We received this wonderful email from Jon Reis this week about lessons learned from Garry Winogrand:

“I had an occasion to visit Rockport, Massachusetts, recently with my wife, Dede Hatch, who was delivering some artwork to a local gallery. I remembered that in 1976 when I was 27 years old I was in the same seaside town where I did an intensive week-long Garry Winogrand workshop. Then, the ten or twelve students all had their Leica’s in their hands and everyone wanted to watch him work the peak summer tourist onslaught. How DID he make such consistently interesting photos? . . . What was the secret to his vision?

One of the many truisms he spoke was to ‘shoot pictures that had not been made before.’ Garry used to say ‘If you seen a photo before, don’t take it again.’ Like the other students I snapped a few of Garry himself at rest not far from Rockport Motif #1. (Now that he is gone I wish I had shot more.)

At night during the photo critique of the day’s take one student asked ‘What made Atget such a great photographer?’ The wise-cracking Winogrand shot back, ‘Why, it is where he stood!’

Being in Rockport again 34 years later, I had fun recreating the pose with the help of Dede. Tree is doing well!”

Jon’s exhibition, By the Way: Two Decades of America Observed 1973-1993, is on view at the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery at Syracuse University until December 2010. His generous gifts to the Light Work Collection include over 100 pieces.

Light Work is pleased to announce the results of the Light Work Annual Student Invitational, featuring photography students at Syracuse University. Jason Houston from Orion Magazine served as our juror to select a Best of Show winner: Varvara Mikushkina, a junior in SU’s Transmedia Program.  Houston also selected four Honorable Mentions: Elif Yoney (first year graduate student), Erin Geideman (freshman), Hannah Nast (freshman), and Rose Cromwell (freshman). Over thirty students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication submitted excellent work to the invitational. The exhibition will be presented on Light Work’s flat panel screen from April 1 through May 29, 2010. Congratulations to the winners, and our thanks to all participants and our juror.

Juror’s statement by Jason Houston:

It is difficult to select ‘the best’ from such a diverse series of images. There are sports images that captured the peak of action, emotional and intimate documentary portraits, creative fictional scenarios, poetic landscapes, and thought provoking fine art images. Photographs are made for so many different reasons and in so many different contexts. Still, a good photograph will always be a good photograph.

The images I chose as Best of Show and for Honorable Mention transcend their genre and hold up without context. They show technical skill and creative vision, but also, and more importantly, go beyond the literal retelling of what is happening around us. They interpret. They help us see and they show us something new about the world.

For Best of Show I selected the portrait of the man drinking from a tea cup made by Varvara Mikushkina. It has the wonderful feeling of being both deliberate and natural. The fundamentals such as great color, composition, and lighting are balanced by the spontaneous moment captured by Varvara’s camera—a moment that engages us, yet promises only to introduce us to the subject’s character. The intimacy makes it feel familiar, but we are kept ever so slightly off balance by the opposing tilts of the head and the cup, and by his partly covered expression. We are left to wonder about his mood and seek the source of his gaze. We explore the image for clues, drawn in to where we notice details such as the tentatively balanced spoon on his thumb or the slightly skewed art on the wall above his head. It is an image you want to look at.

Image: Varvara Mikushkina, Deda and Tea, 2009, pigmented inkjet print, 16 x 20″

Syracuse artist Jennifer Wilkey is the 2010 recipient of the Lucie Foundation’s Scholarship Professional Grant. This new grant includes a cash award of $5,000 plus a one-week workshop at the Maine Media Workshops. The grant will go toward completing her project and preparing for an exhibition of the work in Syracuse.

Wilkey is recognized for her series that records the life of her brother, who is developmentally disabled. Wilkey eloquently documents his day-to-day activities and discoveries, as well as his relationship with their mother, a constant presence in his life.

The artist holds an MFA in Fine Art Photography from Syracuse University as well as a BS in Anthropology and BFA from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. In 2010 her work will be exhibited at Project Basho in Philadelphia in addition to other venues.

Congratulations, Jennifer, for this well-deserved honor.

[Image: Jennifer Wilkey, James in the Kitchen, 2008]

Former Light Work Artist-in-Residence Scott Conarroe is featured as one of PDN’s 30 for 2010. This yearly list highlights a select group of the best up-and-coming photographic artists as determined by a prestigious panel of industry taste makers.

Check out PDN’s online gallery plus a short interview with Conarroe about making his work, traveling non-stop, and being represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery.

The interview, written up by Debra Klomp Ching, features a shout out to Light Work: When asked his greatest challenge, Conarroe responds, ““I managed to get an MFA without bothering to spend any time on the computer. I did a residency at Light Work/Community Darkrooms and they made me competent in the digital lab.”

For more information about the Light Work residency program, please click here. We are continuously looking at applications throughout the year.