36th Annual Light Work Grants

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For the 36th year running, Light Work has announced a call for entries for its Light Work Grants in Photography. These grants support photographers, critics, and photo-historians in Central New York, and in order to be eligible, applicants must live in about a 50 mile radius surrounding Syracuse. The residency requirements are listed in the grant application, which you can read about and download here. The deadline for applying is March 31, 2010.

While the Light Work Grants celebrate our local community of artists, there are no geographic limits for our Artists-in-Residence program. There is a rolling deadline for the AIR program; we are continuously looking at new applications as they arrive throughout the year.

Image: Lucinda Devlin, Pocono Place, Marshall’s Creek, PA. Devlin won the Light Work Grant in 1978. Click here for a list of all the winners starting in 1975.

Baghdadi Mem/Wars project in Dubai

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Today we shipped out a box of prints headed for Dubai. It may be the farthest that any prints made in Community Darkrooms have ever traveled from Syracuse.

The images in the package are from the series Baghdadi Mem/Wars, by January Light Work Artists-in-Residence Sama Alshaibi and Dena Al-Adeeb. This powerful series, which incorporates video and photographs, investigates the physical, intellectual, and emotional effects of torture. Both artists were born in Iraq and make this work from a personal perspective. Above is Still-Chaos, one of three suites that comprise the project.

Baghdadi Mem/Wars will be shown in conjunction with Art Dubai, which opens to the public on March 18.

Click here to find out how you can apply for the Light Work Residency and here to see the hundreds of artists who have been residents In Syracuse.

Portfolios for iPhone and iPad

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There’s an interesting discussion going on over at the fractionmag blog about photographers redoing their online portfolios to make them compatible for viewing on the iPhone and iPad. Definitely check out the thread, and I’ll add my .02 here. Unless you work in the rarefied postage-stamp genre, it’s probably not a good idea to show people your work on an iPhone. It’s just not going to look its best if they can see it at all. The iPad could be a different story because of its larger screen size, so maybe it will be worth addressing these compatibility issues.

Basically, the question is whether you use Flash on your portfolio site or not (if you haven’t heard, neither i-devices do Flash). I’ve seen quite a number of sites where the Flash antics actually overshadow the work and make it hard to get to. Your site construction should deliver your images cleanly and quickly, and you certainly don’t need to get tangled up in Flash to accomplish that. There are many good looking website templates, like this one by photographer Dalton Rooney, that get you where you need to go with maximum ease and don’t use Flash, solving your i-compatibility issues from the beginning.

—Mary Goodwin

A great reminder

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I met photographer Jamey Stillings recently in Los Angeles. At the end of our conversation about his Colorado River Bridge series, he gave me a really nice leave-behind: a 56-page custom published magazine featuring his project. For those who still believe in the value of a paper leave-behind beyond the business card, a magazine like this looks very professional but is not so expensive to produce that people have to pry it out of your hands.

MagCloud works pretty simply: After registering, you upload your designed page files as pdfs, they make a full-size proof FOR FREE, and then you can publish as many editions of your magazine as you want at about 20 cents a page. You can put your magazine into their store where others can buy it on demand, too. I talked later with Jamey about his experience with MagCloud, and their service sounded impressive. They worked closely with him through several rounds of proofs to get the values of his night images just right.

Although we look at a lot of work online these days, a well produced magazine can serve as a lasting reminder of your project.

—Mary Goodwin

One more for 2010

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We’ve had late-breaking confirmation this afternoon that Susan Worsham will also join us as a 2010 Artist-in-Residence.

In her series Some Fox Trails in Virginia, Worsham evokes a Southern Gothic atmosphere in which the verdancy of this landscape and its people seems to have run wild and then aground. During her residency, Worsham plans to edit, scan, and print editions of Fox Trails as well as her newest work, By the Grace of God, which focuses on the hospitality of strangers in the South. Congratulations, Susan!

Image: Lynn with Red Towel

2010 Light Work Artists-in-Residence

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Congratulations to the 2010 Light Work Artists-in-Residence, who were selected from a pool of over 400 applicants. Thanks to all who submitted materials and showed patience throughout the process.

We’re very pleased to host the following Artists-in-Residence in 2010:

Sama Alshaibi and Dena Al-Adeeb
Keliy Anderson-Staley
Gerard Gaskin
Ayana Jackson
Christian Patterson
Simon Rowe
Lenard Smith
Zoe Strauss
Brian Ulrich
Shen Wei

Our renowned residency program features a $4,000 stipend, a free place to stay for the month, 24-hour access to our facility, and generous staff support. Light Work was founded in 1973 as a non-profit, artist-run organization. We provide direct support to artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging through residencies, publications, exhibitions, a community-access digital lab facility, and other related projects.

