Reminder: Deadline for MPS Fund grant application is March 30

A reminder: The deadline for application for the 2012 grant of the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography, established by NOPA, is midnight tonight (Friday, March 30).

This is a $5,000 grant, open to emerging, as well as established, photographers in the Gulf South states of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama or Florida. The subject matter of a project submitted for consideration need not pertain to the region, however. For more information, please see a previous post on the 2012 grant, and the MPS Fund page at the NOPA website.

Image: Michael P. Smith

West Collects seeks artists for $275,000 in acquisitions for 2012

The West Collects organization, which acquires work for the West Collection of the Philadelphia, Penn. area, is seeking new artists for its collection in 2012, with $275,000 to be spent on new acquisitions. The deadline for application is Sunday, April 1.

All artists of age 18 years or older, working in any medium, may apply for consideration. Application is also completely free of charge. Those applying are asked only to upload a concise body of recent work--to, in the organization's own words, "think of it as a solo show, not a museum retrospective."

Applications are being accepted online at the organization's website. The West Collects 2012 artists and acquisitions will be announced on Tuesday, May 15.

Offbeat seeking music and food shots for upcoming JazzFest edition

OffBeat, a monthly publication that focuses on New Orleans and Louisiana music and culture, is looking for music and food-related photographs for its upcoming New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival edition. The images are sought by the morning of Monday, April 2.

The monthly magazine pays $30 per published photo. OffBeat is publication that is distributed for free throughout the New Orleans metro area, however, with copies also sent to paid subscribers throughout the United States and the globe. Moreover, it publishes photos on its website.

It is particularly widely read during the JazzFest period (Friday, April 27 to Sunday, May 6 this year), with its publication of the festival's "cubes" schedule making it particularly popular.

First, OffBeat is seeking photos of the following musicians. Websites featuring the artists, even the once-ubiquitous Tom Petty, are linked below, just in case the names do not ring any immediate bells:

Terence Blanchard
Stooges Brass Band
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Esperanza Spalding
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Regina Carter
Tom Petty
Honey Island Swamp Band
Geno Delafose
Pat Casey
Cha Wa
Kid Chocolate
James Andrews

Meanwhile, OffBeat is interested in festival-related food shoots--as in, photos of people eating or sampling any of the festival's many regional foods. If you have any such photos, or shots of the above artists, please send thumbnails to OffBeat Art Director Elsa Hahne by April 2.

NOLA City Council's Palmer announces District C photo exhibit

The office of New Orleans' District C Councilmember Kristin Palmer is accepting submissions for the auspiciously named 1st Annual District C Photo Exhibition. The deadline for submissions to the juried competiton is Thursday, April 19.

Selected photos will be exhibited at City Hall after selections are made, for what Palmer's office anticipates will be about one year.

All photos submitted should represent one of the neighborhoods in the district, which takes in parts of the Crescent City including the French Quarter and neighboring Treme and Marigny areas, as well as the Bywater and St. Roch and West Bank sections of Orleans Parish, including Algiers.

Three local photography people--NOPA member Renee Allie, Edward Hebert of A Gallery for Fine Photography in the French Quarter, and Epaul Julien--will serve as jurors. They will select finalists based on three criteria: image quality, diversity of images and available space.

Palmer will then make final selections. Her office suggests that she wants the exhibit to provide as representative a view of the district as possible.

Other specifications for entry include:

• No more than two submissions may be entered by one photographer. 
• Submitted photos may be taken in black or white or color, but all must be framed (although framing will not be taken into the account in the selection process). 
• More than one photo may be included in a single entry, as in a collage, but the total image size may not exceed 8 1/2 x 11 inches.
• Each submission must include the photographer's name, phone number, e-mail address, a title for the works, and some information about the location of the work, if it is not immediately apparent.
• Entrants are asked to deliver photos to Suite 2W70 of New Orleans City Hall, located at 1300 Perdido Street in the Central Business District.  The zip code is 70112

Images: Palmer, map of New Orleans City Council District C.

