A few years ago a fellow photog asked me if I had been to the “Container Show”. I told him that over the years I had attended a few trade shows, but never one dealing with packaging, adding that I had also gone a few times to the Container Store (which is a store where you buy boxes of nothing). He looked at me quizzically then said, “No, I’m talking about the photography container show called Photoville.” I asked him what a photo show has to do with containers. His told me that the exhibit was held in giant shipping containers…the ones that carry cargo; the very same ones you see on those enormous ships in all the major ports. Now why anyone would want to exhibit their images in a big stuffy metal box was beyond me, but I asked him what port I had to visit to see the show. I soon learned that Photoville is held in New York City and that it consists of several shipping containers all housing photo exhibitions mounted on the interior walls of the containers. What a novel idea! It was September at the time and the show was already in progress so my wife and I picked a date to go. I eagerly awaited the day we were to head into the city to catch a glimpse of my first container show.
The day we had picked arrived and as I readied my camera and stuffed our water bottles into our bags, I stepped out of our house to do a last minute weather check. As I opened the door, I was greeted by a blast of hot, I mean really hot, September air. It was definitely end-of-summer shorts and tee shirt weather. By the time we arrived in New York, the heat had intensified. We saw that each container had a number and that the program we were given told us what exhibit we’d find in each of the containers. Some showed portraits, others landscapes, and a few had the works of students who were studying photography in school. As I said, it was blistering hot as we entered the first container. But not nearly as hot as it was inside! I tried my best to spend a little time looking at each piece between gulps of water from my bottle which, by now, was growing warmer by the minute. As you know, warm water does not quench one’s thirst. Meanwhile, my wife opted to remain outside the container, where at ninety degrees it was actually cooler than the one hundred plus temperature inside the “photo oven.” After attempting to work my way through a couple more of the photo tombs, I joined my wife and we set out in search of a solution, the most obvious of which was to get back in our car and head home. We spotted a large tent with people who were seated and watching some sort of lecture. We found a couple of seats and noticed that the tent was being cooled to some extent by three large fans which were effective in circulating the stifling air. The speaker was an Adobe rep who was demonstrating the power of the new Lightroom Mobile software. A few audience members were actually awake while others appeared to be either sleeping or had passed out from the heat and were awaiting the arrival of EMS vehicles bringing medical help.
I will spare you any further details. That was our last Container Show experience. However, several times since we have gone shopping in the Container Store near our home. It’s fully air conditioned and it’s a real pleasure picking out containers which we lovingly pay for steeped in the knowledge that we have just purchased an item which contains nothing!
