By Spring '05 Hot Shot Rachel Hulin

I am going to guess that if you are reading this you are an "emerging photographer," or someone who is interested in "emerging photography." And if either of those applies to you then you probably already know about Rachel Hulin and her fantastic blogging about photography (emerging and otherwise).

But did you know that Rachel is a Hey, Hot Shot winner? Spring 2005.

Did you know that Rachel has a new blog?

Bookmark it. If you fall into one of the two categories above then hers is one of the most important voices you should be listening to about photography each day.

Hot Shot Jennifer Boomer's zine The Uncommon Vantage Point

Fall '07 Hot Shot Jennifer Boomer makes a zine, The Uncommon Vantage, and it was featured in the July issue of PDN. The zine includes images from Boomer's Dutch Harbor, Alaska adventures. Each is Ssgned and numbered and includes a 4X6 C-Print and a "cute" sticker designed by Leslie at Pancake Meow.

The PDN article, titled, "The New Portfolio" explains that, "Photographers are marketing themselves online and in print to potential clients in all kinds of new and interesting ways that are more portable and less expensive than traditional portfolios." It cites Boomer's zine as a particularly interesting mode.

The article, by Jay Mallin details:

"Smaller printing projects—still larger than the traditional promo postcards—are gaining some attention as well. Jennifer Boomer (28 and currently traveling, according to her MySpace entry) created a new portfolio by moving to Alaska and, photographing while working for a few months in a fish-processing plant. When she was done, she created a 'zine' to present her work to potential buyers.

As zines go, it's definitely upscale, with four-color reproduction and professional design in place of mimeographed monochrome. She sent it to 125 people she'd like to work with, from reps to editors to gallery owners. Again, no immediate jobs, but Boomer says she got a good response. "I felt like it was a good, positive step."

'I remember Jennifer's booklet, and I still have it,' reports Anne Lyse Tardivat, an editor with Agence Vu in Paris. 'I rarely receive such material. I guess it's not in the European style—yet.'"

Are you planning to head to SXSW? Are you not going but simply super interested in all the awesome talk that will go on there? Then vote, now, for Jen Bekman's SXSW panel proposal:

Curating the Crowd-Sourced World Level: Beginner Type: Panel Category: Content Presenter: Jen Bekman, 20x200 | Jen Bekman Projects, Inc. Description: With all the stuff we weed through online, good filters are crucial. Who's best-suited to determine what's best – curators or the crowd? People have their religion about one or the other, however this panel will focus on the overlap, the grey areas and how curating and crowd-sourcing enrich each other.

With the curatorially-mediated online phenom of 20x200, Jen's a pretty good fit to head up this panel which is sure to be filled with other talents — who can speak as both curators and "crowd" — that she'll announce in the coming weeks.

A few weeks ago, Rob Haggart at A Photo Editor put out a call for work. He curated a slideshow meant to forge new relationships between photographers, photo editors, and art collectors. It's up now, on his blog, and with an embed code so that others can host the show too. It's called I Like These Photos (to the point, perfect), and it features the work of 297 (!) photographers. It's a novel way of collecting images, for sure.

He writes:

Attention art buyers and photo editors, this is a free promo that’s meant to supplement all the other ways you find photographers to hire. I created it see if there might be an easier more efficient way to quickly look at 200-300 photographers. Compared to the weekly promo pile this works pretty good. Plus, if you’re like me, you remember a picture and not necessarily who took it so you can come back to this slideshow and find the name and website of the photographer whenever you like. This project only works if you find work you like and hire the photographer. I can create more of these but it’s a complete waste of time if it doesn’t connect buyers with photographers. That’s the only reason I did this.

Are you a photographer who missed out this time? Don't worry, Haggart promises, "we’re going to do this again with different editors in a couple months."

• The New York Times reports that MFA students at SVA show at the MoMA. In the bathroom. The show lives on, online.
• In the 40th anniversary of New York Magazine, they attempt to define a New York Canon from 1968-2008, and they also run a few Q&As with "iconic New York artists about creating their masterworks." Mark Stevens talks to Cindy Sherman about her Untitled Film Stills. She discusses process, character creation, and, to some extent, intent.


• Earlier this week, the Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Adrees Latif of Reuters won for Breaking News Photography "for his dramatic photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar." Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor won the Feature Photography category "for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent's terminal illness."