Country Roads seeks entries for feature series, poster by April 13

Country Roads Magazine, a publication that focuses on the culture and places of the Great River Road region between New Orleans and Natchez MS, is seeking images by Friday, April 13 for its "Name that Country Road: A Louisiana Photographic Project" feature. The magazine's staff is, meanwhile, still hoping to put together a poster that features all images from its 2012 feature entries at a later date.

The editors are asking for photos of country roads. However, photos of lanes, waterways or other thoroughfares that do not fall under the definition of "road" can be submitted as well.

The magazine's series will not only feature photo work, but profiles of the photographers responsible for the work. One photo, and an accompanying profile, will run per month.

Country Roads editors suggest that the features are to offer hints of the location of the road (or waterway, lane, or the like) in question, then invite readers to suggest where the photograph might have been taken.

Meanwhile, photographers whose work is selected for the series will be asked for permission to use their photo on a poster, one that would be sold throughout 2013 and advertised in the magazine. Country Roads will offer an initial $100 for each photograph selected on a first print run of 1,000 posters, then divide 20 percent of revenue between participating photographers on all sales thereafter.

Participating photographers would retain copyright ownership of their work.

Interested photographers are invited to submit up to three images (at 150 dpi, 6" x 4", in jpeg format) by email to the photos@countryroadsmag.com. Entrants must include the phrase "Name That Country Road" in the subject line.

PPLA Spring Seminar set for April 22-23 in Lafayette

The Professional Photographers of Louisiana (PPLA) has opened registration for its 2012 Spring Seminar, which will be held April 22-23 at the Holiday Inn Lafayette of Lafayette, La. The event will feature educational seminars and a print competition,  as well as a crawfish boil.

The PPLA has two days of photography and business education planned for the event, including workshops featuring Jamie Hayes and Mary Fisk Taylor, a husband-and-wife weddings and portraits team from Richmond VA, and photographer and motivational speaker Doug Gordon of Lindhurst NY.

Registration for the event is $149 for PPLA members and $199 for non-members, $50 of which may be applied to a new membership. A special seminar rate of $89 is available, meanwhile, for rooms at the Holiday Inn Lafayette. Interested persons may call the hotel (337) 233-6815 and mention the PPLA when making a reservation.

Varisco seeking funding for Odgen exhibit companion book

The coming month promises to be a landmark for NOPA member Michel Varisco and her photographic work on the Louisiana wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico, with a solo exhibit of her work set to open at the Crescent City's Odgen Museum of Southern Art on April 19. She is asking for help with funding, however, to fulfill the project's promise.

More specifically, she is seeking funding for a book to serve as a companion to "Shifting," the Ogden exhibit. She is doing so through USA Projects, a micro-philanthropy, or crowd-funding, agency that works with select American artists to help them complete projects.

Varisco noted that the book is already designed and ready for print, but needs additional funding. She is seeking $11,500 in pledges for funding by Friday, April 13. If the pledge goal is not met by that date, the project will not be funded via the USA Projects organization.

The book, like the upcoming Odgen exhibit, will aim to show the beauty and degradation of the Gulf and Louisiana wetlands, often through aerial views.

The work is the result of five years of focus on the wetlands region that surrounds the Crescent City, years in which she witnessed the effects of the BP oil spill as well as the Mississippi River's highest tide in recorded history and land-building that resulted from it. The result is a series that explores environmental sustainability, as well the dying of wetlands an unprecedented rate.

She notes that to get photographs, she lived in houseboats in the wetlands. During the BP oil spill, she flew with U.S. Coast Guard pilots over affected regions and rode in boats with state and federal wildlife and fisheries agencies.

In the exhibit, she uses photography and installation to create in-depth portraits of the changing Southeast Louisiana environment. In the book, detailed descriptions will accompany imagery and include essays by Anne Gisleson (co-editor of "How to Rebuild a City") and Ogden curator Bradley Sumrall.

