AOP ACCREDITED COURSE GRADUATING STUDENTS ONLINE PUBLICATION ISSUE PDF
Dan Robinson our BA course leader sent by email an invite to participate in AOP Accredited Course graduating students’ online publication (issuu Pdf) – v short notice opportunity with deadline next week!
AOP confirmed we can include any BAPH student graduating 2023-24.
If you would like to participate please drop me an email / follow this Gfolder link to add your details OCA AoP 23-24 showcase folder (to upload images, permissions form, text and guidance) Our internal OCA deadline is 11am this Monday, 10th June for your materials, to allow OCA time to assemble and layout a PDF
I duly uploaded an image and information to the shared folder and the permissions details requested:
Programme Leader/Tutor Name: Dan Robinson/Jayne Taylor
Title of work (please list each work submitted and include your name and the name of the work in the jpeg file name).
What Lies Beneath: Community
Media: Photograph
Dimensions: 4×5 ratio (Currently 13.85 x 17.31 cm)
Year made: 2024
Permission to use internally within OCA: Yes
Permission to use externally by OCA: Yes on Instagram post as agreed.
If permission is given for use by OCA Instagram please include your Instagram account (if you have one) to link to: nikiks_photography
If permission is limited, please specify below the permissions you are granting in terms of image use: Copyright remains with Niki South, the image and the ratio must remain as original given.
The OCA kindly put together a pdf of our work see below:
Entry information. Start date: 2 April 2024 Deadline: 24 May 2024 now 29th
The AOP Student Awards were established in the early 1980s, to recognise and highlight emerging photographic talent which existed in further education institutions across the UK. Many of the AOP Student Awards winners go on to become discovery winners as assisting photographers and then as professional photographers for our AOP Photography Awards, as we pride ourselves on nurturing talented photographers throughout their career.
Details and Terms
Entry to the AOP Student Awards 2024 is open to all students (including those from overseas) studying photography in the UK at FE level or higher.
Best in Show plus Gold and Silver winners, along with selected finalists, will have the chance to be showcased and appear in the official 39th AOP Photography Awards Book which is published in time for AOP Awards Showcase in late September 2024.
Entries are welcomed as: Stills, A single image, or series of up to 4 images can be entered, created by a person. Moving image
Entry Procedure, Technical Specification and Format – Stills
Stills Images or Series submitted online should be:
RGB and in JPEG format.
3500 pixels along the longest edge.
With a resolution of 300 dpi.
Your final file size must not exceed 10 megabytes.
Please make sure you read the Terms and Conditions in full to ensure your entry is within the competition guidelines and can be accepted. Finalists’ entries will be displayed indefinitely on the AOP Awards website. No copyright is transferred to the AOP in respect of any works entered or accepted.
This submission was the most time consuming that I had done.
There were specific parts of the Parts of T&Cs that I was alert to:
1.3 Any membership subscription fees (if payable, i.e., you are not on a free membership) must be fully up to date. If your membership is terminated or resigned prior to the presentation of the AOP Student Awards 2024 the Entrant will be disqualified and any successful entry/ies removed. I had to update my student membership which had lapsed and this gave me a discounted entry.
7.3 Entrants may caption or title images, however, please note that they will be re- named within the AOP entry system, for unique and anonymous identification purposes.
7.4 Filenames must only contain letters (upper or lower case, and/or numbers (0 to 9), and/or underscore character “_” plus the suffix “.jpg”. Any other characters including further dots, hyphens or spaces could result in your file being rejected during the upload process.
7.5 Images submitted online should be: • RGB and in JPEG format. • Optimised for sRGB colour space (see 7.6, below). • 3500 pixels along the longest edge. • Your final file size must not exceed 10 megabytes.
7.6 You are responsible for preparing your images for viewing on a monitor, so we suggest that images are targeted/optimized for, and tagged with, the sRGB or sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colour profile (and not Adobe RGB or any other working- or output-space profile).