• Mike Stimpson uses Legos to recreate famous photos from Robert Capa's Death of a Loyalist, to Cartier-Bresson's Behind the Gare Saint Lazare. "Strobist.com taught me everything I know," he says.


• It's photo auction time. Controversy over the oldest — or just an old— photo. Even Gawker's covering the photo auctions, drawn to the nudes. Phillips de Pury canceled a sale of Diane Arbus prints because of concerns about a recent lawsuit. There was even a Fine Photobooks Auction at Christie's.


• Cathy Horyn discusses Juergen Teller's role in Marc Jacobs' ad campaigns. How great is it to see a photographer so in charge of a commercial campaign? Small thing: the NYT blog swapped out the photo they initially had (Teller's ad that featured Victoria Beckham's legs splayed out of a shopping bag) at the top of the post. Why?

By Rachel Hulin, shown in the Hey, Hot Shot! Spring 2005 Showcase

Rachel Hulin at Shoot the Blog has done all of the hard work for you. She's compiled a list of opportunities — competitive, fellowship, grant, publishing — open right now to photographers like you. It's an exhaustive list, so, seriously, you should really thank her. And report back on your progress.

P.S. More info about our own competition, Hey, Hot Shot!, coming soon.

P.P.S. Hulin, herself, is a Hot Shot; she showed in Spring '05, our very first show.

Untitled (Can I Come Home With You?) by Jane Tam

• Former Jen Bekman intern Jane Tam is selling inexpensive prints of her photos to finance her senior show. Such a simple, brilliant plan. Jane writes,

  "I am currently a senior at Syracuse University, preparing for my BFA Solo Thesis Show on May 3rd. Like many college students, I am immensely in debt from the costs of film, processing, developing, and printing. Frames cost money. Mounting costs money. The space I rented cost money. This is all for a solo show featuring my photographic series on my family. I do not ask my family for money as they are a working class family who struggle enough to put me through a private university. So, any little bit will help me. Thank you! For those who donate $15 or more will receive a 5x7 print in the mail."

  I love Jane's Can I Come Home With You? series. In it she sketches families from found family photographs into images from her own home life. Two great ones from this series are available among the prints in her store.

• I should admit, I do not know how to use Photoshop. It was only after I started shooting regularly on assignment that I figured out how to resize and rename my images before I turned them in to editors. I'm not proud of this. Since then I've been intrigued, but not hooked, each time someone shows me a free, quick-fix type tool. I've played with Picnik, etc., but I still have pages of steps bookmarked for the boring batch operations I must often perform. Last night I signed up to try Photoshop Express, Adobe's new free online version of Photoshop. The flash-based interface is easy to use, and there's even an Auto Correct option and some organizing options. A few minutes of playing with it didn't teach me how to do anything, exactly, but I'm willing to give it a try. Although, if you want to give me a cheap Photoshop tutorial, I'm up for that too.

  
  

• Rob Haggart, A Photo Editor, writes about an exciting new opportunity for free promotion:

  
  

  "I’ve wanted to do this for awhile and my thinking on the future of photography and photo contests and other things I’m cooking up has gotten me inspired to offer everyone the chance to promote your best work for free by submitting a couple images for a slide show. There’s plenty of photo editors and art buyers who are readers and I know they will find it extremely beneficial to view a quick slide show with hundreds of different photographers featuring their best work and I can’t think of any other examples where this exists, so here we go.

  There will be a bar for entry and I will edit out any photographs that are a waste of time for potential buyers to look at. I know there are a lot of top shooters who may be wary of submitting their photographs so I’m going to make sure all the work displayed is top notch. You can also remove your images at any time if you don’t think I’ve done a good enough job.

  The purpose of this is to connect photographers with buyers for FREE. That’s it. No bullshit. If that doesn’t happen to anyone then the project has failed."

  Rob has a good eye, and from this, it seems, a good heart. A no-bullshit approach to connecting shooters and editors seems generous on all fronts. Visit his site for details about how to participate in this Flickr-based image pool.

  
  

• Spring '06 Hot Shot Casey Kelbaugh founded Slideluck Potshow, a slide show and potluck gathering for artists in New York (that has since branched out to other cities too). The next New York event is tomorrow night, Saturday, March 29, at the Chelsea Art Museum. The theme is patterns. Artists of all sorts each get five minutes to show slides of their work while everyone eats and chats.

