I’ve finished viewing the entries of the 175 top finalists for this year’s Photolucida Critical Mass. Each artist submits 10 images and a statement. This year the judging scale was:
NO (= 0) “Someone may be interested in this work but it’s not me.”
YES (= 1) “I’m glad that I’ve seen this.”
YES + (= 3) “Strong work, but not quite wowed by it.”
WOW (= 7) “Amazing — I can’t wait to show this to someone.”
I like the work of Jason Demarte, Lauren Henkin and Ara Oshagan. I’ll share more artists with you and explain what I liked and didn’t like about their submissions in some future posts.
BROKEN LINKS FIXED!
Twirling Saguaro. Photo by Jain Lemos.
Can you provide a few images to help build the Encyclopedia of Life? It is an incredible global partnership between the scientific community and the general public to record every species on the planet, about 1.8 million. (This is NOT the type of image they are looking for.) As of late August, almost 40% of EOL’s 33,000 images are from five photographers: from Portugal, Australia (2), Spain and Austria. You can see a showcase of the best here.
If you want to provide images you agree to do so under a Creative Commons license, so be sure to read the Licensing Policy first. I suggest selecting CC‐BY‐NC (Attribution‐NonCommercial). Start by viewing the instructions on contributing photos via the EOL Flickr group on their How To Slideshow. There are 18 slides; open to full screen mode. Let me know if you decide to participate and what you will be contributing. I am going to submit some shots of the friendly, small white lizards that hang out by our front door.
Toward Los Angeles, Calif., March 1937. By Dorothea Lange.
Yesterday, Jamie Williams and I arranged for a private print study session at The University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography. We selected a box of gelatin silver prints by Dorothea Lange, and a Magnum group portfolio. This image was one of my favorites of the whole lot we viewed, about 50 in all, with the patient help of Art Historian Shana Lopes. I say patient, because Jamie and I wanted to see many of the prints in the best light and position, and Shana was more than accommodating.
The Center has 80,000 works by 2,000 photographers. We know we’ll be back for another session soon. The Center is also exhibiting a large Robert Mapplethorpe show in the main gallery and we toured the walls with plenty of opinions!
