CALL FOR ENTRIES: The New Orleans Darkroom

The New Orleans Darkroom proudly presents the Emerging Photographer 2008 show, juried by living photography legend Herman Leonard, and open to all themes and genres. Five young photographers will be chosen for the award: an exhibition at The Darkroom and promotion on the official website. Entry fee is $45 for five images. These five images are the ones to be displayed at the exhibition, and the five photographers' exhibitions run together at The Darkroom Gallery in New Orleans' Garden District, opening October 4, 2008.

There is an age cap on applicants (must be born no earlier than October 1, 1973), and the five images submitted must have a coherent theme. This competition seems aimed to the flickr generation, with its emphasis on smaller photo-sets. To see great photographers such as Leonard fostering the recognition of such young talent through connections spanning generations is truly encouraging. Expect to see more competitions of this kind in the future, where these restrictions, perhaps seen as confining to more venerable photographers, will act to shape the pool of entrants.

From the New Orleans Darkroom:

"Herman Leonard is one of America's foremost fine art and commercial photographers, with a career spanning six decades. An apprentice of Yousuf Karsh, Leonard developed an instantly recognizable style of portraiture with jazz musicians as his subjects. His icons of American photography are displayed in museums around the globe and his entire collection is housed in The Smithsonian Institution's permanent archives."

Also, starting May 17, 2008, The Darkroom will present "Abstractions in the Landscape," a juried exhibition of photographs selected by Sandra Russell Clark, at The Darkroom's Lower Garden District showroom. The exhibition features 35 prints of abstract photographs taken in the urban and the natural landscape, and selected out of over 550 entries. Click here for a preview.

The competition is open to any photographer under 35 years of age. The deadline to submit original works will be August 22, 2008. Click here for more information.

The Photographic Resource Center presents EXPOSURE

The annual juried exhibition of photography and film-based art at the Photographic Research Center (PRC) at Boston University will be returning again this year. EXPOSURE: The 13th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition, formerly known as the PRC Members' Exhibition, has been made even more prestigious in 2008 by the participation of juror Lesley A. Martin, Publisher of Aperture's Book Program. This year's exhibition, set to open May 23 and continue through July 2, 2008, will present 14 artists selected from a pool of 376 entries, a PRC record for international submissions. Established photographers and hot up-and-comers will bring their own perceptions on popular genres, in a show intended to gather the best of the best.

From the Photographic Research Center's newsletter, concerning the photographers:

"Mariliana Arvelo has been documenting her family and herself in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and the United States in her evolving series 'Generations'...In large constructed lightboxes, Clint Baclawski (Boston, MA) investigates places where people congregate...Claire Beckett (Jamaica Plain, MA) is documenting soldiers, military training, and fabricated Iraqi spaces within America in her series 'Simulating Iraq.'

"...Cree Bruins (Cambridge, MA) collects, scans, and prints discarded ends from processed 35mm film in her 'Leader Series'...Lana Z Caplan (Boston, MA) has been researching and photographing former sites of public executions in Europe and the United States...Talia Chetrit (Providence, RI) considers essential qualities of her subjects and photography itself in a series of straightforward, yet open-ended images...Martine Fougeron (New York, NY) is documenting her two sons and their circle of friends in a series of intimate portraits titled 'Tête-à-Tête.'

"Robert Knight (Newton, MA) creates subjective portraits of people via found objects in their domestic surroundings. In this subset of his 'Dwelling' series, Knight explores expectations that parents place on their children...Marta Labad (Providence, RI) photographs crumpled up images of historical artworks depicting conflict...Molly Landreth (Seattle, WA) is traveling around the country photographing and gathering statements from queer individuals and couples in her project 'Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America.'

"...Benjamin Lowy (New York, NY) is capturing everyday scenes in Iraq as seen through the lens of his camera and the inches-thick, bulletproof window of an American Army Humvee...Eric Percher (Brooklyn, NY) considers the limitations we accept in order to obtain success in his series 'Work,' a semi-autobiographical response to his seven-year experience in the financial offices of Manhattan...

"Erik Schubert (Cambridge, MA), inspired in part by his businessman father and Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People, has been collecting and documenting scenes and ephemera of corporate aspirations and failure...In her series “Soldier Portraits,” Ellen Susan (Savannah, GA) produces unique portraits using the historical wet plate process of U.S. Army soldiers based in Southeast Georgia, many of which have been deployed to Iraq two or three times."