"Inspired both by the raw beauty of the wetlands and by the fear of losing that treasure, I have been moved to create artwork that will inspire others to witness what I’ve seen," Varisco notes. "By identifying with place and its value, it is my hope that we will see this region in a new light and better understand what’s at stake for our collective future."

The Ogden exhibit will run through July 23. It is being sponsored in part by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the New York -based SURDNA and Joan Mitchell Foundations.

Arts Council sets April 24-25 deadline for new grant applications

The Arts Council of New Orleans has announced a new grant cycle to support the arts in Orleans, Jefferson, and Plaquemines Parishes in Louisiana. The online grant application deadline is Wednesday, April 24, with a required hard copy submission deadline of Thursday, April 25.

The Arts Council will be offering a workshop on the grants process at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21, at Metairie's East Bank Regional Library, located at 4747 W. Napoleon Ave. Attendance is recommended for those who have not already attended an Arts Council workshop, or taken place in an online grants seminar.

Meanwhile, links to grant guidelines, application forms, and information on workshops and available technical assistance can be found at the Arts Council's website.

This year, applications will be accepted for grants in the following categories:

• Project Assistance: These providing funding to organizations and individuals with arts activities that benefit or involve a larger community. 
• Technical Assistance:  Grants given in this category fund organizations for access to professional expertise or training opportunities related to an organization's arts programming or management.

Applications for Operating Support grants, which fund the general expenses of arts organizations with two-year grants, are not being considered in this deadline. Applications for these grants will, however, be accepted again in 2013.

The grants offered are made possible by two funding programs administered locally by the Arts Council of New Orleans, including the following:

• The Louisiana Decentralized Arts Funding Program, a statewide program funded through legislative appropriations, which will support arts activities in Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines Parishes that occur from October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013, and 
• The Community Arts Grants Program, funded by the City of New Orleans, will support arts activities in Orleans Parish that occur at any time in 2013.

PhotoNOMA request

The New Orleans Museum of Art is hosting PhotoNOMA on Friday May 11th.

 The Museum is looking for photographs of the previous PhotoNOMA event for promotion purposes. 

Please contact Brad Caldwell bcaldwell@noma.org or Judy Cooper jcooper@noma.org

if you have any to share. 

PhotoNOMA is a photographers portfolio night at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The popular one-night-only exhibition will feature 100 photographers displaying their work for a community walk through.  

Registration for the event will begin in April.

Noted wedding photographer Denis Reggie in NOLA on Monday

Crowley, La. native Denis Reggie, often cited as the man who popularized the photojournalistic approach to wedding photography through his work for celebrity clients, will be the featured speaker at the Greater New Orleans Professional Photographers Guild's (GNOPPG) meeting on Monday, March 19.

The meeting will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. at Primary Digital Imaging, located at 3550 Williams Blvd in Kenner. Admission is $20, which will include dinner. It is being brought to the metro area as part of the Canon Explorers of Light initiative.

Anyone interested in attending may request a seat by sending an e-mail to the GNOPPG.


Reggie has handled the wedding photography for the weddings of a long line of celebrities, among them members of the Kennedy family, including the late John F. Kennedy Jr. The Wall Street Journal cited a photo he took at the latter's 1996 wedding to Carolyn Bessette as launching the popularity of the more photojournalistic wedding photo style.

He also has taken photos for the weddings of public figures including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, ABC anchorman Peter Jennings, pop music figures including Don Henley and Mariah Carey, and Crescent City-based political strategists James Carville and Mary Matalin, among many others.


Reggie will also be making appearances from March 19-22 in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport.

Image: Wedding photographer Denis Reggie, from the GNOPPG.

Deadline is May 15 for 2012 Daylight Photo Awards entry

Daylight a non-profit that promotes photography through book and magazine publishing, as well as multimedia programs, is seeking submissions for its Daylight Photo Awards, an international competition.

