How do you create a museum exhibit of night photography? This is how the “Abandoned Planes Trains and Automobiles” museum exhibit at the La Quinta Museum near Palm Springs came to be.
The museum is situated close to not only Palm Springs, but also Joshua Tree National Park. This amazing Park attracts over 3 million visitors a year to its otherworldly, enchanting desertscapes. It’s a popular place for night as well as day photographers.
Proposal
Ordinarily, this takes a little bit of consideration. This is your pitch. You describe what your exhibit is about, how many photos you have, what sizes they are, and its intent and scope. In this case, the museum exhibit was based on my book “Abandoned Planes Trains and Automobiles: California Revealed”, published by Arcadia Publishing.
Because I had already submitted a proposal to Hi-Desert Nature Museum in Yucca Valley, CA, this was rather simple. I modified the previous proposal somewhat, and submitted it to La Quinta Museum.
In this case, I submitted a contract instead of the other way around. They responded by signing it quickly.
Discussing the exhibit with the Museum Supervisor
The Museum Supervisor and I communicated numerous phone calls and emails. The Museum Supervisor sent photos of other exhibits from her beautiful museum to give me an idea of how it looked. Also, a friend, Kathy Leo Ball, sent photos of the museum to me. She also visited the museum again during the first week that my exhibit was there! All the photos of the exhibit are from her.
Prints
I already had the prints from Hi-Desert Nature Museum. In fact, they had been stored in back of my couch. I hoped that no one would notice that my couch was a couple of feet further from the wall than it had been before! I had 28 prints of varying sizes. The largest three served as establishing photos: one plane, one train, and yes, one automobile.
Delivering the prints
Several weeks prior to the opening of the exhibit, my friend Natalie and I drove out to La Quinta Museum with the 28 prints crammed in the back of my vehicle. Like I had mentioned to the Museum Supervisor at Hi-Desert Nature Museum, I wanted to give them carte blanche with setting up the exhibit. Work with great people, and get out of their way and let them do their thing.
How about an interview video?
The Museum Supervisor asked if I had a video interview that I could have playing. Attendees could wear headphones and listen to the interview if they chose.
To make the video more accessible to everyone, she also suggested that I have captions of our conversation. I did in fact have an interview about my book “Abandoned Abandoned Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” And I got permission from Tim Little to use it for the museum exhibition.
There was just one issue: my video interview didn’t have that. We had it on YouTube, and YouTube could generate it automatically. But the video itself didn’t have that. What to do?
Creating Auto Captions for an interview video easily
After researching several different options, it seemed like CapCut would work beautifully. And it did. After watching a couple of videos showing how to do it, I imported the video. It captured almost all our conversation quite accurately. CapCut also offered various options for the appearance of the text. Easy!
Why is the reception several months after the opening?
The Museum Supervisor mentioned that since the exhibit opened in August, when it was very hot, it would be better if we held the reception when it would be cooler, such as in November. We settled upon a date: Thursday, the 7th of November. She suggested a musician, Rick Shelley, to play. That Thursday would coincide with their Music at the Museum event, bringing in an even larger crowd.
All of this sounded good. I will give a short presentation on that day. And I hope to see many of you there!
Information about the exhibit
La Quinta Museum
77-885 Avenida Montezuma, La Quinta, CA 92253
Exhibition: 6 August- 16 November 2024
Reception is Thursday 7 November 2024 5-7 PM
- All events at the Museum are free of charge
- Museum hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Admission: Free!