7.7 All images must contain metadata embedded in the image, and include your name, caption and description of the image. Any image without metadata with be returned to you to complete in a timely manner. An image may be disqualified if metadata is not completed.
——-
MY SUBMISSION
I entered 4 images as places:
Project title: What Lies Beneath
Project description: 2000 words
My preparation: Keep it simple and factual. Clear and thoughtful. most essential information. The statement should support the image in the best way possible.
1. What is the work? ground the viewer in what those images are and their context.
2. How did I make it? who you are and what drew you to that project, what was the thing that first got you excited about that project, point of attraction, point of curiosity, point of excitement, subject matter, and that form of expression.
3. Why did I make it? Tell us a little bit about your process.
4.Why did you choose to represent these images as you did.
I researched the places judge and concluded that I should angle my statements towards diversity and inclusion – perfect for my work.
Judge for Places: Sachini Imbuldeniya, CEO House of Oddities. ‘difference makes a difference’, she has dedicated her career to making the creative industry a more equitable and inclusive space both in front of and behind the camera.
My AOP Student Awards Submission
What Lies Beneath – Image 1: community 2: Harmony 3: cooperation 4: reciprocity
About the work up to 2000 characters:
What Lies Beneath
The images are taken from my body of work ‘What Lies Beneath’, a series of images taken in an ancient woodland. Here I use the landscape as a medium to express my observations and reflections on community. The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head into something concrete, positioning the ancient woodland as a visual metaphor and model for community. It is work is a personal response to a dynamic landscape, both internally and externally.
My experience of my local community provokes the project’s concept, and though humans provoke the concept of the work, they are not evident in the images. The local neighbourhood, often disharmonious and driven by difference, is a stark contrast with the harmonious and accepting characteristics of the woodland society, which I hold up as a model for diversity and inclusion. As an ‘incomer’ living alongside and accepted by most for many years, I find in common with other incomers that we are never adopted as locals, no matter how long passes or our contribution to the community. This story is common to settings across the world.
Inherent qualities like cooperation, support, diversity, resilience, inclusion, networking, mutual exchange, and adaptation, could be beneficially adopted in many human communities, and in my body of work I include closer images of woodland components to represent and signpost these characteristics.
Combining the world in my head with the one in front of me, through an internal and external passage through the landscape, has helped to heal some of the wounds that inspired the story’s beginning.
What lies beneath the emerald wrapping, embracing their collective realm?
What lies elsewhere beneath man’s disguised demeanour, civil but deliberately divisive?
Niki South (279 words 1938 characters with spaces)
Images with Titles and up to 100 characters
1. Community. This is the second in a series of images for my body of Work ‘What Lies Beneath’. The series expresses my thoughts on community, using the landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist, are inclusive and support each other. My experience of local community provokes the concept of the work, as its characteristics are in stark contrast to the woodland, often disharmonious, discriminating and driven by difference. This image is an entry portal to a diverse community.
What lies here beneath the willing emerald wrapping, accepting their collective realm?
What lies elsewhere beneath man’s disguised demeanour, civil but deliberately divisive?
2. Harmony. This is the first in a series of images for my body of Work ‘What Lies Beneath’. The series expresses my thoughts on community, using the landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist, are inclusive and support each other. My experience of local community provokes the concept of the work, as its characteristics are in stark contrast to the woodland, often disharmonious, discriminating and driven by difference. This image initially appears chaotic, however on closer sight the community is harmonious and supportive.
What lies here beneath the luminescent selfless sheaths, accepting mutual benefit?
What lies elsewhere beneath community spirit, concealed but festering?
3. Cooperation. This is the fourth in a series of images for my body of Work ‘What Lies Beneath’. The series expresses my thoughts on community, using the landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist, are inclusive and support each other. My experience of local community provokes the concept of the work, as its characteristics are in stark contrast to the woodland, often disharmonious, discriminating and driven by difference. This image showcases cooperation in a complex and diverse community.
