Dear Ace: The photos hanging in the trees on the Downtown Mall were really cool. Where did they go? And can I get one?—John I. Candy
John: If anyone’s getting one, pal, it’s gonna be yours truly. Those photographs were awesome, and Ace thinks one would look perfect hanging above the fireplace in his bedroom at the Atkins Love Shack. (Nothing says “I’m a romantic” like a giant poster of a humpback whale, you know?)
Curious, Ace went fishing for answers. He contacted Lisa Draine, the Festival of the Photograph’s manager, who said Flip Nicklin’s marine life photographs aren’t available right now. “The artist hasn’t quite decided what he’d want to do with them,” she told Ace. Well, he thought, you’ll have to do a little better than that. So he called Alaska. (That’s were Flip lives, folks. Ace isn’t lost at sea.)
Flip says he has lots of ideas for the banners, including “possible exhibits in Alaska, Hawaii, Philadelphia, Santa Fe and Dubai.” Later this year and earlier in the next, Flip will be speaking at a few events coordinated by nonprofit orgs for freshwater issues, and the photographs will be used during those. Flip says, though, that he doesn’t know where they’ll end up yet, and that the Festival currently has possession of them. “I’m just interested in seeing them used for good purposes,” he says.
On the flip side (heh heh), Lisa told Ace that the Festival owns (and is in possession of) last year’s photos of jungle animals, which were taken by Nick Nichols, an executive director of the Festival. (As an aside, at this point Ace began to wonder if maybe one’s name needs to include “ick” in order to be featured in the Downtown foliage. Just sayin’.)
Nick, who’s currently on his way to California for six months as part of an assignment for National Geographic, is willing to sell his images (the ones that hung on the Downtown Mall for last year’s photo fest) and the proceeds will be donated to benefit future Festivals.
On second thought, maybe a large photograph of an ape would look better in Ace’s boudoir. Chicks dig primates.
