It's been a few days since you've heard from me.  I was at Paris Photo at the Grand Palaise in Paris for three days.

I've only been home for a few hours after a day and night of planes and airports that scrambled my mind but I will post this quick one to get us started. Over the next several days the posts here will be about Paris Photo.

First of all: Paris Photo is a mind blower! More contemporary photography in one place than I have ever seen and a real game changer in terms of understanding what is hot and what is not. Paris Photo tests the world wide market for photography and puts work right up there to be sold. I can report here that interest in photography is huge, probably at an all time high. Remarkable and completely overwhelming. Do not try to assimilate Paris Photo in just one day. Finally,  while easy to get numb and dismissive of much bad work, there was simply stunning work at the show too. I left encouraged for the medium and awed at the beauty and brilliance of some of the work. No longer does photography look new or cutting edge, for the medium as an expressive form has entered into a maturity and parity with other visual arts that is impressive and not to be ignored. Walking endlessly through the show for two days, I left proud to call myself a photographer.

Innovations

If you go to Paris Photo and to AIPAD (Association of Independent Photography Art Dealers) in Manhattan each spring there always are a few artists showing trying to move photography forward. 

The way the show is organized each gallery has a booth or a display  space. These are galleries from all over the world. Paris Photo gives you a unique  take on contemporary art photography on an international scale. 

The only moving image photograph I saw at Paris Photo was this one at Pace MacGill Gallery:

which was three vertical video screens butted together that combined stills (the scene) with a video running in a loop of the figures moving. It was quite beautiful. It was about 70 inches across and was by Michael Rovner.

Another effort at innovation was this one with cut out figures in a plexiglass box made in an effort to provide actual three dimensionality to the piece:

And finally, this one isn't really "innovative" but it uses contemporary tools in a way that is exciting and quite amazing:

(sorry for reflection) by Andrew Moore at Yancy Richardson Gallery and going for a cool $28,000. This is a low angle aerial, I thought most likely from a helicopter, but the gallery wasn't sure, thinking  it was from a crop duster. Whatever, it was 78 inches across and called "Yellow Porch". I thought it was wonderful. This one, although it was very large and therefore not something you could take using a GoPro camera, forecasts some of the future of photography with more imagery now beginning to come from the use of drones. I predict quick saturation of aerial landscape work (both urban and rural) in the next few years. Take note: we will see more aerial work in the art market as well.  

Next up? More of Paris Photo 2014. Stay tuned.