What lies here beneath the verdant creeping coverlet, collectively enjoying comfort?
What lies elsewhere beneath deceitful welcomes, smiling but spreading spite?
4. Reciprocity. This is the last in a series of images for my body of Work ‘What Lies Beneath’. The series expresses my thoughts on community, using the landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist, are inclusive and support each other. My experience of local community provokes the concept of the image, where its characteristics are in stark contrast to the woodland, often disharmonious, discriminating and driven by difference. This image demonstrates the inclusive reciprocity that is possible in a community.
What lies here beneath the abundant enveloping eiderdown, slumbering peacefully together?
What lies elsewhere beneath acceptable appearances, charming but prejudiced?
The technical requirement led to some learning, particularly about metadata.
The submission requirements for the word elements were revealed only at each part of the online submission. For instance, having written my 2000 character statement I hadn’t known that I would then be required to give a 1000 character statement for each image – this entailed some redrafting of earlier statements.
It was interesting angling the submission towards the ‘places judge’ – a good test.
Though it was time consuming I enjoyed the challenge of this submission.
Selected to participate in the exhibition 3rd-30th October physical and online exhibition
This was my first competition/physical exhibition success. I’d submitted the maximum of 8 images and had one chosen. The call was for emerging and established photographers, UK and international.
Unlike other submissions they asked for little information on the work simply: Niki South, British, living in Wales. The work is from my series ‘What lies Within’ found on my website: https://nikisouth.myportfolio.com .
From this I gather the image chosen was strength of the image.
A screenshot from the physical gallery (my image top right)
A screenshot from the online gallery (my image top left)
I was not able to get to the exhibition and they don’t post all exhibited photographs on their website, but I did receive a certificate of my participation in the exhibition.
SUBMISSION PROCESS
The Glasgow Gallery of Photography’s Green exhibition. Deadline: 24th May 2024
SUBMISSION INFORMATION: The Glasgow Gallery of Photography is running a month long exhibition in October called Green, the first part of their secondary colour series, in which they ask photographers to submit images that focus on one of the secondary colours. For this exhibition the focus will be on the colour Green. They want to see images that really showcase the colour green in your photography, whether that is in nature or an urban setting, in a portrait or still life, any style/genre of photography is welcome as long as it fits the theme of Green.
Green is an open call for photographers to submit up to 8 images for an exhibition with the theme of the colour Green.
Photographers who are selected will have their work displayed in a month long exhibition in the gallery, with their work also appearing online in an online gallery on the website.
All participants that are selected to take part in the exhibition will receive a digital certificate of participation and will also be put forward for a chance to be named Photographer of the Month.
We want to see work from both emerging and established photographers. You do not need to be a professional photographer to participate they believe that photography is for everyone.
Both Scottish and International photographers are welcome.
How to participate: Submission are FREE. If your work is selected there will be a participation fee of £48.00. This fee covers the cost of everything, printing, installation and un-installing the work the gallery space. * the frames used belong to the gallery*. Unless otherwise stated images will either be printed 18″x12, 16″x12″, or 12″x12″ in size depending on the image.
Submission rules:
1. Choose up to 8 images that are 300ppi and 3000 Pixels minimum on the shortest side.
Work will be displayed various sizes depending on the image selected. (You will be asked to resubmit if you do not follow these guidelines)
2. Name your image files with your name e,g Firstname-Surname1, Firstname-Surname2, etc. If you do not name your files correctly, it could result in your files getting lost or misplaced. Please only use your name, do not include image titles or any other information, this can be added elsewhere in you submission.
3. Make sure your images are JPEG files. We can only accept jpegs as this is what the printing company that we use requires.
4. Send your 1 – 8 files using either Wetransfer or Dropbox (which are free to use) to our submission email address submissions@glasgowgalleryofphotography.com. Please do not send image via email as this tends to compress your files. Also please send all your images at the same time, and not one image at a time.
