Photography Competition Winners: Top Honors!

As many of our visitors know, we at CameraArts.com are always looking for new opportunities and calls for entry that we can share with our readers. Recently there has been quite a bit of discussion about photography competitions and juried exhibitions on the blog (click here to read Tim Anderson’s two-parter), regarding accountability and trust when it comes to submitting your photos.

Even more than juried shows, photography contests can be dubious, especially those that charge an arm and a leg for entry and are known for “being unable to determine a winner from the entries provided.” This is a risk for all creative endeavors, not just photography. However, these particular competitions have cemented their reputations, and the proof is in the pudding, proverbially speaking.

The 23rd Annual Infinity Awards at the International Center of Photography (ICP) have just been declared. Recognized as one of the country’s highest honors of fine art photography, ICP has assembled a list of winners throughout the years (the awards began in 1985) that suits its reputation. Among these names are Robert Frank (CameraArts December 2005/January 2006), Mary Ellen Mark, Marc Riboud, André Kertész (April/May 2005), Henri-Cartier Bresson, Berenice Abbott, and many others.

This year, the ICP’s Lifetime Achievement Award went to William Klein, and the Cornell Capa Award went to Milton Rogovin (CameraArts February/March 1999). You can view a complete list of winners ,here. The Infinity Awards Ceremony will take place May 14, 2007.

Speaking of Robert Frank: he has chosen the winner of the 2006 Center for Documentary Studies (CDS)/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography. The award was given to Danny Wilcox Frazier, for his book Driftless: Photographs from Iowa, which will be published in fall 2007 by Duke University Press in association with CDS Books.

From the CDS website:

Frazier made these powerful photographs over a three-year period. "Ultimately, many rural communities across the Midwest will die," he writes, and "in some ways the pictures I have made simply document the process."

A gallery of Danny Wilcox Frazier’s images can be viewed here.