Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Kress Gallery experience


The 14 members of the photography team for the National Trust for Historic Preservation have been working on the 2012 project for NTHP for a full year.  These photographers have donated images to the local organizers for the 2012 national NTHP conference which is to be held in our own community of Spokane.  Spokane is actually the smallest community to have ever gotten this event for their City.  At this point, well over 1000 images/photos have been provided for the conference committee. 
I have had a great time working with many of these photographers, although for the first time it was the KRESS Gallery event that got all of us together in one spot.  

The KRESS Gallery event had been discussed by many of the local organizers for many months, and to our good fortune, it was the KRESS Gallery who agreed to host all of the photographers and to allow each photog to display some of their photos with prints on the walls of the KRESS.  The event at the KRESS was to be held in conjunction with First Friday, and it was a perfect event to be scheduled on the monthly First Friday event schedule.

The following photogs and team members contributed to the NTHP project and all displayed at the KRESS Gallery (KRESS Gallery display remains until March 27th).  

NTHP Roof rat night shooters (on dwtn rooftops).

NTHP Team members
Barbara Murray
Rob Chiappe
Todd Conley
Dean Huggins
Herman Marchetti
Jeff Schindler
Eric Strate
Juli lynch
Pat Schilling

The Gallery event at the KRESS Gallery was an unbelievable success.  At least 150 people would cycle in and out of the Gallery every half hour, and by the end of the evening there were thousands, easily.  Recognizing these very good technical photographers for a year’s worth of work was an absolutely terrific evening.  

The Spokesman Review published an article in the newspaper about this event on Friday March second, the same day as the Gallery event was to take place.  I’d like to think that this publicity helped get hundreds of people to speak with the NTHP photographers and inspect the images of our community in Spokane.

What a fantastic evening, at a fantastic venue, with thirteen super photographers and friends.  

None of this would have been possible without the work of Jennifer McWilliams from the City Preservation office.  Jennifer and I traded so many emails or phone calls, that it is no wonder that her work made this a success.  Jennifer explained that her City position is funded by a grant, and her responsibility is to work on the 2012 NTHP conference.  I think that Jennifer is an outstanding City employee, and I hope that we can retain her services with City government in 2013.  This young lady is an incredibly hard worker, and what a loss it would be for the City to not keep her on board for some very important functions.

John D. Moore, CPP
Spokane Night Scenes

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