Event Recap: June 7-9, 2024 - Uptown Photo Fest 2024
Photos by Jason Bautista, Emmanuel Abreu, and Carlos Deschamps. Event details here.
Fotos por Jason Bautista, Emmanuel Abreu, y Carlos Deschamps. Detalles del evento aquí.
More photos available on previous posts on our blog. Más fotos disponibles en publicaciones anteriores de nuestro blog.
We cannot thank everyone enough for coming to our first ever Uptown Photo Fest in June. It’s been a little over a month since we all experienced 3 days of photography joy in learning and playing. I, Emmanuel, think that ever since I started my career and journey in the Uptown arts and community world I’ve been wanting to do something like this. I didn’t know what that looked like until Uptown Photowalk had existed for a while. Thanks to the hundreds of participants over the 10+ years of doing this, we were able to hone in on some specific activities people have wanted us to curate, and there will be more! Thanks to Carlos Deschamps for pushing me all those years ago to make UPW consistent, and I credit him for the growth that would not have happened if not for the monthly schedule. Thanks to Sam for her incredible drive in event creation, and being such a great partner in making this weekend, and the recent femme walk with Monica Patten, a huge success. Thanks to the panelists Sam Popp, Leomary Rodriguez, Jeffrey “Dotshotit” Batista, and Lauren von Eckartsberg for sharing their very insightful words and the unique journeys they each took to get to where they are in their careers.
Thanks SO much to the NoMAA and Recirculation folks for hosting us. The Studios at NoMAA were filled with laughter and pure creativity at the portraits exchange program on day 2. Shout out to volunteers Alex Chavez and Carlos Moro, and NoMAA staff member Jesus Santana for helping set up the lighting, food, and checking people in. Afterwards we headed to J.Hood Wright park and enjoyed the beautiful sunset along with more portrait action. Recirculation was a space for learning and sharing talents with each other on day 1 and 3. Shout out to Peter Alegre for helping us out on day 1! And of course we ended with our staple, a photowalk, down to our favorite destination, the Little Red Lighthouse. Thanks to Sergio “Rose” Santiago for leading the great workshop and photowalk! Thanks so much to Jason Bautista and Carlos Deschamps for helping capture the events!
None of this happens without your support. By purchasing tickets, donating, spreading the word, attending, participating, and sharing your thoughts, you tell us that you want more of this type of programming, so keep it going! Shout out to the 68 people total that came through!
It of course costs $$ to put something like this together, and for this time around we didn’t go around asking for sponsorship as we wanted to have proof of concept. So, the total costs of the event was $2,413.88. This included event listing, the great logo created by Joely Saravia, event photography and videography, presenter honorariums, food, and transportation. This does NOT count other things like equipment purchased or other misc things like stickers, flyers, etc. With ticket sales, donations (shout out to Jennyfer Parra for making that happen!), and merch sales, we were able to pay for a large portion of this, but of course not all of it. We covered $1767.85 of the costs. We have historically been taken donations on our site and in person (thank you to everyone that has sent us money!) but that has been pretty much slightly covering the costs of running the website and now mailchimp!
In the end this is not about profiting, and it IS about making these events accessible to all of you and people that want to participate and learn. We hope to make more of these happen, and if you have connections, ideas, etc that would help make that happen please feel free to reach out.
Speaking of accessibility and access, we will be making videos of the panel discussion, and the workshop available very soon! We also were not able to bring in interpreters (Spanish, ASL) but will definitely be making those available especially if requested at future events.
If you attended these events, but did not receive our survey for any reason, please feel free to fill out this form out so we can make sure our future events are even better!
Thanks again ya’ll!
Emmanuel Abreu
