I’m just back from wonderful New York to somewhat (actually quite a bit) less wonderful Pittsburgh, and the usual blog activities here are about to commence tomorrow.

This past Friday, I attended the opening of A New American Portrait, the portrait show that Jen B. and I co-curated. Looking at the show, before its opening, I was very pleased with how it has turned out (and I still am). I know I am tooting my horn to quite the extent here (hey! it’s the internet!), but I do think that if you’re in New York and if you like contemporary photography it’s a show that you should not miss.

Given that the opening was actually the first art opening I ever went to (I kid you not), I don’t really know how to put it into context. What I do know, though, is that there were tons of people, incl. almost all of the photographers, and many more. If I tried to list names here, I’d probably forget someone, so I won’t try. If you came by to say hi, thanks so much again for doing that - it was great to finally be able to meet so many people who I had previously only known via email or from their websites.

Anyway, if you only trust images, have a look at these various Flickr sets: Jen B.’s, Paddy J.’s (OMG, Alec Soth took my photo!), and then there are various photos on my Flickr site (some of them were taken by Mrs. Conscientious).

Over the weekend, I then had a look at some gallery shows (Gursky, of course, and more), and I met with Brian, Richard and Seth, and Martin to talk about photography and, in the case of Brian and Richard, see some completely amazing photography.