5. Please remember to tell us your name, nationality and/or where you reside (these will be displayed along with your selected images) which exhibition you are submitting to e.g Green.
If you are selected to participate or on the reserve list, you will be notified by email. Those not selected will not be notified. If you have been selected and you wish to participate, this is when you can supply us with addition information such as titles of works, or the series it comes from, website links and social media handles. This information will be added to the online gallery for this exhibition.
Thank you for your submission to the Green Exhibition (3rd – 30th October 2024).
I am pleased to confirm that you have been selected to participate in this exhibition.
We now ask that you pay the participation fee of £48, so that your work will be part of this exhibition. Your work will not be printed for exhibition until the participation fee is paid.
I have attached a screenshot of the work selected to be part of the exhibition, please do not share which image has been selected before the exhibition starts.
Fees need to be paid by 5pm (UK Time) 12th June 2024. If the fee is not paid by this date your work will not be part of this exhibition and the opportunity will be given to someone on the reserve list.
If you no longer wish to participate in the exhibition please let us know at the earliest opportunity so that we can offer the space to someone else.
If you would like us to share your social media link or website please let us know before the start of the exhibition.
For more information about taking part, selling (including a pricing guideline) or collecting your work please read our website’s Information for Participants page here: https://www.glasgowgalleryofphotography.com/q-a
If you wish to do any of the above please let us know at least one week before the start of the exhibition.
Also please make sure that you are signed up to our mailing list on our website as this will be the best way to keep up to date with what is happening at the gallery.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
I obviously duly paid my participation fee and sent them further details they requested see below and their reply:
On Sat, 8 Jun 2024 at 16:30, Nicola South <niki.south@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hello Elaine
Thank you for letting me know that I have an image in the exhibition. I have made the £48 payment via the link that you sent, my card holder name for the payment is Nicola South, see email conformation of payment attached.
Details you have requested:
• The image is titled: What Lies Beneath: Community. At the time of originally submitting to you I named it ‘What Lies Within’. If the change of name to ‘What lies Beneath’ is a problem, then do stick with the name that I labelled the work with at the time of submission.
• The title of the series that the image that has been chosen comes from is: ‘What Lies Beneath’,
At the end of the exhibition, I would like my print to be available for sale and promotion for 3 months, however I am happy to donate my print to the gallery to sell and use the proceeds towards the running of the gallery. I trust that works as an option, if not please let me know.
Many thanks
Niki South
9.6.24
Hi,
That’s great, thanks for letting me know. I have made a note of all your details and the title change is fine. If you have any other questions please let me know.
All the best,
Elaine Springall
Exhibition Coordinator
I will post the good news on Instagram soon and wait to see the online exhibition in October.
It was good to be part of a collaborative entry with:
A permanent platform for the work, stays after the degree shows
Targeted industry exposure: established professional readership (editors, curators & publishers)
My Learning:
Again to adapt to different technical requirements, no trailing statements and special characters were new to me. I again adapted my statement and info to fit a different word count and to take into account their criteria, especially researching the background of the landscape judge.
I captured my images and the OCA the online presence below:
DETAILS: SOURCE GRADUATE ONLINE GROUP SUBMISSION: DEADLINE 12.5.24
Excellent Value: Only £33 per student for UK based courses / €38 per student for courses based in Republic of Ireland. Includes a free 1-year digital subscription to Source (worth £26.99) with access to our extensive back issue archive and our monthly e-bulletin which will ensure you stay informed with all the latest news and opportunities from the photography sector.
Miriam one of my OCA peers offered to coordinate our group submission and sent us the details below:
Sun, 28 Apr, 17:03
Hi all
The time has come to submit our images to Source. This is the website, but I’ve pasted the format for submission below. I’ve made a folder to collect your submissions. Please make your own folder within this and let me know if you’ve uploaded or are having any problems.
