untitled by Mikael F Kennedy

As inspiration to his The Odysseus series, Hey, Hot Shot! contender Mikael Kennedy looks to the classical myth, The Odyssey, one of Homer's epic poems telling the tale of the Greek hero Odysseus' decade-long journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Odysseus is faced with tests of physical strength and mental will as he faces the unknown, forced through the full gamut of human emotions during his expedition.

Kennedy's work looks to both the sea and solid ground, returning again and again to the notion of the journey. This is captured through images of paths and roads, and of lone men looking out into the horizon or out on large bodies of water, as though peering into the unknown, but with the intent of heading somewhere. The scale of man is often dwarfed by the scale of the landscape, also suggesting the force of nature is a beast not easily overcome.

Kennedy writes,

In The Odyssey, the character begins his story sitting on the shore staring at a "wine dark ocean" longing for his home. This is where we begin, staring out into the horizon with a sense of longing, absence or lack and from there wander out into a world that is both foreign and familiar in its terrain....This collection of photographs revisits that perspective: the one of cresting the hill to unknown plains or coastlines, reminiscent of the work of the Hudson River Painters and American exploration artists who were moved to capture and portraying the vastness and isolation of this new world. The Odysseus becomes a journey through the vistas of America - this search is for a renewed vision of the land, a vision that carries both the excitement and isolation of exploration.

See more from Kennedy's The Odysseus series on his website.

A warm congratulation to Cara Phillips, a 2008 Hot Shot! Work from her series, Singular Beauty, is currently up on Newsweek.com. Cara also writes a personal essay detailing her motivation to create work on the cosmetic surgery industry. See and read it here.

Jody, 2003 by Shen Wei

Shen Wei was crowned a Hot Shot in our Fall 2006 competition. Since then, he's made quite a success of himself. Not long ago I let you know about his limited edition portfolio book featuring work from his series, Almost Naked, and this Thursday, April 2, Shen will open a solo show of the selfsame series at Randall Scott Gallery in Brooklyn. There will be a reception for the artist from 6-8pm.

Almost Naked
April 2 - May 2
Randall Scott Gallery
111 Front Street #204
Brooklyn, NY

Click here to learn more about the limited edition book, and here to visit Shen's site.

Martini Man by Pierre Drouin

Like Anita Cruz-Eberhard, Pierre Drouin is one of several photographers we've seen this year who are not using a camera. He begins his process by making about seventy flatbed scans of his subject, using only the light that the scanner itself emits. He then edits the resulting images together, composing "a cubist picture, just like if you unfold a sphere on a flat surface."

Photographer Jonathan Johnson also uses a scanner to create images. He's scanned the height of an entire tree and the lifespan of a garden. Working outside, natural light provides an unpredictable element that clashes with the light from the scanner, yielding entirely abstract results. Drouin's results are also abstract but relatively precise, each scan yields a crisp file to work with. In the distance between these two artist's work, the diversity and range of the scanner as a photographic tool are evident. The results feel very painterly, with Drouin, of course, most closely referencing Picasso and Braque, and more recently, David Hockney's photo montages.

A little bit farther out of the art park lie other creative uses of the scanner: Via enthusiasm unbridled, I stumbled upon scanwiches: scans of sandwiches for education and delight! (Just for fun, it is Friday after all!)

Working with or without a camera, we want to see your work! Send it our way!

Image by Casey Kelbaugh

Casey Kelbaugh, a Spring 2006 Hot Shot, will have work in a benefit show opening tomorrow, Friday, March 27, at Jack the Pelican Presents in Williamsburg. Old School: A Big Show of Accessibly-Priced Little Gems, will be a salon-style showing of work that is priced with sensitivity to our trying financial times.

OLD SCHOOL
A Big Show of Accessibly-Priced Little Gems
Friday, March 27, 7-10pm
Jack the Pelican
487 Driggs Ave, Between N. 9th and N. 10th
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

While news of the Iraq War appears on the front page of international newspapers regularly, the day-to-day lives of Iraqi citizens are rarely explored in depth. The consequence of the war on Iraqis' civil rights, everyday freedoms, and simple safety, are overlooked by many, but for those who are experiencing raids on their homes, have endured torture by the militia, or have lost loved ones, the realities are glaring and enduring.

Lebanon-born photographer, Amro Hamzawi, takes viewers through a painful, but enlightening journey of Iraqi refugees in his series Iraqis Today (Testimonies). Here, he illuminates the struggle of families--showing physical suffering, deteriorated homes, and many who are grasping onto the little they have left. Descriptions of the scenes at hand illuminate that the images are only a taste of the depth of the atrocities; invisible and emotional wounds supplement those we see.

He writes,

It's difficult to give a precise estimate of the number of civilians who perished or were injured as a result of the invasion, but by all accounts the conditions on the ground are a humanitarian disaster with the civilians caught in the line of fire between the occupation forces, the militias that have taken over the country and the various insurgent groups wreaking havoc. With its infrastructure destroyed and its resources pillaged, Iraq has become a shadow of itself....This collection of portraits of Iraqi refugees seeks to bring the human dimension to the forefront and show the ravages of war from personal perspectives.

