Center, based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has four open calls for entries with a deadline of next Friday, January 27th. Center produces the annual Review LA which took place last week simultaneous to Photo LA. They are also host to Review Santa Fe, a fantastic weekend conference for photographers to meet with curators, editors, publishers and galleries, and have their portfolios reviewed.

The Project Competition is open to photographers working on documentary projects and fine-art series. One First Prize and three finalists are selected by the jurors, who include curator Tina Kukielski (Whitney Museum), editor Markus Seewald (GEO magazine) and our own Hey, Hot Shot! panelist and CEO of Chronicle Books, Nion McEvoy. The first prize winner is awarded $5,000 cash, an exhibition in Santa Fe, admission to Review Santa Fe and feature in an online magazine. To learn more about how to enter and to see the work of previous winners, visit the Project Competition page.

Center is also accepting submissions to Project Launch, an award to help a single photographer complete a body of work currently in-progress. This award is also open to documentary projects and fine-art series. A single First Prize of $3,000 cash is awarded, with an exhibition at Zane Bennett Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, Feature in Fraction magazine, a tuition voucher at the Santa Fe Workshops and participation in Review Santa Fe. Two honorable mentions will also receive $500 cash and participation in Review Santa Fe. For more info and to apply, click here. Project Launch will be juried by Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching, co-directors of Klompching Gallery.

The final competition is the Choice Awards, which selects individual photographs in three categories: Curator's Choice, Director's Choice and Editor's Choice. As for the other two awards, the winners will also receive exhibition and publication. Applications can submit up to four images for $25, with a $5 fee for each additional photograph. The Choice Awards are juried by curator Roxana Marcoci (MoMA, Dept of Photography), Directors Laura Valenti & Chris Bennett (Newspace Center for Photography) and editors Kathy Ryan (The New York Times) and Scott Thode (Fortune).

All of the photographers who apply to the above three competitions are also encouraged to submit to Review Santa Fe. Those who apply for both the Project Competition and Review are eligible for a discounted fee. Last year's The Review Santa Fe 100 contains a list of stand-out projects from last year, and is a frequent source of inspiration for work being made by emerging and increasingly established photographers today.

Several people in the JBP office have attended Review Santa Fe in the past, and the experience—both as a reviewer and a photographer—is exceptional and rewarding. If you have a body of work in progress, or recently completed, we highly encourage you to apply.

This Tuesday, January 12th, you're invited to a conversation between Hey, Hot Shot! panelist and publisher of the Aperture Foundation's book program, Lesley A. Martin and photographer Joel Meyerowitz. The two will be discussing Meyerowitz's book Legacy, a result of the first government commission to document public parks in New York City since the 1930's. As any New Yorker will tell you, our beloved parks—all nine-thousand acres of them—are thriving some eighty years since the documentation first began. Here are some more details about the event:

Ms. Martin, who edited the book, will talk with Meyerowitz about how this ambitious project evolved from conception to completion, what surprises he encountered in the course of discovering these corners of nature hidden within the concrete world of the city, and how Legacy connects with his first New York project documenting Ground Zero for nine months following 9/11, which resulted in the publication of Aftermath: The World Trade Center Archive.

This discussion is part of the "Architectural Explorations in Books" series at the New York Public Library, a program of events which seeks to "delve into the critical role that architecture books play in the understanding of contemporary urban developments and structures." Not only is Tuesday's discussion a great opportunity to learn about photo books and the evolution of parks and green spaces in New York City, but it is totally free and open to the public.

The Urban Sublime at The New York Public Library
Joel Meyerowitz in conversation with Lesley A. Martin
Tuesday January 12, 2010
6:00 p.m.

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Margaret Liebman Berger Forum
Room 227 (2nd Floor)
476 Fifth Avenue (5th Avenue & 42nd Street)
New York, NY 10018

We are thrilled to announce the addition of The New Yorker picture editor Whitney Johnson to our panel! Whitney's joined us just in time to review all the contenders in the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 Second Edition competition. This preeminent group of arts professionals just got better—and you want this group to see your work! (hint hint!)

Of Whitney joining the review team, Hey, Hot Shot! founder Jen Bekman says,

I'm delighted that the talented Ms. Johnson is joining the team. Whitney and I got to know each other as reviewers at various top-tier photography events across the country. Plus, she works at my favorite magazine. When she came to Hosang Park's opening a few weeks ago, I suggested to her—as I always do with people whom I enjoy and admire—that she be a panelist. She said, All you have to do is ask—and I did!

As the newest member of team Hey, Hot Shot!, Whitney will help review and select the Second Edition Hot Shots of 2009. Here's a touch more about her:

Whitney Johnson is the picture editor at The New Yorker where she is responsible for producing shoots and researching visual material for political, cultural, and social stories. Prior to joining the magazine, Whitney worked at the Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network for over five years, where she worked closely with photographers, commissioning work for publications and coordinating a documentary photography exhibition and international grant competition. She holds a BA from Barnard College, and is pursuing a MA in American Studies, with a focus on photography and social change, at Columbia University.

Welcome Whitney! We can't wait for your exacting eye to help sift through all these talented contenders as we seek out the newest Hot Shots!

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.