Is there a true memory? Childhood homes are often remembered as having been larger, more expansive. Certain sounds and smells can trigger emotionally-laden memories unique to the individual. And, as is usually the case, seminal events are often remembered distinctly and differently by each of the experiencers present.

In Contender Kristina Williamson's submission, the artist explores memory and the digital age, weaving a photographic journey that calls to mind both memory as a recollection and—through her use of pixelation—memory as a computational means of storing sequences of information or data.

Crystal Gait, 2011 by Kristina Williamson

Of the work, she says, "...The more you recall something, the more you forget it. Each time we revel in something from our past, it mixes with the present experience and becomes less of what it was and more of a mash-up with what currently is. My work addresses memory and the act of recalling."

Conjure, 2011 by Kristina Williamson

Survivor's Guilt, 2011 by Kristina Williamson

Williamson goes to explain:

[The work] explores the relationship between painting and photography, marrying the reproductive elements of photography with the physical act of drawing and mark making. This series of prints was created through a process of transferring layers of printer ink onto paper by hand. Each layer becomes a fragment mimicking a flash of memory. For me, it is a return to the physical process of photography that existed in the traditional B+W darkroom. Small sections of the image are laid down at a time as the digital photograph slowly begins to reveal itself on paper, like a print in a developing bath. At the same time, the fragmentation of the layering process nods to ideas of compression and pixelation of digital imagery. The rectilinear segments that make up these transfers reference the pixel as a unit and the building blocks of our memories. Today, our experiences are pixelated both literally through digitalization as well as figuratively through the process of remembering and forgetting. Almost nothing happens without being digitized in our camera phones and posted on Facebook. This act in itself is an anticipatory tool for recalling our memories in the future.

Chasm, 2011 by Kristina Williamson

Every move feels like a move, 2011 by Kristina Williamson

Kristina Williamson (b. 1980) was born and raised in Pen Argyl, PA. In 2003, Williamson graduated from Parson School of Design with a BFA in photography and, in 2004, was awarded a J. William Fulbright grant to pursue a project photographing life on the island of Kythera, Greece. She spent over a year and a half living and photographing on the remote island. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Greece, New York and Washington D.C., as well as in various group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Williamson currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she works as a freelance photographer and regularly posts her new creations on her blog.

Funeral homes bear the burden of being at once comforting (if only temporarily) and austere, a balance necessary to convey a sense of being able to mourn the deceased in a home-like environment. As a place of last respects and deep grief, the funeral home becomes an unwanted but ultimately unavoidable experience. In Contender Corey Hendrickson's submission, the photographer used his 35mm Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III to capture the thought-out, reverent and functional staging of funeral homes across Vermont.

Funeral home interior with matching yellow sofas and patterned wallpaper; Montpelier, Vermont, 2010 by Corey Hendrickson

Funeral home interior with silk flowers, life savers and princess phone; Rutland, Vermont, 2011 by Corey Hendrickson

Hendrickson succinctly explains:

Funeral homes are created as [a] sanctuary for grief and loss. I approached these somber environments as an archaeologist, carefully documenting the wallpaper, drawn curtains, antique couches and air fresheners. I am intrigued by the aesthetics of comfort and found beauty in the careful arrangement of everyday objects.

Casket showroom with men's suit, shirt and tie; Chelsea, Vermont, 2011 by Corey Hendrickson

Funeral home interior with Kleenex; Chelsea, Vermont, 2011 by Corey Hendrickson

Born in 1975 in Cambridge, MA, Corey Hendrickson worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado and Alaska before moving to Jackson, Wyoming, and starting a career as a photographer. Corey then received his MFA in photography from the Academy of Art University in 2009. Corey is a 2011 Photolucida Critical Mass finalist for this same body of work, and one of the prints is now in the permanent collection at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado. Corey photographs environmental portraits, architecture, food and travel. He currently lives in central Vermont with his dog, Jake, and works throughout New England.

Untitled, by Corey Hendrickson

Funeral home interior with organ, podium and Rembrandt; Rutland, Vermont, 2011 by Corey Hendrickson

Catching Fire I, 2011 by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib

In her submission, Contender Maria Theresa Moerman Ib captured the remnants of a fire in her pictures of soot-laden cobwebs. Looking similar to peeling skin, unraveling fabric or disintegrating leaves, the photos serve as a testament to the frailty, yet resilience, of ephemeral structures.

