Jurors: Laura Ruth & Fred Bidwell, Bidwell Projects & Bidwell Foundation & Transformer Station
We enjoyed viewing and discussing the hundreds of portfolios immensely. While it seemed at first overwhelming, surfing through these entries revealed many strong bodies of work and our eagerness to see more kept us going strong. Powerful, well-executed images, crisp concepts and emotional impact were what attracted us to a short list of finalists. The fact that our selections had little overlap with that of the other two jurors is a testimony to the strength and quality of the entries.
In the end, it was not difficult for us all to agree that the Guy Martin's City of Dreams, which mixes the drama of Turkish Soap Operas with the reality of social turmoil in Instanbul, had the formal, conceptual and emotional impact to be awarded First Place.
We chose Amiko Li's work, Saudade, for our juror's choice award because of it's compelling simplicity, wonder and quiet strangeness. This is work of impressive maturity from a very promising young artist.
Juror: Roger Watson, Curator, Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock, England
The Project Launch submissions were of a broader and higher quality spectrum than I have come to expect from open grants and awards. All deserved some consideration and many required repeated visits to explore the subtlety, story line and beauty of the work. Some told stories that were intriguing and occasionally eye opening. Others were explorations of the ageless examination of light, colour, texture and beauty. Some were extremely personal while others had the subjective eye of the photojournalist. The breadth of style, structure and composition of the images made judging the works a joy.
The request for 15-20 images caused some participants to fall short with some offering too few images to make a judgment while others diluted a short series by padding it out with extraneous images. Some stories are short and to the point and have a serious value in this field, but this is not the grant for those stories.
I took my first impression seriously but continued to look at the quality and consistency of the subject matter. I tried to determine the story line before reading the artist’s statement and then judged the work against the intent. I was drawn to the ones that seemed to exhibit technical expertise while at the same time bending that skill to the benefit of their story. The ability to work across a number of images while maintaining a central story or theme is not always easy. Judging works by artists unknown to us is a highly subjective exercise and the failure to succeed in this competitive grant isn’t an automatic rejection of the work. There were a great many portfolios that fell at the last hurdle when a judgment had to be made to winnow the masses down to the few.
My juror’s choice was Richard Tuschman’s Hopper Meditations. Here in the UK there are several artists who have chosen to reassemble and replicate the works of classic painters and their mythical themes, but Richard has chosen, to my mind, the one painter who worked in the manner of a number of current photographers. He captured the mundane, daily lives of people while exploring the effects of light and shade on them and their environment. The images reminded me of Gregory Crewdson’s constructed images, but with a simpler cast and palette. They don’t tell a completely contemporary story of the world as it is lived today, as many of the documentary photographers did with great effect in this competition. Instead they are, like Hopper’s paintings, a quiet meditation on the timeless psychological weight of lives lived.
Juror: Patrick Witty, formerly International Photo Editor, TIME Magazine; currently Director of Photography, Wired Magazine
The Project Launch grant submissions represented a diverse cross-section of contemporary documentary and fine art photography dealing with a broad range of subject matter. The work submitted was beautifully divergent - ranging from highly personal, emotionally-compelling stories to hard-hitting, impactful documentary projects and beyond. As a juror, it was deeply inspiring.
All of these qualities and more were elegantly combined in Guy Martin’s project, “City of Dreams”. Beautiful, formal, impactful and revealing, Martin’s project is a true reflection of modern documentary work. The photos are a compelling mixture of cinematic surreality and intense reportage, asking more questions than they answer.
My juror’s choice went to Clare Carter’s provocative series, “Corrective Rape,” exploring hate crimes against the LGBTI community in South Africa. Unflinching and intimate, Carter’s work demands attention – and action.
It was an honor to be part of the jury.
JURORS:
Laura Ruth & Fred Bidwell
Project Launch
Roger Watson
Project Launch
Patrick Witty
Project Launch
Winner:
Jurors' Choice:
chosen by Patrick Witty, Wired Magazine
chosen by Fred & Laura Ruth Bidwell, Transformer Station
chosen by Roger Watson, Fox Talbot Museum
Juror: Patrick Witty, formerly International Photo Editor, TIME Magazine; currently Director of Photography, Wired Magazine
The Project Launch grant submissions represented a diverse cross-section of contemporary documentary and fine art photography dealing with a broad range of subject matter. The work submitted was beautifully divergent - ranging from highly personal, emotionally-compelling stories to hard-hitting, impactful documentary projects and beyond. As a juror, it was deeply inspiring.
All of these qualities and more were elegantly combined in Guy Martin’s project, “City of Dreams”. Beautiful, formal, impactful and revealing, Martin’s project is a true reflection of modern documentary work. The photos are a compelling mixture of cinematic surreality and intense reportage, asking more questions than they answer.
My juror’s choice went to Clare Carter’s provocative series, “Corrective Rape,” exploring hate crimes against the LGBTI community in South Africa. Unflinching and intimate, Carter’s work demands attention – and action.
It was an honor to be part of the jury.
Juror's Choice: Richard Tuschman
Artist Statement: Hopper Meditations
Hotel By Railroad
Morning Sun
Woman In The Sun I
Woman In The Sun II
Morning In A City
Woman And Man On A Bed
By The Window
Woman Reading
Woman With Book And Letter
Woman By A Window
Green Bedroom (Morning)
Green Bedroom (4 AM)
Pink Bedroom (Daydream)
Pink Bedroom (Still Life At Night)
Pink Bedroom (Window Seat)
Pink Bedroom (Family)
Pink Bedroom (Odalisque)
Richard Tuschman — Hopper's Meditations
Hopper Meditations is a personal photographic response to the work of
the American painter, Edward Hopper.
The images in Hopper Meditations are created by digitally marrying
dollhouse-size dioramas with live models. The miniature sets I built,
painted and photographed in my studio. A lot of the furniture is
standard dollhouse furniture, but some I made myself. I then
photographed the models against a plain backdrop, and lastly, made
the digital composites in Photoshop. They are then printed with
archival inks on Somerset Museum Rag paper, at approximately either
24” x 35”, or 43” x 63”.
When I began the series, my plan was to recreate specific Hopper
paintings. As the series progressed, however, I felt increasingly free to
create my own compositions, inspired by Hopper’s vision.
I have always loved the way Hopper’s paintings, with an economy of
means, are able to address the mysteries and complexities of the
human condition. Placing one or two figures in humble, intimate
settings, he created quiet scenes that are psychologically compelling
with open-ended narratives. The characters’ emotional states can seem
to waver paradoxically between reverie and alienation, or perhaps
between longing and resignation. Dramatic lighting heightens the
emotional overtones, but any final interpretation is left to the viewer.
These are all qualities I hope to imbue in my images as well.
In other ways, my pictures diverge from Hopper’s paintings. The
general mood in my work is more somber, and the lighting is less
harsh than in Hopper’s. I am trying to achieve an effect perhaps closer
to the chiaroscuro lighting of Rembrandt, another painter I greatly
admire. I would like the lighting to act as almost another character, not
only illuminating the form of the figures, but also echoing and evoking
the their inner lives. I suppose I would like to marry the theatricality of
Rembrandt with the humility of Hopper. In this way, I like to think of
my images as dramas for a small stage, with the figures as actors in a
one or two character play. The characters, by appearance, are rooted
specifically in the past, somewhere in Hopper’s early/mid-twentieth
century. For me, this augments the dreamlike, staged effect of the
scenes. The themes they evoke, though—solitude, alienation, longing—
are timeless and universal.