5 MORE DAYS TO ENTER!! Ogden's 'Lousiana Contemporary' exhibit

New Orleans' Ogden Museum of Southern Art is seeking entries for "Louisiana Contemporary," a statewide, juried exhibition of contemporary art as produced by people living in Louisiana.

The deadline for entry is Monday, July 2.

The exhibit, presented by Regions Bank, will open on White Linen Night, the gallery night and street party in the Warehouse District and Julia Street, which will fall this year on Saturday, August 4. It will close on Monday, Sept. 24.

The exhibit and competition are being held during the ongoing celebration of the Louisiana Bicentennial, a celebration of the state's April 1812 entry into the American union.

Ogden Director William Andrews noted that launching the exhibition during this 200th anniversary of Louisiana's statehood seemed fitting. "We believe that the impact of historic art can be heightened by a comparison of the art of today. The power of both contemporary and historic work is elevated when in close proximity to one another."

Any artist living in Louisiana, working in any artistic medium, is eligible for entry.

A nonrefundable fee for entry of $35 fee for up to three submissions is required. The fee for each additional entry is $10.

Up to $1,500 in awards will be presented to participating artists, including a $500 Best of Show cash award.

For a more detailed list of entry specifications, please see the Louisiana Contemporary website.

Dallas-based Kael Alford named 2012 MPS Fund grant winner

Work focuses on threatened SE Louisiana wetlands communities 

 

Dallas-based photographer Kael Alford has been named as recipient of the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography's 2012 Grant recipient, for work documenting the destruction of Southeast Louisiana's wetlands and the concurrent destruction of coastal communities and their ways of life and culture.

The fund, established by NOPA to honor the life and work of the late Crescent City photographer Michael P. Smith, annually awards $5,000 to a Gulf Coast states photographer who is working on a long--term, cultural documentary project.

Alford won, more specifically, for “Bottom of da Boot: Losing the Coast of Louisiana," a series that documents the Native American communities of Point-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles, La. Her maternal grandmother had been born and raised in this area.

The Texas photographer's work began in 2005, after a Dutch magazine sent her to Louisiana to document the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and associated flooding in the region. This work developed into a multi-year documentary project, chronicling the rapid wetlands loss that threatens the communities, culture and environment of Southeast Louisiana.

  
“What is being lost on the coast of Louisiana is more than a neighborhood, or a storm buffer," Alford said. "It’s a piece of our collective memory and a unique piece of heritage that defines us as a nation.”

Brett Abbott, the Curator of Photography at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, selected Alford’s project as one of the 2012 MPS Fund grant jurors. Abbott commended her compelling visual story telling as well as her proposal for continuing the Louisiana work.
 
“With the help of the Michael P. Smith Fund," Abott writes, in an essay available at the NOPA website, "I believe that Alford’s project can grow into one of the great socially engaged photo essays of our time."

Images from this project are currently on exhibit at the High Museum.

Alford, a documentary photographer and writer, is a native of Middletown NY. She previously covered culture and conflict in the Balkans region of Eastern Europe, from 1996 to 2002, and later documented Iraq before, during and after the U.S. military invasion of Iraq, which began in 2003. Her photography about the impact of the war on civilians in Iraq has been widely exhibited and is featured in the book Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq (Chelsea Green, 2005).

Images: Selections from, "Bottom of da Boot: Losing the Coast of Louisiana," by Kael Alford.

TWO Great events this weekend! Friday: Scott Dalton Lecture, Saturday Lori Waselchuk workshop!

 NOPA Presents Scott Dalton lecture on Friday, June 29

 

 The New Orleans Photo Alliance is pleased to present a lecture by Scott Dalton, winner of the 2011 Michael P. Smith Fund For Documentary Photography grant. Dalton will present his award-winning project “So Close, So Far: Daily Life and Cartel Violence in Ciudad Juárez” at the NOPA gallery on June 29, 2012 at 7 p.m.

Dalton’s project explores daily life in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, a city in the midst of a vicious cartel drug war. Averaging over 3,000 murders a year, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, has become one of the most dangerous cities on earth.

Tom Rankin, the Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, writes, "Scott Dalton's images reveal the hard edges of conflict while also illuminating the eloquent textures of ordinary life. Dalton's images suggest the sense of loss that relentless violence so firmly delivers.”


