“Noel au Portugal” (1999) by 2022 International Photography Hall of Fame inductee Sarah Moon.
The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum recently announced that it was leaving its Grand Center home and transferring all operations to its Fenton collections facility for the time being. While that means an end to a public home for the IPHF’s collection and exhibitions for now, IPHF board chairman Michael Weisbrod says the organization plans to return “better than ever” in the future. For now, the plan is to shift programming online and hopefully find spaces for pop-up exhibitions and events in the community. Ahead of the IPHF’s May 1 transition, we spoke with Weisbrod about the organization’s future and how folks can still take advantage of one of the region’s best photography resources.
Tell us about the move to Fenton and how long these changes have been in the works.
We have been in Grand Center ever since the Hall of Fame moved to St. Louis, and we've been in exactly the same location. Steve Smith is our landlord, and he's just been a phenomenal landlord. We're very appreciative of everything that he's even able to do for us. It's a great space, and it’s given us some nice visibility, but, you know, all things change. COVID came and funding changed, and Steve's focus on his property has changed a little bit. He's looking to do some other things with the property. At the same time, our lease was actually up, so we decided that it was a good time for us to begin to regroup, to take a look at where we are, what we want to do, and where we want to go.
So when you say that we're “moving” to Fenton, what we're actually doing is moving all of our collections into one spot for the moment. Fenton is the location of our collections facility. We're in the process of assessing what our next steps are going to be. We don't intend to leave St. Louis. We love the city. We love the support that we've received. So it's really just a question of restructuring ourselves and what makes the most sense for the board, for IPHF overall, and for the St. Louis community.
How does this immediately affect the IPHF’s programming?
At this point we’re looking at the next three to six months. Number one, we're putting together a committee to determine exactly where we want to go and exactly what we want it to look like in the short-term future. Then, for the next three to six months, we’re continuing to do mostly virtual classes, which is what we did all through COVID. We had great success because what that actually allowed us to do was expand our scope beyond just St. Louis. We literally had people from Europe that were tuning into the presentations and the classes. So it really has given us the opportunity to take advantage of photographers worldwide and their interest in learning about what we do and how we do it.
What’s been the response from your community and visitors since the announcement about the chances?
It’s actually been very positive. People are thrilled about the fact that we are continuing to be a viable entity. Certainly some are sad that the physical presence and the ability to walk in is going away, but we anticipate that that's going to come back in some format. For the short term, we're exploring venues around St. Louis where we may do pop-up shows, because we do have a number of collections that are easily moved for an exhibition, whether it's here in St Louis or to a museum someplace else. The other important thing is that we are still planning on having our Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the fall. Doing it virtually worked so well and gave us such broad access to our members and to the community. So we're looking for a couple of partners that are very interested in working with us on that.
It sounds like you’re putting the lessons learned during COVID to good use.
That's exactly right, because pretty much everything we did was in person prior to COVID. And then, of course, everything just changed. We wanted to still provide that outreach to our community by pivoting and going virtual, but we just had no clue what a wonderful response it was going to have worldwide. [Before COVID,] it was just people from St. Louis or maybe an hour or two away that would drive for a class or for a presentation. But once we were getting people from Europe and Central America and all over the United States, it was just like, Wow, we had no idea.
The virtual programming really seems to give you a chance to embrace the “international” part of your title.
Exactly. So members are still coming on board, and they're happy about the fact that they're going to be able to take virtual classes. I don't really see things changing much other than the fact that you just can't walk in and see the gallery. I believe one of the things that we're looking at is even having parts of the collection available to members and guests online, because we have some amazing pieces in our collection.
The announcement said the goal is for IPHF to come back “better than ever.” What does that look like to you?
I don't wanna presuppose that because we do have a committee that's actually in the process of being put together right now, and that's going to include some photographers, some business people, and probably some inductees. But I think what we're doing is kind of reinventing ourselves, if you will. We are putting together a committee that's going to look outside the box as opposed to inside the box and bring us back in a way that historically we probably never would've thought of. I think looking outside the box is the future of most organizations today. I mean, if you look at other businesses and corporations, they're looking at new ways to deliver their product and their service. There are people that argue that photography's going away, but it's not—it's stronger than ever. People are still very interested in looking at the historical side of it and what people did years ago, but they're also looking at the current side of it and what you can do with Photoshop and what you can do with your camera. We do outreach with a lot of those kinds of classes, because that's a whole different audience.
What most excites you about the future of the IPHF?
I'm excited about expanding our presence and I'm excited about expanding the messaging beyond St. Louis. Even though it's an international organization, it's amazing how many people in St. Louis have never heard of us, regardless of how much outreach we do. So I think this is giving us the opportunity to rethink how we brand ourselves and how we market ourselves and bring a better product back to the marketplace when we open up, wherever we open up and however we open up.
Until then, what’s the best way for folks to interact with IPHF and its programming?
Go to our website and take a look at the offerings that we have, and just engage with us that way. I think one thing that's important is just to remind people that the arts are critical to any culture, and we've seen a significant shift in corporate funding in the last couple of years within the marketplace. So it's more important than ever to take a personal interest and make a personal commitment, whether it's memberships or just outright gifts, to your favorite arts organizations, IPHF and all the others, because everybody is experiencing similar scenarios to what we're looking at today. The best thing any of us can do is continue to support, on a personal level, the arts organizations that are important to us.
