Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson

From the New Orleans Photo Alliance website:

“The New Orleans Photo Alliance’s Grants

The Clarence John Laughlin Award

The Clarence John Laughlin Award was created by the New Orleans Photo Alliance (NOPA) to support the work of photographers who use the medium as a means of creative expression. It honors the life and work of Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985), a New Orleans photographer best known for his surrealist images of the American South. The Clarence John Laughlin Award grants one $5000 prize annually to a photographer whose work exhibits sustained artistic excellence and creative vision.

Juror

John Wood, Editor, 21st Editions

Eligibility

Both emerging and established photographers residing in the U.S. may apply.

Deadline

All required materials must be received by the New Orleans Photo Alliance between July 15, 2010 and September 15, 2010.

Application Fee

Application fee is $25.
Application fee + NOPA membership: $60.

How to Apply

Applications will be accepted online only through the New Orleans Photo Alliance website.

Eligible Work

The New Orleans Photo Alliance invites photographers working in all mediums, styles and schools of thought to apply. Still images made from all photographic processes, both traditional and digital will be considered. There are no restrictions on subject matter or genres. Traditional, contemporary, avant-garde, creative and experimental works that include old and new processes, mixed techniques, and challenging personal and emotional statements are all welcome. Still photography or photographic techniques should be integral to the works submitted.

Work Samples

Applicants must submit a portfolio of 10-20 image files representing a cohesive body of work. Applicants should demonstrate the ability to build a strong series of images. If your work is best communicated visually by showing its physical nature, you may use one or more of the required images for installation or detail views.

Written Statements

Applicants must submit a written statement explaining their images, process and intent. The purpose of the statement is to give the juror a better understanding of your work while they are viewing it. Your statement should be clear, concise and relate to the work samples you submit. Applicants will also be required to submit a bio or resume and a brief “description of work” summary.

Judging Criteria

The main criteria for selection will be the strength of the applicant’s portfolio and written statement.

Selection and Notification

If more than 100 applications are submitted, a committee of independent curators and photographers will prescreen all submissions and select 100 portfolios to present to the juror. The juror will select a single winner. At the juror’s discretion a select number of finalists may be asked to submit a print portfolio for the final decision.  Finalists will be notified by October 1 and required to mail portfolios at their own expense by October 10.

The winner will be announced on November 1, 2010.  The recipient’s portfolio will be featured on the New Orleans Photo Alliance’s website for one year.

The New Orleans Photo Alliance will present the prize to the recipient during the Fifth Annual PhotoNOLA, held in December of 2010 in New Orleans, LA.  If the winner is unable to accept the prize in person, other arrangements will be made.

About the Juror

John Wood is an award-winning poet, critic, and photographic historian.  The Southern Review called him “the most lucid and engaging of the post-modern Southern poets.” His most recent work, Endurance and Suffering, a book of poems based on 19th Century photographs by O. G. Mason won the 2009 Gold German Photobook Prize.  Wood co-curated the landmark 1995 Smithsonian Institution Museum of American Art exhibition Secrets of the Dark Chamber, and the book based on the exhibition was a New York Times Book Review Best Books of 1995.  He has written books on the daguerreotype, the autochrome, Romanticism and photography, and other subjects.  His books have been named to the “Outstanding Academic Books of the Year” by the American Library Association, Wall Street Journal‘s Year’s Best Books, and the American Photographic Historical Society’s Outstanding Book of the Year.  His translation of poems from Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal with a critical introduction and photographs by Eikoh Hosoe received the 2007 Independent Book Publishers Bronze Medal, and Sally Mann, a selection of Mann’s photographs and poems, which he edited, won a 2005 Lucie Award.  He has published and edited over thirty books and written the introductions to more than twenty others on photographers as diverse as Josephine Sacabo, Jamie Baldridge, John Metoyer, Joel-Peter Witkin, Jan Saudek, Arthur Tress, Luis Gonzáles Palma, Flor Garduño, Michael Kenna, Wouter Deruytter, Connie Imboden, John Dugdale, Robert ParkeHarrison, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, David Halliday and Greg Gorman.  He has also written the texts for more than ten catalogues of art and photographic exhibitions in the United States, Italy, Germany, Greece, Japan, and Mexico. He is the Editor of 21st Editions, holds a Ph.D. in English literature, held Professorships for thirty years in both English Literature and Photographic History and served as Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at McNeese State University.  He now lives in Vermont and is at work on a retrospective book on the work of Masao Yamamoto.”