Sold out 20x200 edition Untitled (Astoria Park, Queens, New York), by Carlo Van de Roer

"It's a gateway drug for art."

Today's Houston Chronicle writes on all things Jen Bekman — specifically 20x200, Hey, Hot Shot! and the gallery — in "On the Internet, it's real art for $20."

A last minute heads up to anyone and everyone who happens to be in New York tonight. Ms. Bekman will be giving a special presentation at The Apple Store in Soho [@ Prince + Greene] as part of the NYC Photobloggers event. Come hear about HHS!, the gallery, 20x200, and other excitement! AND Ultra Joe Holmes is also on the bill. This is an event not to be missed.

TONIGHT - Sept 26 - 6:30PM
The Apple Store [Prince + Greene]

PS: There will be goodies involved. Be there or be [ ]

Read the announcement over on Personism.

We're still in private beta for a few more weeks - Sign up for our mailing list and we'll keep you posted!

Katie and Andria, Indian Springs by aspiring Hot Shot Andrea Wallace

Here is my underinsightful observation of the day: a website is a very useful thing to have, especially if one happens to be a photographer. In addition, a blog to keep us up-to-date and generate discussion is often twice as nice. As Hot Shot Matthew Nighswander said in his interview, "Organizing a website is a great way to get to know your own photography and if I could live off that, I would be fine with never being published or exhibited again." I won't go as far as him, but as someone who's had a nearly complete website for an embarrassing period of time, let me reiterate how important a website can be.

Aspiring Hot Shot Andrea Wallace has put together a body of work worthy of a peek. Her submission comes from a series of bathers taken at Indian Springs––a historic site turned tourist attraction in central Colorado. While I enjoyed seeing her submissions, seeing the full series on her website was quite delightful.

The springs, once considered sacred by Native Americans, has been "rebuilt" to include swimming pools, cave rooms and motel accommodations. The contemporary "hot springs experience" demystifies romantic notions of soaking nude in natural steaming pools along side a flowing river. People now wear bright colored bathing suites and plastic armbands, which denote admission to enter specific pools. The natural desert environment is now home to a botanical garden of tropical plants, a 130,000 gallon dome covered swimming pool and Native American music playing over loud speakers.

The subjects she photographs are consistently peculiar. Any one of them would fit rather well into my extended family, leaving me with a good dose of familial embarrassment to stack on top of that lingering over my lack of a site. So for all of us struggling to get it live, let Andrea be an encouragement.

I have a long leisurely week ahead to spend in front of my computer, so keep it coming and submit today!

Chip’s Drawing of a Robot From Outer Space by spring 2006 Hot Shot Andrea Longacre-White

As we get closer and closer to the deadline - we have officially passed the two-week mark - there is much talk about town of Hey, Hot Shot! Props to the competition have been popping up all over the place––Daily Candy, Art Fag City, murketing, Design Observer, Conscientious, Modern Art Notes. A Hot Shot favorite, Alec Soth, recently mentioned the competition on his mandatory blog. Photo District News just gave us a shout out on their blog.

The word is spreading! Winners will be announced on November 20.

Previous showcases have been a shortlist pick in The Village Voice and received mentions in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, Gothamist, Flavorpill, among others.

Stay tuned! Enter today!

He’s the hand that guides so many of us through the quickly condensing photographic-web, the man who consistently brings us new artists to ogle and old favorites to rehash. He's the one we can depend on for genuine thoughts and opinions, the one who brings us outstanding interviews and always keeps us entertained. He's a photographer, a thinker, a writer, a blogger, and an astrophysicist. He's a staple for us all, the photography/life/art/culture blogger of bloggers, and the mind behind Conscientious—he’s Joerg Colberg, our Special Guest Panelist for Hey, Hot Shot! Fall 2006.

In his own words...

