photolucida: December 2008

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

MORE SHOW & TELL: NOW INTO THE AFTERMATH

It's going to be next week before I can even think about doing anything else with this blog so yes, keep them coming in! Aren't these four great together?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

the last one before Christmas

That's all I'm going to post for the next few days. After Christmas, think "aftermath" and/or "new year."

Have a great holiday.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Friday, December 19, 2008

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Monday, December 15, 2008

Things are slowing down here on the blog for a spell now that Critical Mass is winding down and the dust is settling. I hope to hit it with full force after the first of the year with those Reviewer's Scrapbooks, conversations, portfolios, and more, but in the meantime, how about we do a little show and tell? From today until January 2nd, send in a Holiday-themed picture and I'll load them up in one post each day.

Please follow these guidelines:

file should be .jpegs, 600 pixels high, named with your last name_first initial_hh (for Happy Holidays): Adams_A_hh.jpg

also, your name and any title/date information (if necessary) should be typed up in the body of the email so I can just cut and paste.

email it to me with the subject heading "HOLIDAY SHOW AND TELL"

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Back to the Holiday Gift Guide

Orchard, an artist book by photographer Raymond Meeks. This gorgeously unusual artist book is comprised of twelve pages, in an edition of 40, with six original, tipped-in prints and an insightful excerpt from “the sky, the stars, the wilderness” by Rick Bass. The first 15 orders of Orchard sold will include a loose print, signed and editioned. This edition is priced below Ray's previous artist books in the hope of making them accessible to a larger audience. Earlier books are housed in many private and public collections, including the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. For more information on this book, please go to Ray’s website. And note, those of you in Portland or coming to Portland for our Spring Reviews: Ray will be teaching a workshop congruent to Photolucida’s Spring Portfolio Reviews, in conjunction with Newspace Center for Photography.

Monday, December 8, 2008

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN...

How we spent this Sunday.

Hold on a second. Before you go any further, press play right here:

Photolucida is proud to announce the Top 50 photographers from Critical Mass 2008! These 50 Photographers are hereby recognized for their exceptionally handsome and thought-provoking work (psst... these aren't linked, but the list over on the left is):

Jeffrey Aaronson
Angela Bacon-Kidwell
Cara Barer
David Paul Bayles
Damion Berger
Rita Bernstein
Pelle Cass
Tom Chambers
Alejandro Chaskielberg
Céline Clanet
Ian van Coller
Livia Corona
Katrina d'Autremont
Matt Eich
Jeffris Elliott
Andy Freeberg
Amanda Friedman
Joy Goldkind
Cig Harvey
Jessica Hines
Thomas Holton
Dave Jordano
Priya Kambli
Jim Kazanjian
Jaime Kowal
Ferit Kuyas
Pablo Lopez Luz
David Leventi
Alison Malone
Rania Matar
Graham Miller
Lucas Oleniuk
Louie Palu
Eric Percher
Cara Phillips
Reiner Riedler
Christina Seely
Brian Shumway
Sarah Small
Tema Stauffer
Will Steacy
Marcela Taboada
Daniel Traub
Antonio Turok
Carlo Van de Roer
Manuel Vazquez
Lori Waselchuk
Lisa Wiltse
Natalie Young
Mi Zhou

We're also proud to announce our 2008 Book Award Finalists! These six photographers are hereby further recognized for their super-exceptionally handsome and thought-provoking work:

Céline Clanet

Jeffris Elliott

Andy Freeberg

Priya Kambli

Pablo Lopez Luz

Graham Miller

Congratulations to each and every participant, Reviewer, and anyone else who's been lucky enough to view this great work!

Critical Mass Q & A:

Remind me again, what's this all about? What is Critical Mass?

To recap, Critical Mass is a celebration of contemporary photography; a program designed to connect photographers who make good work with professionals (curators, editors, etc.) who care about it. A longer, more thorough explanation can be found here on our website.

How does it work?

This year we received over 600 initial entrants (10 images each) and our team of about 20-some Much-Beloved and Esteemed Pre-Screeners winnowed that group down to 180 plus our 5 International Award Recipients from Mexico. These 185 photographers, our Finalists, were then viewed and voted on by over 200 Much-Beloved and Esteemed Reviewers. So, all in all, there have been around 6000 images, 1600 eyeballs, and much be-loving and esteeming.

