The 2014 Conversations about Photography conference is sold-out. No tickets will be available at the door. The 2015 conference will be held April 10–12 on the campus of Lake Forest College. Tickets for the 2015 conference will go on sale in early January. We hope to see you there!
Category Archives: Updates
Conference Raffles: Plowden and Shaughnessy
![2014 Raffles: David Plowden and Jim Shaughnessy](https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5565/13929916107_b4fc346d27_b.jpg)
Framed photographs by David Plowden (left) and Jim Shaughnessy will be raffled at Conversations about Photography this year. The drawing for Shaughnessy’s print will be held Friday evening. Plowden himself will draw the winning ticket for his print at the end of Saturday’s presentations. Please note that you must be present to win.
Jim Shaughnessy’s print shows Canadian Pacific Railway 4-6-2 steam locomotive no. 1257 stopping in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1957 with local passenger train no. 40. The 11×14 silver gelatin print was made by the photographer and is matted and framed in black metal to 20×24 inches.
“Freight train, west of Havre, Montana,” is one of Plowden’s signature railroad photographs—and one of his signature photographs of all time. The 1968 view shows boxcars in a Great Northern Railway train silhouetted against a dramatic sky with wheat fields in the foreground and a single car with an open door perfectly positioned near the right edge of the frame. The archival inkjet print is 11×14 inches and made by the photographer, matted and framed in black metal to 20×24 inches.
Tickets for each raffle are $10 each, $25 for three, $40 for five. You may purchase them online or at the conference. Please note that you must be present to win.
Print Program
You can also purchase limited edition prints by Victor Hand and Mitch Markovitz both online and at the 2014 conference via the Center’s Print Program.
Expanding Scholarship Program
This year’s winners are James Edgar, Johnson City, Tennessee; Jonathan Lee, Chicago; Amanda Oakes, Binghamton, New York, and Samuel Phillips, Radford, Virginia. Edgar and Lee are both photography students in college. Oakes has a lifelong photography interest; her fascination with trains began in 2010 and has already led to publications and work for Canadian Pacific. Phillips is still in high school but already has published extensively in Trains and other magazines.
As docents, the scholarship recipients will attend the entire conference and assist the Center’s staff members and volunteers throughout the weekend. “The conference planning committee was impressed by the high caliber of work that all four of the recipients submitted,” said Scott Lothes, the Center’s president and executive director. “We look forward to having them join us, and we thank the conference’s many patrons for making these awards possible.”
![Bluefield, West Virginia, by Samuel Phillips](https://railphoto-art.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/samuelphillips_09_2014.jpg)
Railroaders: a Hit
![DELANO EXIBITION-32](https://railphoto-art.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DELANO-EXIBITION-32.jpg)
Visitors explore the “Around the Yards” section of the exhibition, which features a model classification yard and wall-sized enlargement of the Illinois Central roundhouse at Markham Yard. Photograph by Henry A. Koshollek; see more photographs of the opening weekend activities on the Center’s Flickr page.
“Railroaders” Exhibition Opens
See photographs from the April 4 preview reception for family members of the portrait subjects on our Facebook page.
To accompany the exhibition, the Center is publishing a lavishly-illustrated catalog with 108 images, 58 color and 50 black-and-white, 73 taken by Delano. Contemporary photographs of portrait subjects’ descendants and other family members were made by Pablo Delano, Jack Delano’s son, who teaches photography and art at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. The Center’s founder and past president, John Gruber, edited the catalog. Purchase the catalog and learn more about the exhibition on our website.
![Railroaders: Jack Delano's Homefront Photography](https://railphoto-art.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/railroaders.jpg)
Entry graphic (left) and cover of the catalog for the exhibition Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography, which opens April 5 at the Chicago History Museum.