Source have also asked if we’d like to send them any pictures of Install-in-progress or promotional material. That’s a separate ask, so you can email direct to the email provided.
Miriam
Here’s what you need to know: BA Submission Deadline: 12th May 2024
Submission format
1. (Required) Eight images saved as jpegs, 72 DPI and 1024 pixels along their longest edge. All jpegs should be saved in sRGB colour profile. We cannot accept moving image files. Note: the Student may submit less than eight images if they wish. If the Student’s work is made to be shown in a gallery we would recommend that one of the eight images be an installation shot. This is to show the scale of the work and how it is presented.
2. (Required) A 120 word statement about their work.
3. (Required) Each student must specify which one of the following six categories best describes the work they are submitting – only one category may be selected per student:
• Documentary/Photojournalism
• Commercial/Fashion
• Landscape
• Portraiture
• Staged/Constructed
• Urban/Suburban Landscape
4. (Required) Personal email address. This email address needs to remain valid after the Student has graduated.
5. (Optional) Personal website address.
6.(Required) Payment of £33 per student for UK based courses / €38 per student for courses based in Republic of Ireland. Note: the Lead Student will gather all the individual payments and then make a one-off payment to Source on behalf of their class. (MC: I’ll let you know how to send the money).
Share your Install-In-Progress images and/or Promotional Poster Image
Each year, we offer additional help for students promoting final year work, using our social media platforms to promote your class’s degree show (physical or digital). In previous years, we have posted images of installations in progress and exhibition posters (see attached examples). You are very welcome to email 3 – 4 install photos and/or a poster image to my colleague Susanna Galbraith at research@source.ie. Please ensure:
1) To include the name of your course
2) To include details of the location and the dates of your show (if there are two shows, please include the two addresses)
3) To include an appropriate credit for any photographic work shown in the image(s)
4) To include the relevant Instagram handle for your course/university/college, as appropriate
5) The images attached are square (ideally 1080 x 1080 pixels)
(They share these images from May to July, so that’s the time frame. I’ve asked if it’s 3-4 per person or in total and will let you know.)
Their technical requirements for images were again different:
1. Image filenames should not contain any spaces, apostrophes, quotation marks, or any other unusual characters. I’ve asked about the actual names and will let you know and also underscores.
2. Saved as jpegs. All jpegs should be saved in sRGB colour profile. 3 Scaled so that they are 1024 pixels on their longest edge. (A jpeg scaled in this way will never exceed the 2 Mb file size limit.)
Text
The system clearly can’t cope with any formatting so….
1. Each student’s introductory text should be formatted as a single block of text with no carriage returns. 2. Web addresses and email addresses MUST NOT include any trailing spaces! If they have they’re not read as links. 3. If in doubt, the safest way to deal with problematic special characters is to substitute them with safe alternatives. Replace curly quotation marks with straight quotation marks, replace ’em dashes’ with short dashes or hyphens, replace ellipses with three periods and replace ampersands with the word ‘and’.
I PREPARED THE FOLLOWING FOR OUR SHARED FOLDER and was able to take into account the suggestions given by the lens Culture Reviewer:
‘What Lies Beneath’ uses the landscape of an ancient woodland to express my thoughts on community, creating a visual model where things coexist and support each other. Footnote images signpost its inherent qualities like, diversity and cooperation.
Humans and my experience of community provoke the project’s concept, where locals are often disharmonious and driven by difference. Sadly, incomers are never accepted as local, no matter how long passes or what they contribute to their neighbourhood – a story common to settings across the globe. The work has helped to heal some of the wounds that inspired the story’s beginning.
What lies beneath the emerald wrapping, embracing their collective realm?
What lies elsewhere beneath man’s disguised demeanour, civil but deliberately divisive?