Winning entries will be selected by jurors associated with a number of prestigious publications and institutions, including the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and The New York Times. The deadline for entry is Tuesday, May 15.

Jurors will select winning entries, including:

• One Daylight Photo Award recipient. The winner of this award will receive a $1,000 cash prize, a solo exhibition at the Daylight Project Space, a feature in Daylight Magazine, a Daylight multimedia podcast production, and a complete set of all books published by Daylight to date.
• Five juror picks. These winning photographers will be awarded a portfolio feature in a Dailylight multimedia production, as well as a copy of Daylight's "Photographs Not Taken: A Collection of Photographers' Essays."

Jurors will include: David Bram of Fraction Magazine, Alexa Dilworth of the Center for Documentary Studies, the New York Times' Jim Estrin, Daylight's Taj Forer and Michael Itkoff, Time Magazine's Paul Moakley and Jessie Wender of The New Yorker.

The fee for entry is $40. Daylight will announce winners on July 1, 2012. The exhibition and multimedia features will begin on September 1. For more information, please see the awards FAQ (frequently asked questions) feature at the Daylight website.

NOPA member Hamrick on magazine's southern art 'superstars' list

The Oxford American, a National Magazine Award-winning quarterly that is published by the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Ark., has included NOPA member Frank Hamrick of Ruston, La. in its "100 under 100: New Superstars of Southern Art" list.

The work of Hamrick, photography coordinator for Ruston's Louisiana Tech University School of Art, is featured on the magazine's website, in connection with its latest print issue. The February 2012 issue focuses on the "Visual South."

All artists listed by the Oxford American were nominated by fellow artists. Hamrick thanked Jim Sherraden, curator at Hatch Show Print of Nashville TN, for his nomination. Hatch is a letterpress print shop renowned for music posters that it has printed for well over a century.

The Ruston photographer noted that it was also great to see peers on the magazine's list, including photographers Angela West. Eliot Dudik and Gyun Hur.

Meanwhile, Hamrick noted that he will be leading two bookmaking workshops in coming months, including:

• A six-session bookmaking  workshop at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, La., from March 20 through April 4. The workshop sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. For more information on the classes, you may visit the museum website. 
• A two-week paper-making and book arts workshop at the Penland School of Crafts in Penland NC, from Sunday, June 24 through Friday, July 6. More information can be found at the Penland website. 

Hamrick's latest handmade book, "Letters Never Sent," is available via the his online shop at Etsy.

Image: "Charlotte's Chair" by Frank Hamrick. 

Two slots still open for Rebirth 2012 workshop in Clarksdale MS

Rebirth Retreats, a photography workshop series based out of tiny Clarksdale, Miss.--a town in the heart of the photogenic, blues-drenched Mississippi Delta region--still has two slots open for its 2012 workshop, scheduled for Sunday, April 1 through Friday, April 6.

The retreat is geared toward advanced amateurs and professionals. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and experience digital printing and workflow, the art of working with large-format as well as Holga medium format cameras, and the ins and outs of alternative processes such as wet-plate and tiny type printing.

Last-minute registration is $1,600. The cost includes solo lodging at Clarksdale's Shack Up Inn, which is made up of old sharecropper-style shacks, only ones that include modern, albeit decidedly non-upscale amenities.

Please note that the town of Clarksdale is located about an hour-and-a-half south of Memphis, Tenn. For more information or to register, please see the Rebirth Retreats website.

Image: NOPA member Euphus “Butch” Ruth, a Delta resident, provides instruction on wet plate portraits at the Shack Up Inn. Photo from the Rebirth website. He will be working with the workshop again this year.

F-Stop Magazine sets May 15 deadline for upcoming issue entries

F-Stop Magazine is seeking submissions for two upcoming issues, including an open-themed April/May 2012 issue and a June/July 2012 issue that will focus on the practice of serial photography. The deadline for submissions to either issue is Tuesday, May 15.