Catching Fire II, 2011 by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib

In her statement, the photographer explains:

My work explores borderlands: between the familiar and the unknown; between the poetic and the grotesque; things that are hidden; things we don't notice, or don't want to notice. My aim is always to recreate a mood or memory that urges us to rediscover the world and ourselves one fragment at a time. A recent fire in the basement of my building inspired me to document and subsequently recreate the atmosphere left after the blaze had been put out. Fire is ephemeral, so it is difficult to capture its essence. In nature, fire is both destructive and life-giving. It destroys the old and encourages new life to take form. The black cobwebs thick with soot, collected in situ, serve as a forensic investigation of unseen things lost and gained. Webs are often associated with fear of spiders, dark corners and time passing, but for the spider they are a temporary dwelling place and a means of survival. This time they have caught an element of fire, allowing a memory that is as fragile as themselves to survive.

Catching Fire III, 2011 by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib

Catching Fire IV, 2011 by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib

Born in The Netherlands, photographer Maria Theresa Moerman Ib currently lives and works in Glasgow, U.K. She is currently working towards obtaining a BA (Hons) in fine art photography from the Glasgow School of Art, and has had her work in exhibitions in Europe and the U.S. To view more of her work, visit her site.

Catching Fire V, 2011 by Maria Theresa Moerman Ib

B Side #6, by Rubi Lebovitch

+Congratulations to photographer Rubi Lebovitch, who joins Walker Pickering and David Welch in becoming the first photographers from the Hey, Hot Shot! First Edition 2011 round of competition to release a limited-edition print with 20x200.com

+We're currently finalizing all the details and will be announcing very soon who the first five Hot Shots from 2011 are. The Hot Shots will each win $500, will be invited to participate in a group show at Jen Bekman Gallery and will have the opportunity to work with 20x200, in addition to receiving countless opportunities for exposure.

+If you missed your chance to submit your photographs to the first round of the competition, don't worry—we will soon be announcing the Second Edition 2011 round of competition! At stake is the chance to win the $10k grand prize, in addition to the hallmark awards we offer. Sign up for our low-volume newsletter to be the first to find out!

Around NYC:

+Head to the Aperture Foundation's gallery from now until September 24th to catch the thought-provoking discussion/exhibition about the media and information overload What Matters Now? Proposals for a New Front Page.

+You can also catch Aperture at the New York Art Book Fair, beginning September 30th through October 2nd, at MoMA PS1.

+Photographer Bruce Davidson will be giving a talk and signing his seminal book Subway on Monday, September 26th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Strand Bookstore.

four corners, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

Two-time Contender Jennifer Mason explores uneasiness in her work, whether in the psychological tension of suburban existence, the near-wilting flowers in her still-lifes or in the empty, digitally altered domestic interiors that she submitted for this round of the competition.

In this series, the photographer "strives to put forth new ways of looking at the four walls that make up a structure... in turn disrupting the normal 'homely' sense associated with suburban homes."

Pink room, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

swinging doors 1, 2011 by Jennifer Mason

Mason explains:

The images I digitally create have one of two objectives: I am either trying to create spaces that help evoke feelings of unease, discomfort and anxiety to create a physical space that closer matches my internal experience of reality, or I want to propose and digitally construct new spaces that provide a hiding place, with an eerily, sleepy banality in which one could just disappear.

swinging doors 2, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

Jennifer Mason is an Auckland-born artist working in the medium of photography. She has studied photography in New York (2004); gained a BFA / BA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland (2005); and has won numerous art awards for her work, which also features in prominent New Zealand collections.

swinging doors 3, 2010 by Jennifer Mason

Between 7,000 and 8,000 people die each year in Argentina due to traffic accidents, a number that is significantly larger than most other countries in the Americas. The country's notoriously lax laws (and lack thereof) regarding traffic violations—including driving under the influence, speeding, wearing seat belts, etc.—result in an estimated $10 billion in losses each year. Argentina-based Contender Diego Levy, armed with a Hasselblad, took to the streets of Buenos Aires to document various car wrecks.

