The 2008 Soho Photo National Photography Competition
Soho Photo Gallery of New York City is pleased to announce the winners of the thirteenth National Juried Competition. Our juror, Charles H. Traub, chairperson, MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media at the School of Visual Arts, New York, selected 31 photographs produced by 28 photographers for our July 2008 show.
Traub shared his views about judging the competition:
What The Juror Saw
The Soho Photo Gallery has a long and venerable tradition of showing creative photography of those who otherwise would not have as readily an opportunity to exhibit in a New York Gallery. This annual judged exhibition is one which gives anyone and everyone who is so inclined to be reviewed for possible inclusion. It is the very democracy of this opportunity that presents the challenge to the judge. Inevitably the submissions are going to include all the clichés of contemporary photography, but also the acute vision of highly trained professionals and the ever surprising idiosyncratic imagery of natural talents as well as the aspiring art of undergraduate and graduate students. What an eclectic assembly. Hundreds of images to bore and to stimulate. How do you make a judgment?
Everything is there: trick and experimental photography, the staged and the candid, sexy nudes, and distorted portraits, degraded interiors and exuberant landscapes. What are the criteria? Can there be any, really? Only that which this judge feels represents, in the submission of five images, a kind of honesty of intention. The desire by the photographer to create a connected group of pictures which have something to say in the collection bigger than that of any individual represented picture. Craft and presentation are measured. Originality is truly rare but the possibility of it gleams out of numerous sets of work. Selections are based upon the criteria and parameter of the gallery: thirty people only. That’s what the walls hold. One picture from each nominee. One picture! Why that picture? The judge can only select one, thus the choice is made to find the one picture in each selected group that best represents the group. It isn’t really a fair look at the talent of the person chosen, but it offers the promise of further investigation by anyone curious enough to follow through.
So what does the exhibition say? It tells the audience a lot about the diversity of the creative photographic pursuit. The general level of submissions goes up every year. Photography is a hot art form. The amateur knows more about it as such a form than ever before. He or she can now easily mimic highly achieved works, but the bar has been raised. Expectations are high. We don’t expect to see genius, but there’s a lot of talent. We do find a revealing commentary here on the many ideas, tropes, and opportunities the medium challenges us with at this moment in time.
