Finding Your Vision and Finding Your Audience with Aline Smithson & Mary Virginia Swanson

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ALINE SMITHSON is a visual artist, editor, and educator based in Los Angeles, California. She is best known for her conceptual portraiture and a practice that uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, her work is influenced by the elevated unreal. She received a BA in Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under artists such as William Wegman, Allen Ruppersburg, and Charles Garabian. After a career as a New York Fashion Editor working alongside some the greats of fashion photography, Smithson returned to Los Angeles and her own artistic practice. She has exhibited widely, including over 40 solo shows in the US and abroad. Her work is held in a number of public collections and her photographs have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN (cover), the PDN Photo Annual, and many others. Smithson is the Founder and Editor- in-Chief of Lenscratch, a daily online journal on photography. She has been an educator at the Los Angeles Center of Photography since 2001 and her teaching spans the globe.   www.alinesmithson.co

MARY VIRGINIA SWANSON is an advisor, author and educator who helps emerging and established artists find the strength in their work, identify appreciative audiences, and present their work in an informed, professional manner. She has worked in the fine art, documentary, photojournalism and licensing arenas, with vast experience in multiple markets. Swanson is a respected teacher and mentor who has guided countless photographers through the changes in nearly every aspect of the photography and imaging industries. Swanson co-authored with Darius Himes the acclaimed Publish Your Photography Book: Revised & Updated (Princeton Architectural Press, 2014). She continues to stay current on the growing market for photo books, reflecting both the relative ease of self-publishing and the rise of the collectible photo book market. Swanson is based in Tucson, Arizona where she is currently working on a new book called Finding Your Audience: An Introduction to Marketing Your Photographs. Her website is mvswanson.com, and she can be followed on Instagram  @maryvirginiaswanson where she posts opportunities for photographers interspersed with photographs of the beautiful Sonoran Desert.