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Diego explains:

In Argentina, the number of traffic-related deaths is 3 times higher than most countries of Europe and the United States, which have obligatory road safety education at school, high fines for traffic offenders and rigorous exams to obtain a driver's license. The levels of traffic-related deaths in Argentina remain sky-high. Traffic-related accidents are responsible for 35.2% of all deaths, making the traffic-related death rate in Argentina one of the highest in the world. These accidents cause 21 deaths per day (more than 7,000 per year), more than 120,000 injuries per year, and enormous financial losses (estimated at $10 billion dollars per year), according to data from the Argentine NGO Luchemos por la vida. As a photographer, I am interested in working within urban landscapes, and car crashes have been part of this landscape for some time. Like many people, I find myself strangely drawn to the visuals of car accidents. With this in mind, some time ago I decided to photograph car accidents in the city of Buenos Aires. My intention is neither sensationalist nor morbid: I simply want to use these images to portray the violence and intensity of the accidents caused by negligence, lack of education and the lack of respect for one's own life and others. We Argentines take to the streets and highways with an almost suicidal attitude that is undoubtedly one of the most serious problems of recent years. This work aims to explore an issue that is common to many cities around the world. The project will present the harsh reality of the statistics on traffic accidents. These destroyed vehicles, abandoned like metallic sculptures in an inalterable city, are an urban metaphor for the widespread violence in which we are all immersed. The finiteness of life is exposed amidst twisted metal. And on a more personal level, working on my own fears may, in some way, help to exorcise them.

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Diego Levy was born in Buenos Aires in 1973. Since 1991, he has been working as a professional photographer. In 2001, he received the first prize in the New Journalism Contest granted by the Foundation for the New Iberian-American Journalism presided by Gabriel García Márquez. In 2003, the organization FiftyCrows, based in San Francisco, California, selected Levy as a finalist in their annual International Fund for Documentary Photography. In 2005 and 2007 he received grants from the Buenos Aires Cultural Funds. In 2008, he was awarded the Grand Prix of National Chamber of Visual Arts of Argentina. In 2009, his project Crashes received the first prize in the Book Author Fair in the Fotoseptiembre festival 09, Mexico. He is the author of the books Sangre, published in 2006, and Choques, published in 2010. Since 2006, he has been represented by the VU Agency in France. He lives and works in Buenos Aires.

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Untitled from the series Crashes, by Diego Levy

Prayers, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

One must avoid chance and outside stimuli as much as possible; a kind of walling oneself in belongs among the foremost instinctive precautions of spiritual pregnancy.—Friedrich Nietzsche

It will never be my view that solitude is disturbed by the presence of a friend, but that it is enriched. If I had the choice of doing without one or the other, I should prefer to be deprived of solitude rather than of my friend.—Francesco Petrarch

For his series Solitary, Half Mad, Contender Patrick Hogan created a photographic short story based around his experience of living in isolation, with a very low budget, in the rural countryside of Tipperary, Ireland. Exploring his surroundings, Hogan encountered abandoned homes in the woods and, using his Nikon DSLR and Bronica medium-format film camera, documented the environs largely as he found them. The resulting series borders fiction and reality, and presents a psychological story of poverty and reclusiveness often at odds with the literary and romanticized ideals regarding solitude.

Mustard, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

Hogan explains:

I was interested in people who lived alone. For six months, I took pictures around the area. I photographed the forest at night and I photographed rooms where people lived or died on their own. I became interested in the capacity we have as people for isolation, and how romantic ideals of solitude and escapism are usually more fantastical than reality will present. These images are about living alone and the relationship between reality and fantasy.

Animal In The Dark, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

Behind The Garden Wall, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

Patrick Hogan is an Irish photographic artist currently living and working in southeast Ireland. He won the Gallery Of Photography Artist Award 2011 for his series Solitary, Half Mad. In 2009, he completed two international artist in residence programs in Iceland. Prior to this, he worked as a commercial photographer with a leading Irish agency. He will be exhibiting nationally and internationally throughout 2011.

Spent, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

Table, 2010 by Patrick Hogan

Motel Bien Venido, 2010 by Walker Pickering

Congratulations to Walker Pickering, who is the second Contender from the First Edition 2011 round of competition to release a print with 20x200! Walker's Motel Bien Venido is available for purchase as a limited-edition print and starts at just $20 for an 8"x10".