The magazine notes that practice of serial photography involves a repetition of subject matter, but that this does not equate to showing the same subject or scene repeatedly. Instead, each image in serial work has its own value, while the photo's ultimate meaning comes from considering the series' photos in relation to one another.

Entrants may only submit one photo for consideration for any particular issue. For more specific submission guidelines, please see the F-Stop website.

HomeSpace's 'Reflections Through a Lens' exhibit opens March 10

The St. Roch area's HomeSpace gallery will host an opening reception for a new exhibit, "Reflections Through A Lens: The Genre of Self-Portraiture," on Saturday, March 10, from 6 to 9 p.m.

The exhibition will include photography, photogravure and paintings. Artists and photographers with work featured include Tina Freeman, Sylvia Plachy, Josephine Sacabo, Elizabeth Shannon, and Mimi Stafford.

The HomeSpace gallery is located at 1128 St. Roch Ave. in New Orleans, at the intersection with Marais Street. The gallery is open on Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m., Sundays from noon until 3 p.m., and by appointment.

Entries sought for 18th Latin American Documentary Photo Contest

The 18th Latin American Documentary Photography Contest, a project of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Labor College) of Medellín, Colombia, is seeking competition submissions by a deadline of Tuesday, March 20.

Cash prizes of $1,300 in American dollars each will be awarded in four categories of photography, including: Women Workers, Childhood Workers, Men Workers, and Immigrant Workers. Entrants are otherwise asked to focus on the state of workers in Latin America.

Entry is open to photographers worldwide, whether they be professionals, amateurs or students.

Entrants must submit photos to the competition website. Specifics regarding submission and contest rules can be found in English, Spanish and Portuguese at the Escuela Nacional Sindical website. For more information, you may write the contest at concurso@ens.org.co or contest director Jairo Ruiz Sanabria at directorconcurso@ens.org.co.

NOPA's Ensley seeks Kickstarter funding for China book project

New Orleans artist and photographer Jill Ensley, who until fairly recently served as NOPA's communications director, is seeking funding for her next project, via the Kickstarter fundraising website: Completion of a book of photos and writing, "twenty-six days : the people and places of Made In China," based on a photography and design-oriented visit she took to China in 2006.

A photo from this trip was included in the NOPA gallery exhibit "Work" in October and November 2010. Photos from the trip were also exhibited at the University of Kansas' Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kan. and the Mulvane Art Museum at Topeka, Kan.'s Washburn University, as well as the Lianzhou Photo Festival in Lianzhou, China.

Ensley is seeking $6,000 in funding for the China project, and has set a pledge deadline of March 31, 2012. According to the artist, any Kickstarter funding received would be spent on producing quality items, including the photo book, as well as book promotion. She has already started working a self-published book via the Blurb photo book service.

For those not familiar with the popular site, Kickstarter is an online "crowdfunding" service, designed for the financing of creative projects. Those who pledge to fund projects are offered rewards, based on particular pledge levels. If a project fails to meet its financial goal by a set deadline, then it will remain unfunded, and people pledging funds will not be charged a dime.

For more information on the project, please see Ensley's Kickstarter page.

PhotoPlace Gallery seeking submissions for three competitions

The PhotoPlace Gallery of Middleton, Vt. is seeking submissions for three juried photography competitions, with deadlines coming as early as Wednesday, March 5. One of the three includes a portfolio competition.

The earliest deadline, of March 5, is for the gallery's "Abstract Expressions" exhibit. For this competition, the gallery is seeking submissions that explore abstractions based on color, light, texture or patterns. The juror is Carl Chiarenza, emeritus professor of art history and artist-in-residence at the University of Rochester.

Forty submissions chosen by Chiarenza will be exhibited at the Vermont gallery from May 15 to June 9, 2012. The juror will choose an additional 35 submissions for an online exhibit.

