“Order in Chaos” Exhibition

One might ask, "Why do you do a photography exhibition?” My opinion is that photography exhibits are the best way to show your work, receive valuable feedback, and find new clients.

This journey started a long time ago when I went out to shoot and started collecting material. At first, I didn’t have in mind an exhibition; I just used to go out and shoot for pleasure, which I still do. By the time you improve and things start getting easier, some days you go out and come home with nothing, but that is okay. The good thing is that you went out, trained your eyes and brain, had a good walk and coffee, maybe made new friends, or even better, found a good location for your next time out.

After a few years, I saw that I had enough material to do an exhibition. I always save my best work in a collection in Lightroom CC. With this in mind, the first thing I did was to make a budget for the exhibition and also find a venue. While going through this, the COVID-19 pandemic came along, and all was halted. Two years passed, and when things got better, I found the venue and booked the month for the exhibition. This was booked for June 2022. When the time was near, the Maltese general election was nearing too, and we were uncertain when this was going to happen. I was afraid that the election would come in June 2022, so I moved the date to March 2023, as that was the first month that was available at the venue, which was the Phoenicia Hotel Malta.

I started removing photos from my collection, and I continued doing this on various days until I ended up with the 14 photos that I wanted to exhibit. Even after I had chosen 14 photos, I went through them again and again, changing one or two images until I was ready to print.

Time flew by, and in November 2023, I ordered the frames and booked the lab for printing at Photo Images Malta. The owner, Matthew Briffa, offered me a sponsor, which I was very pleased with and grateful for.

I had to come up with a title for the exhibition, and while I had some ideas written down, it took me a while to decide. In the end, I came up with the title "Order in Chaos," which received positive feedback. Some people asked me, "Order in Chaos": The answer is simple: I am always out in a city, which is a very busy and chaotic place with lots of people, and I am always looking for a good composition with the perfect light and shadows and trying to capture a single person or three people to get the order in my final image. It is not an easy task, but the payoff is enormous.

When I had everything organized, I needed to make the flyers and leaflets. I did these myself because I knew what I wanted and I like things simple. I designed them and sent the leaflets off for printing. I started sharing the flyers on my social media.

The frames arrived in early January 2023, and the printing was done on February 4, 2023. I decided to print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Rag 270 gsm Fine Art Paper, which is the best paper for my work, "Fine Art Street Photography". 

One has to make sure that, when printing for an exhibition, he is present during the printing. Apart from enjoying the feeling of seeing the photo being printed, you are also making sure that the final result of the print is exactly what you wanted, as sometimes seeing the photo on a monitor and seeing it printed will not be the same. A suggestion is that you should have a very good monitor that is also calibrated, and you also need to know the settings of the lab you are printing at so the difference will be as small as possible.

Even when the printing is done, you need to let the prints dry for two or three days before you see the final print. When the prints were dry, I went back to the lab to flatten the prints and mantle them in the frames. When that was done, we sealed them with frame carton corners and cling film so the frames wouldn’t get any scratches during transport.

The day came to go and set up the frames at the venue. Since I left the frames at the lab, I went to the lab, picked up the frames, and went to the venue. Two very good friends of mine joined me to help me set up the exhibition. The exhibition was set. On the way home, I got a phone call from the Phoenicia Hotel letting me know that a guest wanted to buy the print with a frame titled “ParliamentTriangle,” but it had to be delivered the same day and as they would be going back home the next day. I was over the moon and went straight to the lab. We printed and framed it, and I went back to the hotel to deliver it. The next day, another phone call came from Phoenicia Hotel, letting me know that someone wanted two printed photos: “Backlit” and “Watching You” I was overjoyed and told the lab to print them. All the sold prints were delivered with a Certificate of Authenticity.

The official opening was on March 3, 2023. I had booked a photographer and videographer for the opening. Unfortunately, my wife was sick with the flu and was unable to attend the opening. I decided to do a Facebook Live of the opening so my wife could watch it. It was a big surprise to me that over 300 people watched it live, and over 1,000 people watched it afterwards. It was a great success.