MPS FUND 2011 GRANT WINNER: SCOTT DALTON 
Friday, June 29, 2012
7 p.m.
New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery
1111 St. Mary Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
FREE and open to the public

About Scott Dalton 
Scott Dalton is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker based in Houston, Texas. He has spent years working throughout Latin America, including extensive coverage of Colombia, where he lived for over ten years photographing the civil conflict and drug war.

His photography has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Harper's, Time, Newsweek, Washington Post Magazine, Condé Nast Portfolio, Business Week, and The New Yorker, among other outlets.

Dalton's documentary film, LA SIERRA, won numerous awards and has been broadcast by PBS, BBC, HBO Latino, and many other international broadcasters. Dalton has won the Houston Center of Photography Carol Crow Fellowship in 2010 as was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize in 2009.

Grants workshop with Lori Waselchuk set for June 30

 

 
“Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects!”, a grant workshop for individual artists led by Lori Waselchuk, will help participants navigate the grant application process and explore alternative means for developing project support. Waselchuk, an award-winning photographer based in Philadelphia, Penn., has been the recipient of several regional and international grants.

Waselchuk will explain the three stages of grant writing: preparation, proposal development, and follow-up. In addition to local and national grant opportunities, she will discuss building partnerships for projects and seeking non-traditional funding. She will be joined by Joycelyn L. Reynolds, Grants Manager of the Arts Council of New Orleans, who will talk about the Council’s community projects grants and offer advice from the perspective of an experienced grants administrator.

Advance registration is encouraged, via the NOPA website.

Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects! 
Grants Workshop with Lori Waselchuk
Saturday, June 30, 2012
9a.m.-3p.m.
New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery
1111 St. Mary Street
NOLA 70130
$5 NOPA Members/$10 General Public


About Lori Waselchuk 
Lori Waselchuk is a documentary photographer living in Philadelphia, PA. Her images have been published and exhibited internationally. She has produced photography for numerous humanitarian organizations and foundations including CARE, UNICEF, and the United Nations World Food Program.

Waselchuk is the author/photographer of "Grace Before Dying" (Umbrage Edtitions 2011). She is the recipient of the Open Society Foundation Audience Engagement Grant in 2008, the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer Fellowship in 2009, and the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities Publishing Initiative Grant in 2010. She has also received funding from The Baton Rouge Foundation and the Fertel Foundation as well as in-kind support from a number of institutions and grass-roots organizations.

The photographer's work has garnered numerous distinctions including the PhotoNOLA Review Prize (2007); the Southern African Gender and Media Award for Photojournalism (2004), a nomination for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography (2009), and was a finalist for the 2008 Aperture West Book Prize. Her work is found in collections including the South African National Gallery, New Orleans Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum Collections, and the Free Library of Philadelphia.

OffBeat seeking photographs for upcoming July 2012 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 July 2012 edition. Submissions featuring the following are sought as soon as possible:

• Live performance shots of the Original Pinettes Brass Band
• Photographs of Helen Gillet (not necessarily performance shots) from the last three months only, including any shots from her CD release party at the Allways Lounge on Friday, June 15.
• A shot from the 2011 Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, if it is more than a tight performance shot of one act. Photos of one of the performers for the 2012 Essence Music Festival, scheduled for July 5-8, would also be welcome.

If you have photos that fit the bill here, please send thumbnails to OffBeat Art Director Elsa Hahne, and do so in short order.

The monthly magazine pays $30 per published photo. OffBeat is publication that is distributed for free throughout the New Orleans metro area, with copies also sent to paid subscribers throughout the United States and other countries. Photos are also published on the magazine's website.

Funding sought for NOLA/Santiago de Cuba traditions project

Bluethroat Productions, a group that began in New Orleans via cultural exchanges between Cuban and local artists and performers, is seeking funding via the Kickstarter website for a film and video project that will focus the similarities and shared heritage of music, parade and dance traditions of New Orleans and Santiago de Cuba.

Among those involved with the project are Bluethroat photographer and NOPA member Christopher Porché West.

The aim of the project, "A Cultural Odyssey: from New Orleans to Santiago de Cuba," is to examine the Afro-Caribbean heritage of and connections between second line parades in New Orleans and Conga lines in the Cuban city.