Spring 2007 Hot Shot and Jen Bekman artist Nina Berman is another photographer who looks at the effects of war on individuals. Her series Purple Hearts focuses on soldiers who have returned from war, injured, and lives forever changed. Both her project and contender Hamzawi's exploration of testimonies and stories of their subjects enable individuals who have experienced the traumatic nature of war to have a voice and share their stories.

See more on Amro Hamzawi's website.

Ms. Jen Bekman will serve as juror to the Photographic Center Northwest's 14th Annual Photographic Competition Exhibition, Photo-Op. Winning images will be exhibited at PCNW in Seattle July 13th - September 4th, 2009. In addition, cash awards in the amount of $1,000, $500, and $250 will be awarded to first, second, and third prize winners; each will also receive a $75 gift certificate of Blurb Scrip.

Photographers of all levels and processes are encouraged to apply; the juror will look for work reflecting a larger series. The entry fee is $47 with a minimum of five images. Submissions will be received until 9:00 p.m. on Friday, May 15th.

More information about the competition and entry forms are available at PCNW's website.

Hey, Hot Shot! contender Laura Graham combines the enigma of the mask with the stylistic effects of a custom wet plate large format camera to create ephemeral images that evoke the quality of an artifact found. A life-long collector, Graham describes roving for objects at antique stores and flea markets, then finding inspiration in what she finds.

Like Sally Mann, another female photographer who photographs on wet plate collodion 8x10 glass negatives (hers over 100 years old), the process is intrinsic to the images aesthetic. The negatives are exposed while the plate is still wet, creating effects like swirling focus and vignetting. Graham describes the method as enabling her as an "alchemist"; the final product is unpredictable, but can be transportive.

No. 06 from the series DIGITAL IKEBANAS by Anita Cruz-Eberhard

Anita Cruz-Eberhard creates fictitious photographs of Ikebana floral arrangements. The arrangements exist only as digital files or prints and are comprised of images taken from the online databases of university biology departments. Cruz-Eberhard explains that the images "have been repurposed to investigate the relationship between artifice and nature."

Visually, the images relate to Martin Kilmas' Flowers; and he's also playing with ideas of nature — in particular, gravity — and artifice, the somewhat false ability to see things that we wouldn't otherwise, via photography ala Muybridge.

I think the work actually might be closer to that of 2008 First Edition Hot Shot, Colleen Plumb. Plumb began her series, Animals are Outside Today, looking at "fake nature." You can see this work on 20x200; you'll also see that as she's worked her initial intentions have broadened to examine not only simulation but also "consumption, destruction, and reconstruction as well as notions of endurance and the reality of loss." When considering these other ideas, Cruz-Eberhard's images get interesting, she's certainly deconstructing and reconstructing, and creating something that could, technically, live forever, without actually existing in "real" life.

***Quick reminder: if you want to see your work here, on 20x200, or maybe even in a group show at Jen Bekman Gallery, you have five weeks left to get your entry together and apply!

Mexico-based photographer, Jan Smith, explores abandoned structures around the world, photographing remains of former inhabitance with ghostly bodies in their midst. The loosely defined bodies of nude men and women take form in spaces like the one pictured here--Gunkanjima Island--a former under-sea coal mine in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, which was abandoned in 1974, and also in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Namibia. The remains share remarkable similarity despite their distant geographies, suggesting a similar spirit inhabits abandoned spaces, regardless of place.

Smith writes,

Such structures exist for themselves only when they are abandoned. Without stewards, they achieve this transformation in exchange for mortality and disappearance from our memory. They live in a realm that shows itself and at the same time withdraws from us. Their acquired consciousness is like a horizon that defines itself by what we see, but also more largely by what remains veiled.

Smith's project, Ausencia y Abandono, is ongoing and you can see work from this series on his website.

The Inge Morath and Magnum Foundations have announced the sixth annual Inge Morath Award, created in memory of the Austrian-born photographer affiliated with Magnum Photos for half a century. $5,000 is awarded on an annual basis to a female documentary photographer under the age of 30 to support a long-term project, a grant that reflects Morath's dedication towards supporting female photographers.

Submission will be accepted through April 30, 2009 and a winner and two runners up will be announced on July 9, 2009 on the Magnum Foundation and Inge Morath Foundation websites.

More information and application details are available at the Inge Morath Foundation website.

Breakfast with Stephen Frost by Ryan Carter

Ryan Carter, a staff reporter for The National newspaper in the United Arab Emirates who has traveled and photographed communities in vast regions of the world, explores Old Crow, a remote Arctic community with a shrinking population in the Yukon, Canada with his submission to Hey, Hot Shot!