Of special note is that Walker's submission was also the first Contender post of the season that we featured. Earlier this year, I wrote about the photographer:

Contender Walker Pickering's series Nearly West depicts the still, solitary moments that wanderlusters and Kerouacians long for, the instances of communion between the nomad and that which is encountered. Each setting hints at a narrative describing the deeply personal nature of experiencing a new point on a map, whether planned or not. The muted palette therein reflects the worn and weathered atmosphere endemic to the towns most travelers opt to overlook. These seemingly mundane destinations the Texas-based photographer comes upon are interspersed with beautiful, serene discoveries.

Keep an eye on your inbox and the blog in the coming days, as we will be making BIG announcements regarding the First Edition 2011 Hot Shots, as well as the Second Edition 2011 round of the competition. And sign up for the 20x200 newsletter to see which other Contenders release a limited-edition print!

Untitled, 2011 by Philip Welding

With an estimated 100,000 hours spent at work in one's lifetime, the office is an undeniable part of a person's everyday. In Contender Philip Welding's submission, the photographer examines it at night. Devoid of human figures and interaction, the remnants left behind—personal belongings left by staff; institutional mainstays dictated by management—present the office under a different light.

Untitled, 2011 by Philip Welding

In his artist statement, Welding explains:

The office workplace is a very controlled and restricted interior space. It exists for a function; to help drive forward a collective institutional goal. With the introduction of workers to the space, there is a blurring of boundaries between the workplace and the domestic, as remnants of the outside world are brought in. This domestication of space is one of many tactics employed to survive everyday life; the small resistances, (in)voluntary sculptures, time-wasting, social interaction, community. It is the by-products of these 'quiet' tussles between worker, employer, built environment and technology that become center stage of the work. These observations show physical evidence of the interactions, lives, loves, humor and character of working communities, in the context of a changing work environment where the virtual has quickly become the dominant platform of communication, eclipsing the tangibility of the real world. Where management has cared for the environment using plants, mass-produced prints or positive slogans, you get a sense of homogeneity; that this could be part of any office scene. There is an artifice to their placement, a 'tactic' to influence behavior. Nocturnal prowling in these environments can be thrilling; a sense of intrusion, where familiar scenes seem transformed. Is this how it would appear to an outsider, an alien?

Untitled, 2011 by Philip Welding

Untitled, 2011 by Philip Welding

Philip Welding is a U.K.-based photographer and educator working in Leeds. His photographic style borrows freely from both documentary and advertising photography. He is currently pursuing a postgraduate degree from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Untitled, 2011 by Philip Welding

14.10.2010 Bornstaße, 2010 by Ralph Schulz

The items that make a house a home—furniture, artwork, appliances, etc.—are frequently replaceable by newer, updated models or versions. Once replaced, these items that once provided comfort are discarded, likely left in piles on the street for garbage collection day. Contender Ralph Schulz found in such piles the remnants of interiors, and he hauled the thrown-out objects into his studio, where he created atmospheric sets from the materials.

30.11.2010 Bornstraße, Essen, 2010 by Ralph Schulz

Schulz explains:

In many German cities, bulk trash, such as old sofas, shelves or broken electronics, can be placed in the street to be picked up by the public garbage collection. Most often, one garbage pile contains only objects from one single household. Larger objects are often destroyed or taken apart, whereas small items are often aggregated in boxes or plastic bags. In their original place, the scrapped objects were able to fill an apartment and formed a specific private space and atmosphere. In contrast, heaped up objects in the street only occupy some meters of sidewalk. Space is compressed. For my [series] Reconstruction of unknown Interiors, I carried every single item of one garbage pile to my studio, where the items are stored. Items from one pile are not mixed up with items from other garbage piles. In a time consuming process, I try to reconstruct the destroyed interior represented by one garbage pile. Not knowing the original interior, this reconstruction remains an approximation to something that has vanished already.

24.09.2010 Steeler Straße, Essen, 2010 by Ralph Schulz

02.11.2010 Bornstraße, 2010 by Ralph Schulz

Ralph Schulz studied photography under Jörg Sasse at the Folkwang University of the Arts before attending the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijng, China. He returned to Germany and attained his master's from Folkwang with the series Reconstruction of unknown Interiors, which he continues to work on.

24.09.2010 Steeler Straße II, 2010 by Ralph Schulz

10.12.2010 Bornstraße, Essen, 2011 by Ralph Schulz