ImageMaker National Photography Competition

As part of being a Fine Art Photographer in the Atlanta Area, I had the wonderful opportunity of being invited to be one of the Judges (in a panel of 3) for a National Photography Competition for the Boys and Girls Club of America, which included images submitted  from all 50 States plus all Military Installation across the world.
It was an eye opening experience due to the incredible amount of good work being produced by kids 6-9, 10-12,13-15 and 16 and up, specially in the Alternative process category. There were kids working on Film, Photograms, Lumen Prints, etc. Something I found to be very inspirational, since this type of techniques are still being taught at this level of learning. The only downside on this was that only one winner could be chosen on each one of the categories, making the decision excruciatingly hard. (All the the Judges made sure that all the runners up would get a note for encouragement). The winners will participate on a travelling exhibition across the US.
Results for all the winners will be posted here very soon .

"In your Dreams" Opening

Please Join me, other fellow photographers and Media Artists  at the APG Gallery  in Atlanta for the Opening of "In Your Dreams", the show will run from June 24th to August 26th.. I am very excited to be part of this show. Above all, I really enjoyed the Juror Statement that you can access here.

Hope to see you there.

Light and Film

Beautiful Results!!!!

Mauricio Sapata and The Carandiru Prison

If Something needs to be noted about Mauricio Sapata, (a Brazilian native residing in London ) is his incredible extensive photography  portfolio,compiled with the use of an impresive camera collection; and it occurs to me that he has dominated them all.

Out of all of his images, a body of work that caught my attention immediately is the Carandiru Prison Project, the pictures reflect the chaos, the terror and the imminent danger of being there as an inmate.

An excerpt from his website:

"In November of 2002 I had the opportunity to visit what once was the largest prison in South America. The Carandiru Prison was located in Sao Paulo, Brazil and it was build to held 500 inmates when it opened in the 50's, but had about  7,000  until its final days.

It was the site of the Carandiru massacre in October of 1992, where at least 111 prisoner were killed by police after a riot broke out in the 9th Pavilion, although witnesses claim that around 300 were killed that day".

All Images Copyrighted to Mauricio Sapata.

What was Recovered

 I guess at one point or another it is bound to happen, technology fails, including  hard drive copies,backups and such.
The only reliable source is your film negatives, which will have to be edited once more.

BLUR-MAGAZINE

Blur Magazine is an amazing  Free PDF Format-Photography magazine that got started in Croatia in 2007, the array of photographers who are being showcased is just fantastic, you can see a lot of unknown and upcoming  photographers, along side mid level career or very well known ones (from all over the world).

Their focus is on Art , so the medium within photography extends to whatever realm this might take it, from Wet Plate, Lomography, Lo-Fi, to highly digital or Polaroid; you name it; is there. It is visually engaging and  with  lots of variety, and since there is a multi country based editing team, the samples reflects the view not from just one spectrum of what Fine Art Photography should look like. It is one of the Internet Based Publication that I have enjoyed the most lately.

Their submission process is also free to any photographer with interest in photography as a form of art, you can either enter 2 images or a whole project, they publish their issues on a quarterly basis, so it might be a little late to be considered for their Summer Issue but anybody for sure can try already for their Autumn one. Good Luck to anybody who submits.

First Sight

Everybody has a main reason for buying a new or old camera (whichever the case may be) some are following an specific brand, others are pursuing an specific type of optic. In my case, the decision to get a Yashica was mostly founded in two basic points. 1.- It was the Camera that Francesca Woodman used to take most of her images; 2.- I was dying to work with a twin reflex camera because I love their optics, and the Yashica fitted the bill; in fact it fitted the bill so much that I got a great deal, twoYashicas for the price of one.

Well, the above image was the first one I took from the first roll of film with an idea in mind of a new series, well, I am absolutely pleased with the result, and I will keep the ball rolling