He writes,

With a declining population of less than three hundred, the Vuntut Gwitchin of Old Crow have hunted migratory caribou for thousands of years, and share an intimate relationship with these transient animals. Twice a year, the Porcupine Caribou Herd travels through this community to and from their calving grounds on "1002 lands" - a coastal region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. The 1002 lands are an unprotected portion of ANWR being explored for oil and natural gas. It is estimated over 6 billion barrels of oil exist below these Arctic plains. The controversial debate to develop this region has burdened the American government since this land became a federally protected area in 1960....My project doesn't confront or explore ANWR, its ecology, the 1002 lands, or the oil industry. Instead, the photography aims to quietly document a small First Nations population, its fading traditions and dependency on ancestral lands, all threatened by North America's need for energy.

Carter's series brings to mind the images of Fall 2007 Hot Shot and 20x200 artist, Birthe Piontek, whose recent series, The Idea of North, also took her to the Canadian Yukon. Her work also explores those who live in a territory less trodden, with focus on individuation found in people's quest for the glory of imagined remoteness.

Carter's camera also finds and intimate place with the Old Crow community, whether out hunting caribou or in a resident's kitchen. Work on his website from Guatemala, the United Arab Emirates, and the Eastern Democratic Congo, also show how Carter seamlessly enters geographies of transition, documenting communities with an observant eye. Carter has completed assignments for The New York Times Magazine and International Herald Tribune, among others, has also been a nominated for a World Press Photo Award and been awarded a National Geographic Grant, participated in The Eddie Adams Workshop, Barnstorm XVIII, and has been selected for numerous group exhibitions in both the United States and abroad.

Nymphoto: Conversations Volume I will open at Sasha Wolf Gallery on May 6th, 2009, from 6-8:00 p.m. and be on view until May 20th.

The show features work by Michele Abeles, Juliana Beasley (Fall 2006 Hot Shot), Rona Chang, Michal Chelbin, Nina Buesing Corvallo, Candace Gottschalk, Jessica M. Kaufman, Klea McKenna, Talia Greene, Maria Passarotti, Susana Raab, Emily Shur, Tema Stauffer (one of Jen Bekman Gallery's first exhibiting artists), Jane Tam (former HHS blogger and JB intern), Garie Waltzer & Jennifer Williams. The show accompanies the release of Nymphotos' first publication by the same name Nymphoto: Conversations Volume I.

COMING SOONER! Nymphoto's very first Call for Entries Deadline: April 3rd. From the entries, Nymphoto will cull and curate Nymphoto Presents @ Sasha Wolf Gallery, opening two weeks after Conversations. Upload 2-5 images to have your work considered for this exhibition. One note: as Nymphoto is a collection of women photographers, you must be female to participate. Sorry guys!

Reforestation, 2007, by David Ondrik

Albuquerque denizen David Ondrik is in search of the sublime. As he defines it, "the sublime is a combination of the grotesque and the beautiful". Using a Holga 120S camera, Ondrik creates musing landscape images of New Mexico.

From his artists statement, he writes:

In artistic expressions of the Sublime from the 19th century, man is small, in awe of and overwhelmed by the purity and enormity of Nature. The sublime in the 21st century has "transcended" this. It is no longer possible for man to be in a Romantic fog, far removed from the muck. I am no longer awe struck by the great vastness of untouched wilderness, were it even possible to find such a place. I am instead awestruck standing on the precipice above a drought-stricken reservoir, a superfund site, an (utterly avoidable) forest fire. These consequences of modernity are what make me feel small and powerless.

Ondrik's approach is a fitting foil to fellow contender Erin Tyner. Both are concerned with the scale of things--Ondrik by the enormity of Nature, and Tyner with the miniature bittersweetness of daily life.

Tilt-shift lenses, often used in architectural photography because their focal plane enables capturing buildings along parallel planes, has gained popularity as a mechanism for creating scenes in miniature. A similar effect can also be created through macro lenses, which is how Atlanta-based photographer, Erin Tyner creates miniaturization in her series, Half Awake.

She writes,

I find myself drawn to subjects possessing bittersweet qualities....In my Half Awake series I construct scenes using household items, natural objects, and model train figures. By pairing figures and context I create characters that are engaged with an unfolding narrative.

By recreating scale to the size of the miniature--whether it be person or object--the viewer departs reality into a land of the photographer's imagination. Photographers such as London-based artist, Slinkachu, who will release a book titled Little People later this year, have been placing scenes of tiny people under park benches, on sidewalks, and in the subway for years, leaving them to be discovered (or stepped on) by passerby. Whether creating scenes in your bathtub, front yard, or in public spaces, the photographers utilizing this lens technique must shrink their world--albeit temporarily--to the few from just a couple of inches off the ground in order the create their new and tiny worlds.

Women in Photography, co-founded 2008 Hot Shot Cara Phillips and Amy Elkins last summer to showcase the works of female art photographers, has announced their first grant, funded by Lightside Photographic Servces and co-sponsored by LTI. One grant will be awarded in the amount of $3,000.00; applications will be accepted online at wipnyc beginning on April 1, 2009 at 12 a.m., when the submissions will be possible through the site.

The grant award-winner will be announced at the National Arts Club on June 10th, 2009, where a slideshow of the winner's work will also be presented.

Visit Women in Photography for more information about curators Elkins and Phillips, and look forward to the grant application on April 1st.