Bluethroat has a fundraising pledge goal of $10,000, with about 30 percent of that goal reached at the time of this NOPA blog entry's posting. The deadline for reaching that goal is 4:30 a.m. (CDST) on Wednesday, June 27.

As is always the case with projects set up at Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website, if the pledge goal is not reached by the deadline, then no money will ever change hands. The project will, in other words, be left unfunded.

According to Bluethroat's project page, the funding will be used to help fund exhibits and the showing of documentaries and videos in Santiago de Cuba, as well as the adding of subtitles to one documentary, and the like. One of the exhibits will feature the work of NOPA member West, who also plans to donate some of his photography work to Santiago de Cuba's Carnival Museum.

For more specifics on the project and the organization behind, please see the Kickstarter page, and the Bluethroat website. 

Grants workshop with Lori Waselchuk set for June 30

 
“Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects!”, a grant workshop for individual artists led by Lori Waselchuk, will help participants navigate the grant application process and explore alternative means for developing project support. Waselchuk, an award-winning photographer based in Philadelphia, Penn., has been the recipient of several regional and international grants.

Waselchuk will explain the three stages of grant writing: preparation, proposal development, and follow-up. In addition to local and national grant opportunities, she will discuss building partnerships for projects and seeking non-traditional funding. She will be joined by Joycelyn L. Reynolds, Grants Manager of the Arts Council of New Orleans, who will talk about the Council’s community projects grants and offer advice from the perspective of an experienced grants administrator.

Advance registration is encouraged, via the NOPA website.

Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects! 
Grants Workshop with Lori Waselchuk
Saturday, June 30, 2012
9a.m.-3p.m.
New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery
1111 St. Mary Street
NOLA 70130
$5 NOPA Members/$10 General Public


About Lori Waselchuk 
Lori Waselchuk is a documentary photographer living in Philadelphia, PA. Her images have been published and exhibited internationally. She has produced photography for numerous humanitarian organizations and foundations including CARE, UNICEF, and the United Nations World Food Program.

Waselchuk is the author/photographer of "Grace Before Dying" (Umbrage Edtitions 2011). She is the recipient of the Open Society Foundation Audience Engagement Grant in 2008, the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer Fellowship in 2009, and the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities Publishing Initiative Grant in 2010. She has also received funding from The Baton Rouge Foundation and the Fertel Foundation as well as in-kind support from a number of institutions and grass-roots organizations.

The photographer's work has garnered numerous distinctions including the PhotoNOLA Review Prize (2007); the Southern African Gender and Media Award for Photojournalism (2004), a nomination for the Santa Fe Prize for Photography (2009), and was a finalist for the 2008 Aperture West Book Prize. Her work is found in collections including the South African National Gallery, New Orleans Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum Collections, and the Free Library of Philadelphia.

NOPA Presents Scott Dalton lecture on Friday, June 29

 
The New Orleans Photo Alliance is pleased to present a lecture by Scott Dalton, winner of the 2011 Michael P. Smith Fund For Documentary Photography grant. Dalton will present his award-winning project “So Close, So Far: Daily Life and Cartel Violence in Ciudad Juárez” at the NOPA gallery on June 29, 2012 at 7 p.m.

Dalton’s project explores daily life in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, a city in the midst of a vicious cartel drug war. Averaging over 3,000 murders a year, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, has become one of the most dangerous cities on earth.

Tom Rankin, the Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, writes, "Scott Dalton's images reveal the hard edges of conflict while also illuminating the eloquent textures of ordinary life. Dalton's images suggest the sense of loss that relentless violence so firmly delivers.”


MPS FUND 2011 GRANT WINNER: SCOTT DALTON 
Friday, June 29, 2012
7 p.m.
New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery
1111 St. Mary Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
FREE and open to the public

About Scott Dalton 
Scott Dalton is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker based in Houston, Texas. He has spent years working throughout Latin America, including extensive coverage of Colombia, where he lived for over ten years photographing the civil conflict and drug war.

His photography has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Harper's, Time, Newsweek, Washington Post Magazine, Condé Nast Portfolio, Business Week, and The New Yorker, among other outlets.

