It’s very cool to see how diverse an assembly of artists had chosen to show their stuff! While everything was certainly not stuff that I would have shot or shown I like the fact that it was there to be seen. According to the organizer 8 of the 25 participants had never shown their photos before, so that was pretty cool. It can be quite a step to take to put your pictures out there, and I was happy to see the newcomers' works as well as those from more seasoned veterans.