Niki South
I submitted the same 8 images as for Lens culture
3.6.24
Hi,
I’m the web editor at Source Magazine. You recently submitted your work to our ‘Graduate Photography Online 2024’ project. I’m delighted to inform you that the project is now live on our website and can be viewed at:
2. Lens culture Critics choice 2024: Global Call —Deadline: April 17, 2024
Before I entered this I emailed my OCA peers and asked:
Hi all
For those of you who know it, I’m trying to work out if it’s worth entering – of course no expectation of being picked, especially as the work picked previously looks of a type very different to my own.
But is it worth it for the exposure? or ticking a box – doesn’t cost a lot but they all add up! Any thoughts – I’m trying to be picky about paid comps, though they all seem to be that way.
Supplementary question, has anyone had one of their reviews? only an extra £20 but I had one recently after a photo comp that was pointless!
Any pointers gratefully received.
Thanks
Niki
So I decided to submit and request a review
Details: 1 single image free, or series of up to 10, judged as a series, which should work as a group, thematically or aesthetically. $45- 30% = $31.5- £25.30 $49 us total after discount. Optional, Receive a written review of your work for an additional $25. This is a unique opportunity to receive valuable and specific feedback on your work from one of our experienced industry professionals. Submission Reviews are done anonymously and will be completed by June, 2024 on a first-come, first-served basis.
It is a rare opportunity to have your work seen by 20 of the photography world’s leading experts. The work will be immediately reviewed by their editors. Selected submissions will be featured in their Competition Gallery and published across all their online channels, reaching an international audience of 3 million. (For example, more than 511 early entries were selected and featured during the 2023 Critics’ Choice Awards, and more than 200 of those were promoted via Lens Culture’s Instagram and Facebook platforms, garnering more than 400,000 likes and comments.) Enter your work early to take advantage of this incredible opportunity for global exposure!
Upload jpegs or pngs that are a minimum of 1200 pixels on the longest side (but up to 2000 pixels is fine) and no more than 10 MB.
This time I was working with a character limit of 2000 for my statement and bio, so adjusted to fit, but crucially I adjusted it to fit the criteria of the competition and that of the judge who was relevant to my category, ‘Places’. I also gave additional information to my reviewer, see below.
MY SUBMISSION:
WHAT LIES BENEATH
Statement Lens culture
What Lies Within, is a series of images taken in an ancient woodland. A conceptual project, it uses the landscape as a medium to express my thoughts on community. The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head, into something concrete, positioning the ancient woodland as a visual metaphor for community.
Though humans provoked the concept of the work, they are not evident in the images. The local community, often disharmonious and driven by difference, is in stark contrast with the harmonious characteristics of the woodland society. Footnote images signpost inherent qualities like cooperation, support, diversity, resilience, inclusion, networking, mutual exchange, and adaptation, which could be beneficially adopted in many human communities.
Known and accepted for some years, like other incomers in my neighbourhood, we are never adopted as local, no matter how long passes or the contribution to the community – a story common to settings across the globe.
Combining the world in my head with the one in front of me, through an internal and external passage through the landscape, has helped to heal some of the wounds that inspired the story’s beginning.
ARTIST BIO
Niki South was born and grew up in England. From 1995 she began holidaying in Wales; this culminated in buying a second home there in 2009 and transitioning to a ‘dual centre’ life between the two places. In 2019 she relocated to Wales permanently.
Currently completing her BA (Hons) Photography degree with the Open University, she has a particular interest in community. Her previous documentary work ‘Layers of Truth’ was informed by her ‘insider/outsider’ position where she highlighted issues arising during Covid 19 from ‘incomers’ trying to integrate into a small traditional community.
1. What is the single most important question/concern you have about your project that you wish to have answered here in this review?
Do the footnotes combined with the artist statement adequately signpost the story behind the series? Can a viewer understand the concept of the woods as a visual metaphor?
2. What do you hope to accomplish with your photography in the next few years?
To finish my degree, now 95% complete, to be able to move on and follow my inclination for combining narratives from my subconscious with images from the conscious world. I would like to publish other visual stories.