Cycles of consumption, recycling, and their effects on the earth have been brought to light in the art world by photographers like Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan. Each of these photographers focuses on the effects of what we consume on the environment, drawing attention to the mass of consumption and the havoc of disposal.

Hey, Hot Shot! contender William Goldkind also turns his attention to recycling, particularly scrap and junk metal, looking at the connection between the earth and the manufacturing industry.

He writes,

The recycling industry has become a prominent and lucrative sphere of manufacturing. The reuse of materials is central to this body of work. The machinery and processes that enable the makers of primary materials to use scrap again, creating a closed cycle of consumption is both a critical component of the economy and mimics the natural circle of life. Metal as we know it begins life deep in the earth, it is mined and manipulated into refrigerators, cars, jewelry, and other products, as its use diminishes and ages the metal returns to the recycler and their furnaces for rebirth to be used again.

By honing his camera in on metal both on the micro and macro levels (from crushed aluminum cans to the large-scale carcass of an airplane), Goldkind looks to the big and small metals that are re-incorporated into use. He works to redefine what is "junk" and where the cycle of production truly ends.

Hey, Hot Shot! contender Diego Ravier had an unlikely beginning as a project manager in the automobile industry, but has since switched paths to focus his camera on on exploring the discrimination and social rejection endured by those living with genetic disorders and stigmatized diseases. Trained in Paris and residing in Frankfurt am main, Germany, Ravier's work is set in villages of equatorial Africa.

In his series, Genetic Contrast, Ravier explores the world of Africans suffering from albinism. Their skin lacks melanin, making it whiter, and their eyes are often gray, blue, or brown -- a much lighter hue than those without the disease. Many suffer problems with their vision and skin, and are extremely sensitive to the sun.

He writes,

They also face the indifference of the rest of their community about their suffering. In addition, their peers suspect them to be related to good and bad omen. Often, they live in hiding from the unforgiving communities around them. It is difficult to define what "normal" means because there are plenty of non-written rules by society. Some physical anomalies make one look different from the majority. If this causes social prejudices, the result is always suffering and little or no social integration.

Ravier's images show the sense of isolation brought about by albinism--children without playmates, a grown woman unaccepted by her husband's family, young men and women who struggle to get jobs because of their skin color--as well as the struggle of the community around albinos to understand how to accept individuals born with this genetic anomaly.

See more work on Diego Ravier's website.

As a clinical social worker for thirty-five years, Hey, Hot Shot! contender Jane Alt is familiar with the inside of the psychiatrist's office. In her series, The Treatment Room, she brings her camera into the usually off-grounds office, and captures images of patients, environment, and the doctors, all anonymously. Through her images, Alt hints at the body emotions of conflict, focus, resolution, and anxiety in a space that offers both comfort and frustration.

In her statement, she writes,

The Psychiatrist's office is an intimate place with a mystique of its own. ... I explore these spaces and their meaning with my camera. The office, as a site for many dramas, functions as an empty stage waiting for its players. Behind closed doors I release the shutter, providing visual access to a world veiled in privacy.

In a recent NY Times slideshow, psychoanalyst Mark Gerald brought his camera into the offices of others in the same profession all around the city. In contrast to Alt's project, he chooses to reveal his subjects in their settings, focusing on the psychoanalysts themselves, inspired by both the offices similarities and differences.

See more from The Treatment Room at Jane Alt's website.

Horizon # 2, 2008 by Christopher Paquette

Philadelphia photographer, Christopher Paquette, has submitted work from his series Collected Horizons. I'm reminded of Mark Rothko and Andreas Gursky, and how their approaches flatten and challenge our way of seeing.

Christopher writes:

This project consists of a series of minimalist and abstract horizons taken in a variety of locations, both indoors and outdoors. It is a study of layers, textures, depth, and perspective.

View the series here, and visit Christopher's Photography blog here.

Plänterwald #3, 2007 by Ina Senftleben

Hot Shot contender Ina Senftleben photographs Berlin's defunct Spreepark in her series Plänterwald. Ina's images are bewitching in their eerie quietude, and make me think if I were to enter them I'd somehow be living in a Douglas Coupland story about the end of the world. When viewing the complete series one cannot help but recall Anna Gakell's photographs, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition. What if, at the end of the world, the planet were overrun with identically clad nymphettes? See what I mean on Ina's site.

Fall 2006 Hot Shot, Joe Fornabaio, was one of eleven renowned photographers selected for the USA Network's Character Project. During the summer of 2008, the photographers--including Mary Ellen Mark, Richard Renaldi, and Sylvia Plachy--set out about the United States to document characters far and wide: off highways, in farms, in the city, and in the country. Fornabaio's project focused around the common American ritual of the haircut. He ventured into salons and barber shops of all calibers, seeking the "visceral experience we share with our stylist or barber."

Forabaio's images join the work of the other photographers in a forthcoming book titled, American Character: A Photographic Journey, published by Chronicle Books this month. The work will also be displayed in a two day exhibition sponsored by the Aperture Foundation open today and tomorrow from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. at Stephan Weiss Studio, 711 Greenwich Street.