Hey, I was among the Finalists, but my name's not on this list, what's up with that? My work's really good, what's your problem?

That's no problem, that's democracy. When the voting was all tallied up at the end, this is how the numbers fell. Here's the really interesting thing about having so many great reviewers: they don't actually agree on what good work is. It's just opinions and math, my friend, opinions and math. Here's the deal- when you have this many people viewing & voting, every single vote does matter, yet the actual numeric significance of every single vote is quite small with so many people in the fray. For example, the numeric difference between #50 and #51 is only .0053473.

If it's that close, why not just have a Top 51?

Because the difference between #51 and #52 is tiny too. And then there'd be #52 to #53, #53 to #54, etc.

So, I was a Finalist, what do I win? Do you have some sort of Critical Mass Trophy or "Critical Masskicker!" baseball cap or something?

Nope, no baseball cap, but you've already won. Your work has just been seen by over 200 photography professionals and those who liked it are considering it for their own needs, sometimes in the short term, sometimes in the long. Just in the past couple weeks we've already begun hearing reports of photographers finding gallery representation, print sales being made, editorial assignments being given, shows being offered, lots of blog shouts, etc. If such an opportunity finds its way to you, please keep us in the loop.

Oh, also, many participants have had comments left for them by Reviewers. We'll be getting those to you over the next few weeks. It's not exactly a novelty baseball cap or a trophy, but in a sense, they're still something you can wear and/or cling to.

What do you mean that these 6 above are your Book Award Finalists? Does that mean that you're putting out 6 books?

No. Our Book Award Finalists are selected by the Photolucida Board after much careful thought and deliberation, with the scoring and recommendations from our Reviewers being taken into serious consideration. We then solicit proposals from these Finalists and from these, we'll choose which two, or maybe three monographs to publish. Eventually, these books will be sent out to each and every participating photographer and Reviewer from Critical Mass 2008. It does take quite a while, but the product's worth the wait.

Critical Mass sounds swell. When's the next one? When can I sign up?

Get on our mailing list, right here (down at the bottom).

I remember you mentioned something before about a "Reviewer's Scrapbook." What's up with that? When's that going to happen?

I'm not sure when it'll happen, but it'll happen. We're still in the midst of collecting from some Reviewers who've been kind enough to share the images that really grabbed them. But to start us out, Andy Adams from Flak Photo is going to host his own Reviewer's Scrapbook through a daily feature on the Flak site. Each day through the end of January, Andy will feature a different image he came across through Critical Mass. In fact, look, it's premiering today.

THANKS TO ALL FOR MAKING CRITICAL MASS 2008 A HUGE SUCCESS!

Friday, December 5, 2008

CM 2008: THE RESULTS

are not yet quite in. A few loose ends to tie up here and there, but we'll have them soon. Monday, I think.

Here, these might help:

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Opportunities Abound!

Three great opportunities you should jump on:

For you younger folks (slightly younger than me anyway):

the Linhof Young Photographer Award

(alright, that link's for you young German speakers. Here's the English one)

also, Wassenaar Magazine is looking for submissions to be featured in its second issue. The first one was awfully handsome.

Ooh, one more too: the deadline for HCP's 2009 Fellowship Exhibition is coming up. Juried by Natasha Egan, one of our distinguished Critical Mass Reviewers, two fellowships will be awarded, one to a Houston artist and one from _____________.

Go get 'em.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Critical Mass 2008: Last Call for Reviewers!

Countdown Clock by Zoodu.com

Monday, December 1, 2008

HOW WE AT PHOTOLUCIDA SPENT OUR SUNDAY

The single most important function of Critical Mass isn't in the product, but the process. As the voting process draws to a close I've heard numerous reports from Reviewers excited about the high caliber of the work. That's the important part... Reviewers who care about, and actually use photography, finding work of interest. Consider the process itself, the sundae. The books, in a sense, are the cherry on top.

That said though, I sure think cherries are delicious, and there's something really satisfying about having some aspect of Critical Mass to hold in my hands (other than this keyboard). We are very proud to announce that our 2006 Critical Mass Books are finally here, in our hands, and are now ready to make their way out into the world.

Camille Seaman's The Last Iceberg