PHOTOLUCIDA: Critical Mass 2019

Photograph: Chloe Aftel @chloeaftel

Get your best work ready because Photolucida's Critical Mass 2019 is now open for submissions!

Entering it’s 16th year, Critical Mass was created as a way to facilitate connections between emerging photographers and industry professionals with an aim at creating career-changing opportunities! With 200 museum curators, gallerists, publishers and more on the jury there is no better way to get your work seen in this digital day and age.

This year Photolucida is offering some amazing awards: A solo show at Blue Sky Gallery during Portland Photo Month, the Rauschenberg Residency Award, a Top 50 Exhibition at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA curated by Elizabeth Avedon, and publication in issue #63 of GUP Magazine for a selection of finalists. All finalists will also receive this special issue of GUP after it is published!

Deadline to submit is July 15th at noon PST! 

https://www.photolucida.org/critical-mass/entry-details

P.S. I'm thrilled to be curating the Critical Mass 2019 Top 50 exhibition at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA! EA

LENSCRATCH: The Elizabeth Avedon Mixtape

Greeting Lucille Ball, Hobby Airport, Houston, Texas

LENSCRATCH is revisiting some of our favorite posts, Mixtapes, and Interviews this week! Today we feature Elizabeth Avedon’s Mixtape and learn more about her remarkable life and celebrate her contributions to our community. Elizabeth carries a lifetime of creative seeing, that combined with her exposure to the greats of design and photography, add up to a remarkable ability to make her mark on all aspects of design that surround the photograph. Her down-to-earth generosity and unflagging enthusiasm for all things photographic make her a very special member of our community. It is with great pleasure that I introduce THE ELIZABETH AVEDON MIXTAPE!

LENSCRATCH is a daily journal that explores contemporary photography and offers opportunities for exposure and community. Created in 2007, Aline Smithson set a goal of writing about a different photographer each day, presenting work in a way that allows for a deeper understanding of a photographer’s intent and vision. Thanks to LENSCRATCH for this Mixtape Rerun!

THE ELIZABETH AVEDON MIXTAPE

PHOTO EDITING WORKSHOP: With ELIZABETH AVEDON and MAGDALENA SOLÉ

Boy With Bird, Barracoa

Photograph © Magdalena Solé

Gust of Wind, Viñales

Photograph © Magdalena Solé

Shoes For Sale, Havana

Photograph © Magdalena Solé 

New Delta Rising / Photographs by Magdalena Solé 

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

ADVANCED PHOTO EDITING WORKSHOP 

WITH ELIZABETH AVEDON AND MAGDALENA SOLÉ

May 1–May 6, 2016

In the world of fine art and documentary photography it is essential that work is well edited. Whether preparing for portfolio reviews, book proposals, gallery shows or a magazine story, a solid foundation in the fundamentals of editing and sequencing are necessary tools in the current art market. 

We’ve all been there, wallowing in hundreds of images, each a little different from the next. What to choose? In this six-day workshop, Elizabeth Avedon partners with photographer Magdalena Solé to help you hone your eye for efficient self-editing.

This WORKSHOP is for photographers with a complete body of work ready to edit. Participants should be proficient in Lightroom or Photo Mechanic. The workshop will be held at Magdalena Solé’s studio in West Halifax, VT located in the beautiful rural countryside of Southern Vermont in an old 1790’s farmhouse. Participants can stay in the nearby town of Wilmington.

MORE INFORMATION HERE!

 with PhotoXpeditions

Praise from photographer Lynne Buchanan for my past workshop at Filter Photo Festival, "My exhibition came out artistically stronger and much more professional than my previous efforts thanks to your workshop. I learned so much about sequencing and how to convey a story-line. After spending a day with you, I was able to pair the images in my catalog with what one professional in the industry referred to as "sublime sensitivity." I attribute this complement to paying full attention in your invaluable workshop."

SHARPEN: Stella Kramer on ASMPNY's Fine Art Photography Bloggers Panel

(l to r) Susan May Tell, Stella Kramer, Rubin Natal San-Miguel, Elizabeth Avedon, and AD Coleman. Photograph by Frank Rocco

ASMPNY

"Conversations with Fine Art Photography Bloggers"Review for ASMP-NYs Sharpen by Panelist Stella Kramer

"Wednesday night's panel with Elizabeth Avedon, Ruben Natal San-Miguel, A.D. Coleman and yours truly, (Stella Kramer), moderated by Susan May Tell, was a lively discussion about fine art blogging, enhanced by the fact that we all come to it from a different perspective. Alan Coleman (first photography critic for the NY Times and named one of "The Top 100 People in Photography" by American Photo Magazine) comes to it as a social commentator, and has been blogging since 1995. As a leading writer on the subject of photography at Photocritic International, he uses his blog as a platform to be a journalist, having exposed and followed such stories as the dismantling of the Polaroid collection. He's now reporting on the story of the recently "rediscovered" Ansel Adams negatives.

Elizabeth Avedon likens blogging to, putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out into the ocean. You don't know who may find it. But with an international audience Avedon shows work by not just photographers, but all artists whose work moves her. And (as a former Gallery Director) "knowing how few shows galleries are able to put up in a year, blogging is a good forum."

The idea of blogging reaching out to an international audience was echoed by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, who sees his blog, Art Most Fierce, as a business whose purpose is to promote art collecting. He began collecting art after Sept. 11, and after buying the art he writes about it. He promotes artists and not-for-profit organizations to raise money for them. He was most direct in talking about the importance of using Facebook and Twitter in concert with his blog to promote photography.

For me (Stella's blog is Stellazine) the important thing is to know why you're blogging. Without a strong definition, a blog can just be more noise. I love the fact that I can say anything I want, and the work I feature is work I like. It's discussing the creative process that I find most satisfying--giving photographers a chance to talk about what they do, why they do it, and what it means to them.

The one problem we find with blogging is that it is not going to make money--but then none of us started with that intent , although Ruben is adamant about it being a business for him. He sees his blogging as a way to put info out there for others to benefit from. He curates shows which sell work, and speaks of treating work as special--not overexposing it everywhere. Avedon had a different opinion of that, saying putting work out there was a way for people to find out about it. But the idea of scarcity creating interest for collectors was Ruben's impetus for cautioning people about overexposure.

(EA: At this time Galleries aren't worried so much about over-exposure as they are about not reaching enough people. It's been my experience that having exposure on several Photography Blogs has caught the attention of reviewers and curator's.)

While both myself and Avedon look at more work online both Ruben and myself go to shows--although he goes to many more than I do. Coleman doesn't go to shows, but he goes to FotoFest, and the Palm Springs Photo Festival to see work.

There was a large crowd who seemed to hang on every word, and I think we all enjoyed the discussion, hearing each other's point of view. If you weren't there, plan on being at the next panel. If you were, let us know what you thought by commenting here." – This post originally appeared on ASMP/NY's Sharpen

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Stella Kramer is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner while at The New York Times and the recipient of the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography. Check out her blog Stellazine