Here's something to consider after you submit your photographs to us humble folks at Hey, Hot Shot!
The Center for Photography at Woodstock is currently accepting entries for their Photography Now competition. The competition will be juried by Charlotte Cotton, Curator and Head of Photographs, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

All the information you need is located here. Winners will have their work published in the Center's publication, Photography Quarterly. Not so coincidentally, two Hot Shots have graced the cover of PQ in recent years, Mickey Smith (PQ#95 / 2006) and Brad Moore (PQ#97 / 2008).

Buona fortuna!

In contrast to 2008 Hot Shot Hosang Park, whose images of parks in Seoul, Korea are void of people, and highly attentive to the geometries created in these man-made spaces, the work of 2009 Hey, Hot Shot! contender Kurt Tong speaks to his memory of--and relationship to--recreational spaces in China. Tong is inspired by worn and yellowed childhood photos of himself and his siblings in Chinese parks full of bumper cars and ice cream stalls--the objects and emblems that made the parks unique. With time, the parks have changed, and his memory of the parks of his childhood are fading.

He writes,

In 1958, at the beginning of The Great Leap Forward, when private ownership was banned, many existing parks were renovated and new parks were built all across China for the people, many were renamed People's Parks. Over the years, they became main focal points of the cities, where families have their outings and couples meet. China is changing at a staggering pace, the economic miracle means that the Chinese are enjoying a much more affluent lifestyle. Shopping and Internet have replaced bumper cars and Ferris wheels. Many of these parks have fallen to disarray. Millions of older Chinese would have grown up with these parks and have memories of time spent in them. Just like the parks, their memories are slowly fading away with time.

Tong's People's Park series and other projects can be viewed on his website.

Spring 2006 Hot Shot Casey Kelbaugh is the brains behind Slideluck Potshow, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a slideshow + potluck. SLPS has been bringing people together to share good art and good food for a couple years now and has brought that same sense of community to the web. It be be a little bit of the chicken before the egg, or the egg before the chicken, maybe? SLPS made a name for itself by bringing people together the old fashioned way, in actual physical space, before really establishing their virtual community. Regardless, the SLPS network is in full swing and it's a good site to to browse for info on upcoming SLPS events as well as other opportunities and events for photographers and artists.

Upcoming Events:

Slideluck Youth Initiative Event | March 20 | 6:30pm | LES | Please bring food & drinks | RSVP: network.slideluckpotshow.com
SLPS Los Angeles VI | April 11 | 7 - 11:30 pm | Location TBA
SLPS Portland III | April 25 | 7 - 11:30 pm | Sandbox Studio

The New York Photo Festival returns for its second year and has announced a call for entries for the New York Photo Awards 2009. The competition is currently open for submissions in editorial, fine art and advertising, and student categories--and will continue accepting work through May 1st. The winners of the contest will be announced during the festival on May 15th at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

From the press release,

The New York Photo Awards Ceremony is scheduled to return to St. Ann's Warehouse on Friday, May 15, 2009, starting at 8PM. The work of the Award Winners and Honorable Mentions will be presented on the big screen before a packed audience of industry luminaries. Fourteen major awards will be publicly presented to the Award Winners, and 28 artists will receive Honorable Mention certificates.

All Award Winners and Honorable Mentions will enjoy unprecedented visibility for their work. In addition to the New York Photo Awards ceremony, their work will be showcased on the New York Photo Festival website, and published in leading photo magazines. These artists are also automatically eligible for inclusion in a beautifully produced New York Photo Awards Annual, available for purchase online through the New York Photo Festival website.

Works produced or published between January 1, 2008 and April 15, 2009 are eligible for submission. More information about submitting work, the festival, the jury, and the awards ceremony are available at the New York Photo Festival website.

Hey, Hot Shot! contender Jordan Tate, introduces us to his series Blur, a collection of works that challenges the viewer to find understanding in subjects without immediate focus. He asks that the camera be acknowledged as an optical device that mediates sight, separating the viewer or picture-maker from his or her subject.

He describes the series as,

an examination of and reconciliation between photographic seeing and ocular seeing. In a sense it is an examination of how we see, what we see, and what is worth looking at. Much of my relationship with the work recalls peripheral vision, where the banal can occasionally seem extraordinary.

Tate cites Uta Barth--whose experimentation with depth of field, focus, and depth play with the power of allusion--as a reference to his own work; he too makes work with the intent of creating tensions of focus and the desire for clarity for the viewer.

Currently living in Berlin, Tate is a Fulbright Fellow with work held in several collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender and Reproduction.

Pocono Gardens Resort, Paradise Valley, Pennsylvania by Nicole Lloyd

Nicole Lloyd now calls Los Angeles home. Originally from Allentown, PA, she spent the last few years roaming the country and photographing. Of this process she writes:

Through this exploration I realized that home was not just a specific place, but that home was also a feeling. This became apparent when I started to discover landscapes that were not a part of my past, but that evoked a strong sense of comfort and familiarity, the same feelings I experience when exploring the landscape of my youth. By connecting these disparate places through their common bonds the images become part of larger landscape that is universally familiar: they create a sense of place that is emotionally tangible yet elusive.