3. Is this an ongoing or completed project?
It will be completed soon when I publish a book with the images and accompanying poetry that I have written, that completes the signposting for the narrative.
4. Do you consider yourself a… photographer?
advanced
5. What genres of photography do you work in (mark all that apply)
fine art, documentary, imaginative storytelling
Hi Niki,
You can view your completed Submission Review here»
Thank you for trying out our Submission Review service. We hope it helps you refine your future competition entries! And we’d love to hear what you think. Please email us with any comments or suggestions. Thanks again!
Cheers-
The LensCulture Team
Reviewer Portfolio Feedback 26.4.24
Hi Niki-
It isn’t happenstance that you are using a forest as a metaphor for community. Fungi, aspen groves and many tree species are known to have elaborate networks of communication that bind them together. Not to mention all the other small organisms that make up the ecosystem that sustains the life of what we are seeing in your photographs. You pull any single member of the community out, and the whole forest suffers. Despite that the knowledge is out there for humans to make sense of it all, we continue to make the same, irreversible mistakes, over and over. And this project brings these questions, and more, to my mind.
In response to your request for feedback, I am still a little confused by the overarching idea that you are going for. If what I have said above rings with you, I think it would be helpful to state it somewhat directly and concisely. For example, instead of saying “The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head, into something concrete,” and defining your work as a “conceptual project,” I would simply say “”What Lies Within” uses the forest landscape of [name the forest] as a metaphor for human communities and civilization.” Or something like that.
That being said, I still want to understand how you see human communities as stark contrasts to this forest communities, but are using the forests as a metaphor for the human communities. Perhaps they are not a “metaphor” but a “model?” In other words, are you suggesting that these woodland spaces are a model for what it means to be a part of a community and to live in an ecosystem where all things must coexist and support each other’s life processes? Again, I am very interested in the ideas. I just think it’s a question of being clear and concise: especially when submitting to a contest like this where jurors have so little time to spend with each submission/statement.
I also don’t know if you need to include the words with their definitions beneath the photographs. I think you can say everything in the statement and then rely on the viewer’s intellect to realize that what they are seeing are prime examples of what those words represent. Perhaps you can include those exact words in your statement and then give an example of how that plays out in the woodland environments. But my sense is that this project could exist as two separate entities: image and text.
Otherwise, I haven’t talked about the images themselves. And I personally find myself getting lost in the beautiful, dense, and elaborate spaces you are creating/seeing. The compositions are complex, often surprising, and always seductive. These are hard landscapes to render, and it feels like you have an eye for figuring them out.
It’s a pleasure to discover this series, Niki. Wishing you the best of luck.
I responded:
From Niki South <niki.south@hotmail.com>
To feedback@lensculture.com
Subject: And as a reminder: this form is to provide feedback for the reviewer on your review. They receive the note, but will not be able to reply to additional questions on your submission.
Body: Thanks for the review. It comes at the beginning of my journey to ‘put my work out there’ , so is very timely.
I understand your message to be more explicit and concise when conveying my ideas to viewers/reviewers and thank you for the practical ideas that you have given that I can consider in a reformatting of the project. It was a very thoughtful, useful review.
Thank you!
Niki
My learning
The review was extremely useful, especially as I had woven parts of my draft PDF into (I used it as additional feedback for A1), it and it gave me some points to consider and edit for that and further reviews.
I heard much later (14.6.24) that my work had not been selected by the judges, but it had been another useful learning curve for me to submit with new criteria and purpose.
TREES ONLINE EXHIBITION COMPETITION: A.Smith Gallery- Deadline: March 18, 2024
This was my first competition entry. I chose this competition because of the subject matter, though I was hesitant as there was no request for information about the work and images submitted were treated as single images, rather than a series.