A special Summer edition of the PRC's newsletter, in the loupe, will include a spread article of the EXPOSURE exhibition. Click here to find out more.

Image: Private Dan Floyd at Basic Training, Fort Knox, KY, © Claire Beckett, from “Simulating Iraq”

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Blow-Up

Blow-Up, a national competition for photography and photo-based media, is seeking submissions for its juried exhibition to be held from July 10 to August 23, 2008, at Bromfield Gallery in Boston, MA. Juried by New York-based photographer and educator Harvey Stein, the competition invites fresh, original interpretations of the theme: literal explosions, photographic enlargement, temper tantrums, inflatables, and any other play on words one can, and should, imagine. Even the movie with the same title, Blow Up (see below comment for clarification; even I make mistakes—ed) is ripe for reinterpretation. Entry fee is $30 for five jpg-format images.

Deadline for submissions is June 1, 2008. Click here to upload your images online. Only digital jpg-format images will be considered.

Image: Untitled, from "Mexico: Between Life and Death" © Harvey Stein

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Los Angeles Center for Digitial Art

The Los Angeles Center for Digitial Art (LACDA)'s annual "Top 40" Competition will be accepting entries for the juried exhibition, which will take place April 10 to May 3, 2008. Entrants are invited to submit three works of original photography and/or digital media, saved as .jpeg format. All styles and mediums involving some kind of digital process in the creation of images are acceptable, as are entries from anywhere in the world. 40 selected finalists will receive one print (of up to 24x36) to be mounted and displayed at the juried exhibition.

Registration fee is $30.Multiple entries are permitted, so long as the appropriate fee is paid. Deadline for entries is March 20, 2008.

From LACDA:

"Many artists from this exhibit continue their relationship with LACDA for exhibit in solo shows, exhibits curated outside of LACDA and exhibit in art and photo fairs where LACDA participates. All entries are given special consideration for exhibiting at LACDA and outside exhibitions where we are featured."

Juried by Rex Bruce, the exhibition will donate its proceeds to the community of curators and gallery programs in Los Angeles. This community is often on the lookout for new contemporary work. The reception for the juried show will coincide with the Downtown Art Walk. Click here for details on the gallery, and how to enter online.

UnScene San Francisco features city's merging photographers

A collaboration between W San Francisco Hotel, 944 Magazine, and the UnScene Photography Tour presents UnScene San Francisco, a celebration of San Francisco's emerging photographers and gallery exhibition. This is only one stop in a multi-city event, comprising exhibitions in Dallas, New Orleans, San Diego, and New York, to name a few. Each juried event will feature five local artists, the top rated of which will receive a solo exhibition at a local gallery: in this case Jack Fischer Gallery. All events are held at participating W Hotels. The event will take place March 19, 2008, at W San Francisco.

The deadline for submissions is February 29, 2008. Click here to sign up, or for more information on future stops on the UnScene Photography Tour in 2008.

From the UnScene Photography Tour:

"Specializing in contemporary art and photography, the Jack Fischer Gallery will be judging the UnScene artists along with Emmy Kasten, editor-in-chief of 944 Magazine and the W San Francisco management team. All works will be on sale the night of the 19th with proceeds benefiting Creativity Explored, a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art."

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Galore!

No less than four calls for entry are now open to photographers. "Abstractions in the Landscape," at The Darkroom in New Orleans, is inviting submissions of non-representational urban and/or natural landscapes. "Railway Reflections," an international railroad art exhibition, is seeking one hundred works to be displayed in at the Nevada State Library Gallery in Carson City, NV. The Art of Photography Show is still accepting entries, with the exhibition taking place at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in Historic San Diego, CA. Last but not least, Communication Arts magazine is now accepting entries for their 49th Photography Competition, with the winners to be published in the August 2008 Photography Annual.

"Abstractions in the Landscape," juried by photographer Sandra Russell Clark, is open to all processes and media, with an entry fee of $20. The juried exhibition will open May 17, 2008. The deadline for entries is April 11, 2008. Click here for details.

"Railway Reflections" offers $5,000 in cash awards, is open to the mediums of painting, photography, sculpture, and drawing. Entry fee is $25 per piece, up to a limit of three entries. Deadline for submissions is May 14, 2008. The exposition, running July 17 to August 17, 2008, will donate 30 percent of its proceeds to the reconstruction of the historic Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Click here for details.