The Open Society Institute's Documentary Photography Project has opened their 2009 competition for distribution grants ranging from $5,000 - $30,000. Eligible photographers must have already completed a body of work surrounding issues of social justice, and would use the grant in partnership with a non-profit organization, NGO, or a community-based organization as a means for enacting social change through photography.

Former Hot Shot, Nina Berman was awarded an OSI Distribution Grant in 2005, surrounding her body of work, Purple Hearts, exhibited at Jen Bekman Gallery during the Fall, 2008. She used her grant to travel around the country with injured former soldier, Robert Acosta, making multimedia presentations to high school and collage-aged audiences where there is active military recruitment.

Please visit the website for additional information about eligibility, to apply, and to learn about previous grantees. Applications will be accepted until June 19, 2009.

Melbourne-based photographer Ward Roberts, is our first peek into the work of contenders for the 2009 Hey, Hot Shot! competition. We are excited to watch the submissions come in and see the new work brought to our attention by this season's contenders.

Roberts turns his eye to repetition in built forms and their intersection with nature, exploring familiar landscapes like parking lots, shopping carts, and highrise apartment complexes. With a muted, cool color palette, Roberts takes us to the edge of lonely forests and parking lots, where vacancy appears indefinite.

His submissions come from the series, landscapes about us, described as:

"...a distilling exploration of loneliness and isolation... Rich in all life but human, a sense of desertion & desolation resonates across these landscapes." [-Kate Adams]

Other series on his website show the versatility of Roberts' minimalism; the human body and man-made objects are explored with equal distance and control.

Roberts accolades include being named the Victorian photography student of the year (portraiture), winning the ACMP Les Walkling award for Architectural, Industrial or commercial photography, Irwin Maclaren Landscape Award, and the Blindspot exhibition peoples choice award.

I am looking forward to seeing this exhibition, Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900, at SFMOMA, in a few short weeks. Hopefully it will satiate my desire for salt, albumen, cyanotype, and silver gelatin prints until I can totally indulge/immerse myself in Richard Benson's The Printed Picture, which is hopefully enroute to my mailbox. Aside from offering some gorgeous examples of traditional printing methods, the show at SFMOMA, according to this interview with SFMOMA associate curator of photography Corey Keller, promises to agitate the old adage, "seeing is believing." Also agitating, in a good way, I think: SMOMA's interests in vernacular photography, and in particular, photography that isn't from the 20th century. Read the interview!

If you're in SF or also happen to be headed that way, hopefully you'll be around on Monday, April 6th. Ms. Jen Bekman and members from team 20x200 (myself included) will be hosting 20x200 collectors, some Cali-based 20x200 artists (maybe even a Hot Shot or two), and you, with our friends at Chronicle Books.

We hope it'll be as fun as the Collector's Confab we last hosted in NYC.

So see you, Monday, April 6th, from 6-8 p.m. at Chronicle Books, 680 Second Street, San Francisco. More details soon!

All week, Zoom-In online has been releasing new Viewfinders Challenge Photojournalism episodes. The short videos provide insightful interviews with photojournalists who covered the 2008 Presidential campaign trail, including Gerald Holubowicz, Jennifer Altman, Katie Orlinsky, Yana Paskova, and Keith Bedford.

While it's informative and interesting to hear and see what these professionals think and how they work, Zoom-In online also wants to hear from you. Starting next week, they'll publish one viewer submitted photo per day, relating to this month's theme — photojournalism.

Zoom-In is now accepting submissions that show how the current political and economic climate are affecting you and your community.

We want to remind you that Jen Bekman Gallery is showing Beth Dow's Fieldwork series at PULSE New York Art Fair on Pier 40 through Sunday, March 8th.

Friday, March 6, 12 - 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 7, 12 - 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 8, 12 - 5 p.m.

Also, join us for sweets and mimosas at the Jen Bekman Gallery tomorrow morning, March 7, 2009, from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. where painter Sarah McKenzie and Eva Hagberg, editor of the architecture and design blog Edificial, will be in conversation about the influences and practices behind McKenzie's current exhibition, Building Code.

Please RSVP to: info@jenbekman.com.

Hope to see you over the weekend!

Birthe Piontek, a Fall 2007 Hot Shot, shares a new series about a small community in the Yukon, the sparsely populated westernmost province of Canada. In this new series, The Idea of North, whose title is inspired by the work of Glen Gould, Piontek shares her own expression of the people and landscape of the mysterious North.

Jen Bekman Projects, Inc. is now accepting entries for Hey, Hot Shot! 2009.

What is Hey, Hot Shot!?
Hey, Hot Shot! offers unrivaled opportunities for emerging photographers to have their work promoted online, reviewed by top-notch panelists and exhibited in our New York gallery. Now entering its fifth year, the international competition has been lauded by curators, critics, educators and journalists.