I was born on 15 February 1968 in what was then West Germany. I wish I could write that my interest in photography started when I found an old camera as a little boy. But alas, that didn't happen. Instead of using it I took it apart when it didn't work. In this spirit of wanting to know how things work - instead of being creative - I went to school and university. Eventually I ended up with a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics, a degree that doesn't have all that many applications in one's daily life (but, hey, it's quite interesting). In a sense I could write that I turned to photography after I had learned how - literally - the Universe worked, except that that's also just partly true (but it sounds good). In any case, I picked up photography at around the age of 30, again by chance. This time I had to buy a camera, because apparently there are only so many free cameras in one's life time. In parallel to learning how to take photos (by making each and every mistake that one could possibly make) I started compiling a weblog about contemporary photography, Conscientious. I guess it would have been harder to pick up theoretical astrophysics at the age of 30, so I'm not complaining.

We are thrilled to have Joerg on board and along for the Hey, Hot Shot! ride. This November he joins our amazing group of panelists in looking at your work. We are four weeks away from deadline, so get it in and let Joerg be the judge!

Sometimes people come by the gallery and introduce themselves and get to talking about how they're planning on entering the upcoming edition of Hey, Hot Shot!. I'm always happy to put some faces to names of people who enter the competition. If I'm sweating a deadline, as I so often am, I might not be as attentive and engaged as I'd like to be, so it goes, but this kind of interaction gets to the heart of the matter for me: The whole reason I started the competition is because I really do love looking at new work and meeting and working with emerging photographers, and Hey, Hot Shot! allows me to engage in this process regularly in a manageable way.

Anyway, these aspiring Hot Shots usually ask me for some pointers about what kind of work they should submit. My stock answer is this "Think of it like a haiku." Meaning: you get three chances to express something and although each expression might be wildly divergent from the next, there's something that ties them all together. OK, maybe it's kind of corny, but it's how I see it.

Panelist Eliot Shepard was less corny and more specific in his very thoughtful post on the slower.net weblog, Advice for those considering entry into the Hey Hot Shot competition at the Jen Bekman Gallery. His post caused quite a stir a while back - it got Kottke'd and then in turn inspired another post on the Signal vs. Noise blog entitled Art statements, Pitchfork, and fancypants analysis, which was a broader meditation on "fancypants, look-at-me analysis has nothing to do with good art or good rock ‘n roll." It was all good stuff, and the discussion threads on both posts are interesting reads. Jen says: check it out.

Also, and for the record, I'm not one for a lot of flowery prose when it comes to statements, but I do like to know what an artist has on their mind when they go about doing what that they do. It's just about that simple.

Rebecca Smeyne, Winter Hot Shot and lead writer and photo director for myopenbar.com, was at a wild party in Manhattan called Happy Valley a few weeks ago . . . she took some photos for her own site, and one of them was included in Anthem Magazine on April 19th.

I've included two photos from Rebecca's Flikr site. They're "Black Face Jesus" and "Hedda Lettuce", respectively.

This excerpt from Anthem Magazine does its best to describe the scene:

"So this club Happy Valley has been getting mad NYC media love lately, and after last night's Joanna's Angels release shindig, I can certainly see why. It's like some weird amalgam of crass Eurotrash excess and a cocaine-fueled 1980s I never lived through; transvestites with big fake boobs; a DJ booth set in a gaudy disco ball; various people taking their clothes off; various people smoking inside and not getting yelled at; $11 plastic cups of Jack Daniels; a really flamboyant dude who was, I swear, wearing a jacket made out of an oven mitt; a 20-minute trailer of the Angels' porn, the plot of which was a bit hard to follow (presidential meetings and secret missions punctuated by bouts of tender, tender lovemaking); trying to sit next to various transvestites with fake boobs and/or wearing nurse's costumes in the hopes of procuring some of their Grey Goose bottle service overflow (which never happened); arriving home at 5 a.m. still wired and waking up feeling like somebody chewed on a vital corner of my brain. As a former college classmate of the lady in question, I can still remember when Ms. Angel was a saucy co-ed with a Web site and a dream. After last night, all I can say is--these kids sure grow up fast."

Paaarty.

Photojojo is a quirky and creative photo newsletter edited by an entrepreneurial duo: Amit Gupta and Kara Canal. They keep their readers both entertained and well informed with DIY projects and tips on how to become a proficient digital camera user. All good stuff.

It turns out they've just written a piece entitled "The 7 Best Photo Contests to Enter Today: You're a Star, Now Show the World," and Hey, Hot Shot! was on the list! Damn straight.