From "Journey to Sakhalin," Jurors' Award winner, Michael C. Brown, All rights reserved
I got my email today from Maggie Blanchard at the Center (formerly Santa Fe Center for Photography): "Thank you for submitting to the 2009 Project Competition," she began, and then a few sentences later "...We regret to inform you that your work was not awarded this year."
Thud! Biff! Whomp!
Let's face it, no matter how well I try to insulate myself from disappointment at these moments, no odds, no philosophy can completely defuse the fantasy of ending up in the winners' circle. This time I thought my submission had a chance. Actually, I still think it did. But my project wasn't chosen.
It took me a few hours before I was ready to look at this year's winners. I'm glad to say they're excellent. I'm not even tempted to be snarky -- which is the way my self pity expresses itself in these situations -- or to feel worse because of their success. And that, my friends, is progress...
Take a look at the winning projects.
8 comments:
I'm sorry to hear that, Tim. Keep on keepin' on.
I like the refrigerator series.
yup, me either. Maybe next time?
Tim - I think you a little too kind with your review of the winners. Many I found very good and I especially liked the fridge series and the factory ones (being the daughter of a textile designer and loving the show on Matisse and how fabric influenced his work). I do not, however, like the JoJo series and am a little offended that it won. I guess one or two candid pictures of her may have been interesting but this project turned from voyeuristic into something bordering objectification and exploitation. It is a tough decision to follow people or a person knowing your mere prescence affects their behavior and the artist's own biases influence the work. In this case - toilet shots (with gunk in the tub!), lots of leg, teenager-loose-on-the-night - I found all the shots cliche and non-advancing for the art and social measure. I feel a little disturbed and icky after viewing the JoJo series.
Oh, most importantly, I like your work much better than at least half of the winners. Keep up the fabulous capturing.
Well, it's not that I'm trying to be kind, more like polite -- it seems rude (& ridiculous) to blast work that was just chosen over mine. And I DO think the projects were generally impressive. But since 2 correspondents have brought up the winner, Jo Jo, I'll admit I didn't think much of it either. To me the photog's statement that her purpose is to "induce curiosity, to confuse" is a cop out. Is it about JoJo or the photog? Is it a reliable or unreliable narration? I mean she's employing all the techniques of photojournalism, asking us, it seems to me, to see these photos as photojournalism -- a real girl in a real place -- but then she's delivering only impressions, not information (except for the most crucially scandalous fact, that Jo Jo is 14). I think you can't have it both ways. These photos could have been a moving experience perhaps with a well-reported, sensitively written story that included JoJo's voice & details about her world. Now it's just a tease & yes, doubly so because she's a stylish , leggy girl-woman with that self-destructive streak that allows viewers to be sexually titillated & earnestly worried at the same time. I also think there's a complicity here that's not acknowledged -- JoJo agrees to the constant photography & it makes her a star, she has a role. But what's the role? We don't REALLY know but from the photos it's that of a wild, doomed beauty -- too beautiful to live in this sordid world blah blah blah . You've seen it before -- Edie Sedgwick, Marilyn Monroe etc etc. It's a lethal cliche actually. And winning a big contest like this gives it a lot of credence -- to JoJo at least & maybe others in the pipeline.
I just want to add that I really like the projects that go out into the world & rely on instinct, take pictures they don't understand at the time & then present those pix as personal but not universal descriptions of reality. I'm thinking of Peter van Aqtmael's American Wars at http://www.visitcenter.org/programs.cfm?p=Project09vanAgtmael & Michael C Brown's Journey to Sakhalin at http://www.visitcenter.org/programs.cfm?p=Project09Brown
Regarding the JoJo series, I might have given them more credit if the photographer hadn't given such a vapid reason for why she took the photos, why she was drawn to JoJo. Her work obviously tries to follow in some HUGE footsteps like Mary Ellen Mark's work in the early 1980s with Seattle's homeless teenagers. It just doesn't do anything new and her paper-thin reason behind the photos to me did more harm than good for the viewer.
I have a growing stack of those kinds of letters from various competitions, including the Center. But to be honest, I also see a progression and selection in my work that explains why it hasn't been picked. Onward!
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