The Art of Photography Show takes place April 25 to May 23, 2008. $5,000 cash awards are available for first to fourth place, as well as 11 honorable mentions. Carol McCusker, Curator of Photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, will serve as juror. Entry fee is $25 for the first entry, $10 for each additional entry, with no limit to the number of entries per photographer. Deadline is March 1, 2008. Click here for details. Go here for a trailer from the 2007 Art of Photography Show.

Communication Arts' 49th Photography Competition is open to any photograph printed or produced between March 14, 2007 and March 11, 2008. Winning photographs are selected by a panel of distinguished art directors, photographers, and designers, then published in the August 2008 Photography Annual, of which 70,000 copies will be distributed worldwide. Deadline for the competition is March 11, 2008. Click here for details.

Brooklyn Public Library to host "Diversity of Devotion"

"Diversity of Devotion," a project of photojournalism to be displayed at the Brooklyn Public Library, serves as a celebration of different creeds and cultures in New York City. The exhibition will have a "meet the artists" event at the Grand Army Plaza, February 5, 2008 and the exhibition will be on view until April 19, 2008.

This exhibition, striking in not only its images but the complementary nature of its collection and display, was originally developed by Jenny Jozwiak as a photo-documentary competition to address the tensions of a post-911 world. Originally exhibited at the Safe-T-Gallery in the DUMBO borough of Brooklyn, the 40 winning entries were chosen by a panel of professionals in the curatorial, publishing and photography fields.

Mary Ann Lynch, frequent contributor to CameraArts, has been included in the exhibition, which is made up of portraits from 27 spiritual ways of life.

From diversityofdevotion.org:

"These encompass familiar religions, as well as lesser-known beliefs, such as: Voodou, Zoroastrianism, Sikh, Falun Gong, Wicca, Santeria and Rastafari. A majority of the images feature people praying, practicing, singing, and meditating alone and in groups, in churches, mosques and temples, as well as spaces of their own creation."

The exhibition promises to express the harmonic theme of human faith, one that photography has brought to our minds from the unknown, and shown the universalities of belief in the world. Click here to visit the "Diversity of Devotion" website.

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The Art of Photography Show

The Art of Photography Show 2008, an international exhibition of fine art photography, will take place April 25 to May 23, 2008. The show will be hosted once again at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in the historic Gaslamp Quarter of Downtown San Diego. Applying for the competition is as simple as filling out an online registration form and uploading .jpgs of photographic art. Images created using any medium will be accepted, whether it is by film, digital media (with photographic elements, of course), alternative processes, montages, and so on. $5,000 in cash prizes will be awarded at a world-class opening ceremony. Entry fees are $25 for the initial entry, and $10 for each additional.

The deadline for entries is March 1, 2008.

From artofphotographyshow.com:

"Carol McCusker is the Judge for the Art of Photography Show 2008. Dr. McCusker is Curator of Photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. She has curated over 40 exhibitions at MoPA and has written numerous books, catalogs, essays and articles on various aspects of photography. Carol McCusker is highly respected in the global photographic community, so it's a significant honor to be selected by her."

For details on entering this competition, visit www.artofphotographyshow.com.

Guggenheim Museum Announces Shortlist for the Hugo Boss Prize 2008

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Hugo Boss AG have announced the shortlist for the bienniel Hugo Boss Prize for 2008. Established in 1996 to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art, The Hugo Boss Prize is juried by an international panel of museum directors, curators, and critics. The award has become an integral part of the Guggenheim's contemporary art program, acknowledging talented artists who push past the ordinarily conceived barriers between mediums.

From The Guggenheim:

"The finalists for 2008 include Swiss artist Christoph Buchel, for Installations, as well as film, sculpture, and printed materials; American photographer and performance artist Patty Chang, for performance, photography, video, and sculpture; American photographer Sam Durant,for installations, photography, sculpture, drawing, and video; Palestinian photographer Emily Jacir, for film, photography, installation, performance, video, writing, and sound; Danish photographer Joachim Koester, for installations of film and photography; and Swiss artist Roman Signer, for sculpture, installations, and films."

A publication featuring work and essays from all six finalists will be released in June 2008. The winner of $100,000 The Hugo Boss Prize in 2008 will be chosen and announced in Fall 2008, followed by a Spring 2009 exhibition of the winner's work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Click here to find out more.