Two other PhotoPlace competitions with deadlines in the spring months include:

• Photoplace Open 2012, Deadline: Monday, April 9
• PhotoPlace Portfolio Competition. Deadline: May 2 

For details on entry fees and other submission specifications on these three competitions, please see the PhotoPlace Gallery website.

Image: PhotoPlace Gallery interior. 

Offbeat seeking 'Photo Ops' series submissions & musician photos

OffBeat Magazine, a monthly publication that focuses on New Orleans and Louisiana music and culture, is looking for photos.

In one case, it is specifically on the lookout for outstanding photography that deals with New Orleans music, for an ongoing photo-and-essay series. Otherwise, OffBeat is seeking photos of specific, regionally-associated musicians for its April 2012 issue.

The monthly magazine pays $30 per published photo. OffBeat is publication that is distributed for free throughout the New Orleans metro area, however, with copies also sent to paid subscribers throughout the United States and the globe. Moreover, it publishes photos on its website. Consequently, work published in OffBeat would be seen by a mass local audience, as well as visitors to the Crescent City and Louisiana music lovers worldwide.

The specifications for submissions to the photo-and-essay series, "Photo Ops," are as follows:

• The photo should involve New Orleans music in some fashion.
• Photos submitted should be square or taken in portrait or vertical fashion. 
• Submissions should capture a unique moment, and come with a 50-to-100-word essay about that moment. 
• OffBeat staff suggest that the essay can be very personal, but that it need not be. What matters is more to OffBeat is that the photo should be of high quality and have a documentary feel. 
• The photo should work as a stand-alone shot, and not on as part of a series. Photographers may, however, submit multiple photos any find that choosing one shot is too difficult. The magazine's staff will then help the photographer choose one standout. 

You can check out past entries of OffBeat's Photo Ops series at the magazine's website.

Meanwhile, for the April 2012 issue, OffBeat is seeking photos of the following musicians and performers. Please contact OffBeat Art Director Elsa Hahne by Wednesday, March 7, if you have any such photos. Hahne said that she will accept as many as ten thumbnails per artist:

• Jon Cleary
• Joe Krown/Walter Wolfman Washington/Russel Batiste (ideally, these three together, as a trio)
• Debauche
• Alexis Marceaux
• Olga Wilhelmine
• Kipori Woods
• King James and the Special Men
• Mia Borders
• Colin Lake

Study Abroad with SVA

Shanghai Photography Workshop

June 9 - July 7, 2012

Faculty: Abby Robinson

The city of Shanghai is an integral hub for Asia’s burgeoning art and photography worlds. This unique four-week program emphasizes the exploration of Shanghai and encourages the integration of Western and Eastern photographic practices. Participants meet and dialogue with the Shanghai art community as well as engage in individual and group critiques. There are portfolio reviews by prominent members of Shanghai’s photography community that provide the opportunity to share ideas and network with curators and gallery owners as well as colleagues. This program offers freedom for participants to expand their body of work in a new and relevant context.

For more information and to apply online.  the Arts Abroad website hereYou can read about previous participants’ experiences on the program’s blog.
You can follow Abby Robinson's dispatches from Shanghai on PDNedu's blog.

Please contact Eleanor Oakes, program coordinator, with any questions:

eoakes@sva.edu,  212.592.2357

Tuition: $4,300. Tuition includes: Housing in apartments, transportation for class trips, guided tours, entrance fees and limited group meals. Tuition does not include airfare to and from Shanghai or visa processing fees. Participants are responsible for acquiring their own visas from the Chinese government.

Prerequisites: One year of college-level photography education and a working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop. This program is open to applicants of all ages and experiences, as well as international applicants.

A portfolio of 12 jpeg images of recent work must be submitted, along with a supporting statement and completed application form. Acceptance into this program is based on a portfolio review. Students must supply their own laptop (with Adobe Photoshop installed), a digital camera and any necessary equipment to download images from camera to laptop.