I am quite pleased to see some of my photos enlarged to a rather enormous size and covering the interior walls of the new athletics centre of our university. Every time I go to the gym now, it feels as if I visit my personal gallery.
I think that at some level, art should have an application. This has certainly been the case with the works of the classics, but nowadays, the opportunities for finding these applications are even more numerous. The problem, as usual is in finding the balance between usefulness of a piece of art and fair compensation for its use. In the case of my sports photography, for example, the financial benefit to me is questionable at best, considering the amount of time and effort it takes. Still, I believe a fair balance is there, as I like the idea of supporting the school and its student-athletes beyond my main function as a faculty member. Also, having my photos integrated into the architecture of a new building is very nice.
My associate, who got me involved in the sports photography for the university and with whom we took these pictures, also thinks that this collaboration with the school has been quite productive, even just for satisfaction of knowing that our images have a life beyond our hard drives.
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