We are also pleased to announce that photographer and former Creative Director of Colors magazine, Stefan Ruiz, has joined ranks with our seasoned panelists, Jen Bekman, Christine Collins, Dana Faconti, Caterina Fake, Stephen Frailey, Raul Gutierrez, Darius Himes, Jenni Holder, Julia Leach, Nion McEvoy, Lesley A. Martin and Kent Rogowski.

Stefan is just one of many exceptional additions + surprises we have in store. As Hey, Hot Shot! is becoming, increasingly, well, competitive, we're working hard to ensure that it continues to bring photographers — at all stages of their careers — the exposure, recognition, and support they deserve. Stay tuned for more details!

five hot shots x NYC exhibition + (20x200) = incomparable exposure
Our panel will select five Hot Shots to exhibit their work in a two-week show @ Jen Bekman Gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, 20x200 editions of each photographer's work are released online.

cold hard cash
Each winning photographer will be awarded a $500 honorarium.

ultras go solo
One photographer of the five Hot Shots will be selected selected as an Ultra. Each Ultra is represented by Jen Bekman Gallery and slated for a solo exhibition.

in it to win it
As always, we'll select contenders to feature daily on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog throughout the entry period. Contenders and honorable mentions will also be considered for 20x200, Jen Bekman Projects' online endeavor which offers limited edition prints at affordable prices.

So what are you waiting for? Get your work out there: Apply Now!

Not quite ready to apply? Join our mailing list to keep up to date.

We only accept submissions online, via this website.

The deadline for entries is Friday, May 1st, 2009 @ 8pm (EDT).

Hot Shots will be announced on Thursday, May 28th, 2009.

There is a $60 handling fee for your entry.
Submissions are open to everyone, from anywhere in the world!
The competition is open.

Questions?

Check out our informative and frequently updated FAQ, follow us on Twitter, or find us on Facebook.

Interested in seeing work from previous winners?

Check out the Hot Shot Index for all our previous winners, visit the Hey, Hot Shot! blog or look at the photo sets on Flickr.

Ready to go? Apply Now!

A friendly reminder from Jen Bekman Projects HQ that you can hear about the latest new editions from 20x200, all about Hey, Hot Shot! (and what past and current Hot Shots are up to), and about new exhibits & ongoings at Jen Bekman Gallery by following us on twitter.

Where to find us on twitter:
Hey, Hot Shot!
20x200
Jen Bekman Gallery

We always love hearing from you, whether it is here, at the 20x200 blog, Jen Bekman Gallery blog, on facebook, or via our twitter accounts!

Jen and Jeffrey will be manning the Jen Bekman Gallery booth at the PULSE New York Art Fair today, March 5th, through this Sunday, March 8th, 2009. Photographer Beth Dow's series Fieldwork will be featured alongside work by Ian Baguskas, Mara Bodis-Wollner, Christian Chaize, Gregory Krum, Holly Lynton, Carrie Marill, Brad Moore, Hosang Park, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, and Carlo Van de Roer. Stop by Booth I-12; we hope you'll say hello!

Booth I - 12
PULSE New York
Pier 40
353 West Street @ West Houston

Lynn, 2007, by Shen Wei

Flowers in the Backseat, 2007, by Shen Wei

Fall '06 Hot Shot Shen Wei has released a limited edition portfolio of his lush photographs that investigate "the complexity of emotional nakedness".

The unique portfolio book is truly a collectable item. The book is designed as an artist's portfolio, all pages are separated and placed in a custom made box.

Click here to learn more about the book, and here to visit Shen's site.

The deadline for the 50th Annual Communication Arts Juried Photography Competition is just a scant 36 hours away! Any photographs produced or published between March 12, 2008 and March 6, 2009 are eligible for submission and winning images will be published the Communication Arts Photography Annual and on commarts.com. Images will be selected by a jury of designers, art directors, and photographers from all over the country.

Submissions are being accepted in the following categories: Advertising, Books, Editorial, For Sale, Institutional, Multimedia, Self-Promotion, and Unpublished. Visit the site to see entry fees for single images and series' of work (limited to five photographs).

Click here to apply and for more information regarding the competition.

Sad but true: I won't be attending the Palm Springs Photo Festival, what wise and witty Mary Virginia Swanson describes as, "our 'Arles' -- Arles, California style!"
Will you?
If you're doomed to remain snowbound, you at least have the opportunity to send your photographs to sunny Cali; the deadline for the Palm Springs Photo Festival Slideshow has been extended to Monday, March 9th. There is no entry fee, this is a free (!) opportunity to get your work in front of dozens of influential photography professionals, including HHS panelist Darius Himes from Radius Books (present pretty much everywhere these days) and Michelle Dunn Marsh from Chronicle Books, and artists Debbie Fleming Caffery, Todd Hido, Larry Fink, and Greg Gorman.
MVS says:

One of my favorite parts of the PSPF is the wonderful "evening slide shows" that show work from four finalists on the big screen at the Palm Springs Art Museum Theater prior to the evening's presentations. Last year, the bodies of work we were introduced to each evening was outstanding, and highly anticipated - no one is late for the start of the slide show, writing down website and looking on line later to see the work again and again.