Image: Gerard Gaskin, from the series Lefrak City

Covering photography

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The Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University’s Bird Library, which is right down the street from Light Work, contains an amazing 100,00 printed works and 2,000 archival collections. As part of its Spring 2010 programming, the Center is featuring the exhibition Covering Photography: Imitation, Influence, and Coincidence. The show’s guest curator, Karl Baden (Light Work Artist-in-Residence, 1985), is the founder of the web-based archive Covering Photography. Both the website and the exhibition explore the relationship between the history of photography and book cover design. Comparing the book covers to their “source” images, this relationship ranges in strength from direct appropriation to the possibility of subconscious influence on the designer.

Light Work’s Digital Lab Manager John Mannion worked closely with Baden and the Center to realize the various prints that are staged with the actual books and covers in the show. This project is a great example of the focused, project-specific assistance available through our digital services in Community Darkrooms.

The exhibition runs through April 30, and Karl Baden will host a gallery talk about the project on Tuesday, March 2 at 5pm.

Covering Photography: Imitation, Influence, and Coincidence
January 19-April 30, 2010
Special Collections Research Center
Bird Library, Syracuse University
111 Waverly Avenue
Syracuse, New York  13210

Announcement Day is upon us

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Up until today, it’s all been speculation. Finally, we will get our first peek at Apple’s newest device, find out what it’s actually called, and hopefully get a real sense of what it will mean for the future of media delivery. For photographers, this could mean a whole new market for their work, plus a way better way to show people their images on the fly. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. For now, enjoy the last moments of day-dreaming and check out this great list of sites and twitter feeds that will be following the event live from San Francisco 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern.

Update: Well, maybe they could have worked on the name a little more? But the iPad is a fine looking machine. Only time will truly tell what impact it will have for photographers, but even in its first day, the iPad has breathed new hope into publishing. We’ll keep you posted as details continue to unravel, and of course, if we manage to get our hands on one.

Doug DuBois among the best books of 2009

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photo-eye has announced its Best Books of 2009, which is compiled by a prestigious panel of publishers, artists, and book lovers using a vote system. The beautiful and haunting book . . . all the days and nights, by Doug DuBois, published by aperture, is high on the list receiving nods from Daniel Espeset, Andrew Phelps, George Slade, and Alec Soth. If you don’t already have a copy, this is definitely one for your collection.

Light Work offers signed copies of . . . all the days and nights in our online store for $45. For $15 more, you can get a signed . . . all the days and nights plus a year’s subscription to the award-winning Contact Sheet (five issues, including The Light Work Annual). Your purchase goes directly into supporting our programming for emerging and underrecognized artists.

As It Happens special event

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If you’re in NYC on Thursday, January 14, 2010, make sure to stop by for a special event at Palitz Gallery. Currently on view there is the exhibition As It Happens, which celebrates the Light Work Artists-in-Residence program. The show features work by recent residents, including Kelli Connell, Christine Osinski, Lisa M. Robinson, Kerry Skarbakka, Amy Stein, Krista Steinke, and Marla Sweeney, among many others. The reception starts at 6, and then at 6:30 David Ross and Light Work Executive Director Jeffrey Hoone will be in conversation about Light Work and its renowned residency program, supporting artists, and recent developments in photography.

If you can’t make it on the 14th, the exhibition will be on view until February 11.

Image: Amy Stein, Peri, Route 64, Outside Lexington, Kentucky, 2005

As It Happens
Lubin House: Palitz Gallery
11 East 61st Street, NYC
212-826-1449

We're going to LA

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Happy new year from all of us at Light Work! We’re starting out the year with preparations for photo LA, which will be held this year at the Santa Monica Civic Center from January 14-17. We’ll be there, along with an impressive list of other exhibitors, in support of our mission and our 2010 Subscription Program. We’re looking forward to seeing friends we made at photo MIAMI as well as to making some new ones. Many thanks to Stephen Cohen for making it possible for us to participate! Stop by the Light Work booth and also make sure you take advantage of the wonderful programming that’s been planned around the fair.

Kerry Skarbakka opens at Irvine Contemporary

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2006 Light Work Artist-in-Residence Kerry Skarbakka opens his exhibition The Struggle to Right Oneself: A Survey tomorrow night at Irvine Contemporary in Washington, DC. In this series, the artist trips, falls, and generally loses his balance in ways both everyday and almost comically epic. Ultimately, the images reference the existential battle to remain upright in a challenging world. Included in the exhibition are several photographs that have not been exhibited previously, including Window Crash, 2009, at right.

At Light Work, we’re showing a video from Skarbakka’s series Elements of Attraction in conjunction with our upcoming exhibition Rachel Herman: The Imp of Love. Skarbakka’s video, which shows the artist falling down a sandy embankment in slow motion, makes a poignant counterpoint to Herman’s portraits of once-couples.

Kerry Skarbakka
The Struggle to Right Oneself: A Survey
December 19-January 30, 2009
Opening: December 19, 6:30-8:30pm
Irvine Contemporary
1412 14th St., NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-332-8767