Dalton's documentary film, LA SIERRA, won numerous awards and has been broadcast by PBS, BBC, HBO Latino, and many other international broadcasters. Dalton has won the Houston Center of Photography Carol Crow Fellowship in 2010 as was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize in 2009.

Tulane's Hilger named photography director at Pratt Institute

New York's Pratt Institute has named NOPA member Stephen Hilger, currently the director of photography at Tulane University and an assistant professor at its Uptown New Orleans campus since 2008, as its new Photography Department chair.

His appointment in the Pratt School of Art and Design will begin July 1.

"Professor Hilger brings a wealth of academic experience and scholarly and creative practice to his department and to the School of Art and Design," said Pratt School of Art and Design Dean Concetta M. Stewart. "Professor Hilger is actively engaged in using his knowledge and expertise to benefit the broader community and society, and I look forward to working with him to make the Department of Photography a leading force in art and design education."

As chair, Hilger will lead Pratt's Bachelor of Fine Arts degree program in photography. Students in the program receive broad training in photography, learning about subjects ranging from traditional photographic techniques to the digital darkroom, and learn as well about aesthetics, history, and artistic and professional practice. The program culminates in individual exhibitions for students, along with a senior group show held at a gallery in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood.

Hilger noted that he looks forward to joining Pratt's photo program to advance photography's aesthetic and critical potential. "Through a rigorous and informed practice of the medium," he said, "we will work to question and understand photography's unique relationships to contemporary art, media and technology, and our culture at large."

The assistant professor has been at Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans since 2008. While there, he curated an exhibit featuring photographs by Lee Friedlander and Andy Warhol.

While in New Orleans, he has also continued his own work, which has focused on what a Pratt profile calls a building of "visual archives of the disappearing." Among his works are a series of photos that chronicled the demise of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, which played host to several Academy Awards ceremonies, but is more widely known today for being the site of Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968. While in New Orleans, he put together the series "Back of Town," one that documented the recent demolition of much of Lower Mid-City to make way for yet-to-be-completed state and federal hospitals.

Before coming to the Crescent City, Hilger taught at Columbia University, New York University Steinhardt School, and Pace University, all located in New York.

Members' Exhibition at NOPA Gallery Opening June 9

The New Orleans Photo Alliance is proud to present it’s first annual Members Only Exhibit. Featuring the very best of what our are members are creating, we will present this exhibit at our beautiful gallery in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans. It's a wonderful show, showcasing some of the diverse work from our members. The opening is this Saturday from 6-9pm NOPA Gallery  1111 St Mary New Orleans, LA  See you all there! Featuring works from: Renee Allie Danell Beede David Chauvin Charles Crain John Eaton Adam Finkelston Kristin Fouquet Sarah Galbreath Diane Kaye Joseph Kerkman David L'Hoste Donald Maginnis Rebecca Mason Meryt Harding Ray Mikell Don Norris Kenneth Pape Gerard Plauche Betty Press Danny Rawls Sharon Shero Preview show here: NOPA Members' Exhibtion

'Beheld' photo exhibit opens June 9 at HomeSpace Gallery

A new exhibit of work from several photographers with New Orleans ties, "Beheld," will open this Saturday, June 9, at the HomeSpace Gallery in the Crescent City's St. Roch neighborhood. An opening event will begin at 6 p.m.

The work features work from artists including NOPA members Muffin Bernstein, Judy Sherrod and Vanessa Brown (with Louviere + Vanessa work, to be precise), and others including Andy Cook, S. Gayle Stevens and Meg Turner.

The show will run through July 8.

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 12 until 3 p.m., and by appointment

Image: "Nocturnes 2" wet-plate collodian tintype, made with a pinhole camera, Judy Sherrod and Gayle S. Stevens

Partial retrospective of Jan Gilbert work opens at The Front

A retrospective exhibit of past work, combined with a presentation of new work, from NOPA member and New Orleans artist Jan Gilbert, "30 Years / 30 Blocks," will open Saturday, June 9 at The Front, an artist-run collective and art gallery in the Crescent City's Bywater neighborhood.

An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. The series will run through July 8.