Winter 2006 Hot Shot Juliana Beasley (whose work will be featured at Art Fair! opening tomorrow) and Brian Ulrich, who exhibited work in A New American Portrait at Jen Bekman Gallery, are two of the fifty photographers participating in The 50 States Project. The year long project began January 2nd, 2009, when Stuart Pilkington emailed an assignment to all fifty participating photographers (one per state) asking them to capture one or more individuals they felt represented the state they live in under the topic of "People."

He writes,

I asked them to interpret the assignment using their own unique voice and to photograph something/someone iconic, or emblematic, symbolic, or real to their own lives. They were free to interpret the assignment however they wished.

Each photographer had two months to produce one image in response to this assignment, (namely 'people'), and what you are about to see are the results. As you visit each State, (in alphabetical order), hopefully a picture of the United States will be conjured up for you like a quilt made up of 50 parts.

Every two months, photographers will be sent a new assignment by email, then have two months to create an image they feel best represents the topic, as well as expressing their own photographic style. The results from the second assignment, "Habitat" will be visible on May 1, 2009.

To see the images and learn more about the participating photographers, visit the The 50 States Project website and follow the progress of the project on twitter.

Art Fair! opens at Michael Mazzeo Gallery tomorrow, March 4th, with a reception for the artists from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The gallery is at 526 West 26th Street.

Featured artists include:
Juliana Beasley
Alison Carey
F&D Cartier
Caleb Charland
John Chervinsky
Rachael Dunville
Lucas Foglia
Jefferson Hayman
Yong Hee Kim
Sebastian Lemm
Chris McCaw
Leah Oates
Cara Phillips
Josh Quigley
Christopher Rauschenberg
Robin Schwartz
Will Steacy
Lacey Terrell
Terry Towery

Join lovely and talented Hot Shots, Juliana Beasley, Rachael Dunville, and Cara Phillips and the rest of their cohorts for a celebration of contemporary photography from "a spectrum of accomplished, mid-career artists and rising young talent."

Blurb has announced the second annual Photography.Book.Now International Juried Competition awarding $25,000 to the photographer with the best self-published book. The competition will be juried by Darius Himes, a Hey, Hot Shot! panelist, writer, editor, and the founder of Radius Books, a non-profit company dedicated to the visual arts. (Take a look of some of his required reading!).

In 2008, Jen Bekman artist, Beth Dow (whose work will be exhibited by the gallery's booth at the PULSE New York Art Fair this week) took the grand prize for her project, In the Garden, a collection of platinum palladium prints exploring cultivated landscapes.

Applicants can apply to Fine Art, Editorial, and Commercial categories through July 16th, 2009 and in addition to the grand prize winner, a first-prize winner in each category will have the opportunity for a private portfolio review with the panel.

More information about the application and award are available at Photography.Book.Now.

Magnum Photos and HP have announced the inaugural Magnum Expression Photography Award which aims to raise awareness and inspire change through photography. This year's theme is "Communities."

From the Magnum blog:

A sense of community is at the core of our lives, in some cases it unites us and in others it divides us from one another. This universal force is omnipresent in humankind and our diverse forms of expression, from acts of benevolence and kindness to movements of oppression and isolation. Each manifestation of human action has its causes and effects, its beneficiaries or victims. These impulses and actions are shaped by our individual identities and reflect our collective spirit. The judges urge participants to embrace the theme of communities and consider the expansive nature of how it pervades our lives and affects our perceptions. Participants' submissions may be for a completed project or one that is ongoing.

The award will be juried by four Magnum photographers: Alec Soth, Jonas Bendiksen, Paolo Pellegrin and Susan Meiselas, and one HP large format printing representative will select 20 finalists. The winner will receive a $10,000 grant, HP's large format Designjet Z3200 for fine art printing, archival pigment inks, fine art paper and additional prizes from contributing partners Blurb & PhotoShelter.

There is no fee or geographic constraints to apply and two honorable mentions and the remaining 17 finalists will also receive awards. The award is open for submissions on March 16th and closes on May 31st, 2009. Finalists and winners will be selected in June 2009.

More information and a press kit are available at the Magnum Expression site.

I know, it's hard to pry your eyes away from the screen and do some offline reading every once in awhile, but do it, and your eyes and your head will thank you. If you're not sure where to begin (often a problem online too...) start here, on HHS panelist Darius Himes' blog (I know! I know! I just suggested going offline, but here first, then to your couch! And then, back to the interwebs for some follow-up reading.)

Among other things, Mr. Himes manages to squeeze in some time to teach at the College of Santa Fe and has been posting his class' reading assignments on his blog. So, if you'd like, follow along and brush up your knowledge. Unfortunately, we've missed the reading aloud of The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore (in entirety) but next on the list is Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Cotton's book concisely but not too cleanly, divides contemporary photography into seven categories, leaving room for the overlap and blurring of definitions that are bound to happen.