According to gallery, Gilbert's new collection features the interior and exterior of The Front's building, alongside archival documentation of Gilbert's public art portfolio. The exhibit also features Gilbert's plans for a new series of public art pieces, a series set to appear on the streets of New Orleans in 2014.

At the same time, the gallery's back yard and its chain link fence will feature a collaboration between Gilbert and artist Babette Beaullieu in work meant to mark the opening of another hurricane season. This will be include a hybrid of Cajun prayer flags and imagery of Cajun Mardi Gras costumes. Exhibit attendees will be presented with papers and pens for this portion of greater exhibit, and encouraged to offer their personal wishes or payers in writing. They may then tie these prayers or wishes to the fence.

The idea of devotional offerings here is borrowed from and blended with traditions from Tibeten, Japanese and Cajun traditions, according to the gallery.

Gilbert’s works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and cultural centers across the United States and the world. These works have ranged in scale from a tiny and intimate to large-scale, multi-media public art. Her works have involved painting, printmaking, photography, and installation. She is the co-founder of The Vestiges, a collective of artists and writers.

The Front is located at 4100 St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans. It is open from 12 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Entries sought by Ogden for 'Lousiana Contemporary' exhibit

New Orleans' Ogden Museum of Southern Art is seeking entries for "Louisiana Contemporary," a statewide, juried exhibition of contemporary art as produced by people living in Louisiana.

The deadline for entry is Monday, July 2. 

The exhibit, presented by Regions Bank, will open on White Linen Night, the gallery night and street party in the Warehouse District and Julia Street, which will fall this year on Saturday, August 4. It will close on Monday, Sept. 24.


The exhibit and competition are being held during the ongoing celebration of the Louisiana Bicentennial, a celebration of the state's April 1812 entry into the American union.

Ogden Director William Andrews noted that launching the exhibition during this 200th anniversary of Louisiana's statehood seemed fitting. "We believe that the impact of historic art can be heightened by a comparison of the art of today. The power of both contemporary and historic work is elevated when in close proximity to one another."
Any artist living in Louisiana, working in any artistic medium, is eligible for entry.
A nonrefundable fee for entry of $35 fee for up to three submissions is required. The fee for each additional entry is $10.

Up to $1,500 in awards will be presented to participating artists, including a $500 Best of Show cash award.

For a more detailed list of entry specifications, please see the Louisiana Contemporary website.

Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects!

Build Your Community, Fund Your Projects!
Grants Workshop with Lori Waselchuk
Saturday, June 30, 2012
9am-3pm
The New Orleans Photo Alliance will host a grant workshop for individual artists on June 30, 2012 from 9am – 3pm. Lori Waselchuk, an award-winning photographer and recipient of several regional and international grants, will lead a workshop that will cover three stages of grant-writing: preparation, proposal development and follow-up. Waselchuk will talk about her own experiences, local and national grant opportunities, and about building partnerships for projects and seeking non-traditional funding.

Fee: $5 Members/ $10 General Public (includes pizza lunch)
Advance registration preferred.

Deadline is June 20 for juried 'Center Forward 2012' competition

The Center for Fine Art Photography of Fort Colins, Colo. is seeking entries for "Center Forward 2012," an open-themed, juried exhibition set for Fall 2012. The deadline for entry is Wednesday, June 20.

The competition is open to all photographers, worldwide, whether amateur or professional.

Serving as jurors for "Center Forward" will be Ann M. Jastrab, director of the RayKo Photo Center of San Francisco, along with the Center for Fine Art Photography's Executive Director, Hamidah Glasgow.

All winning selections are to be featured in the Center’s Main Gallery exhibition from September 1 to October 20, 2012, as well as its online gallery exhibit and print catalog. Select artists will also have work included in an exhibit at the RayKo Gallery in early 2013 and a Denver International Airport show in the fall.
 
Awards include the following:

• Two Juror's Selections, $425
• One Director's Selection, $350. 
• Two liveBooks Website Awards: Valued at $399 from liveBooks.com
• One Blurb Book Award: Valued at $250 from blurb.com 
• Honorable Mention Awards: Two-year Center membership and a three-image submission to another Center competition.

The entry fee is $20 for the first three images for members, and $35 for non-members. Additional images can be submitted for $10 each, thereafter.

For more entry specifications and other information on the competition, please see the Center Forward call for entry web page.