The call was for photographers of all levels to submit work reflecting the theme “trees” to A Smith Gallery by March 18, 2024. Exhibition Dates | April 12 to May 23, 2024: https://asmithgallery.com/exhibitions/trees-5/ – Online Gallery and a reception. The entry fee for 5 images was $40 and I paid $20 as well to have a 30 minute post competition review with the gallery directors.
The Juror for “trees” was Wendi Schneider, Denver based photographer, and artist, widely known for her luminous gold leafed influenced by a background in painting and art history, Schneider layers oils on her photographs to manipulate the boundaries between the real and the imagined. I realised the importance of researching the jurors after the competition was judged, as all images chosen were akin to her artistic style.
Dear Niki
Thank you for entering A Smith Gallery’s “trees” exhibition. Unfortunately, your work was not selected by the juror Wendi Schneider for the exhibition. Wendi had to make some very difficult decisions in her jury process of the images submitted. The quality of the 1,365 submitted images was outstanding. Regrettably, many excellent images were not included in the final 55 that were selected. To view the selected images, please see: https://asmithgallery.com/exhibitions/trees-5/
It has been a pleasure seeing your images and I hope that you will enter future calls.
Though I was not chosen for the exhibition it was good that I entered and went through the process for the first time. I had to conform with the submission guidelines: Digital images should be up to 1800 pixels on the longest side saved in JPEG format at 72 ppi. Each image should be labelled with consecutive numbers followed by your name, i.e. 1FirstName_LastName.jpg. The number should correspond with the number on the application form. This I navigated successfully.
I selected 5 images for submission that could stand alone, and then for the review they asked for a further 5 images.
My notes from the verbal review of my work:
Images submitted all strong, quality excellent
They awaken your senses
They asked for my questions:
I asked how to submit when you are working from a body of Work and yet only single images are asked for with no opportunity for context. They suggested look carefully at the jurors, as jurors often selects work of her own type, but this is not always the case. Sometimes jurors will select work different to their own as a change.
I asked if Jurors see titles. They said in their case no, they number them, but that where are used titles work well. I think if I was submitting with no context in future I would add a signposting title.
I asked what genre they see my work as. They said, fine art, though they said that increasingly fine art photography is defined by post production changes…
They suggested to look to enter competitions which call for Bodies of work, or at least those that ask for artist statements as my story is strong and important.
They also advised that I shouldn’t be put off putting my work out there for the same reason. I discussed my concern that because of the sensitive nature of my work, I don’t want to share my work locally, so maybe I should share away from here in some way.
I asked for advice on how to gain feedback and of course they said by portfolio reviews. They suggested I might try:
The Los ángeles Centre for Photography
The Carmel Center for Photographic Art – Anne Jastrab
The Griffin Museum
Photo fest
Atlanta photography group.
My concern remains how to do this with minimal financial investment as I am not aiming to take the work forwards after SYP.
I asked about how to contact other photographers who submitted for feedback/support. They advised that some have websites, or to google, or to use Instagram. They will add the contact details/websites to the winning gallery images, so I will contact one or two of those whose work I like, as a way of networking. Those I thought would be of interest were David Lang, Leslie Giem and Ann Milne. However, having researched their work it isn’t relevant to my project, concept or style. I
Reviewing the artists chosen I made a note of:
Ann Milne / Oasis in the Redwood Forest, Rotorua, New Zealand / annwebbphotography.com, though After research she is a ‘straightforward’ landscape photographer from New Zealand, her competition image is unlike any of her other work.
David Lang / Spreading Wings / the 27 / davidglangphotography.com, Some tree images – all I phone work
Leslie Gleim / New Life, Ohia Tree / lesliegleim.com- Beautiful work but not relevant to my work
Although thought the gallery owners reviewing was weak, I did gain some insights into how to choose what to submit to and how. It was also a good practice run for me and I lerant to have pertinent questions ready.
I will watch out for the Gallery Talk with the gallery directors discussing all 55 images. The Gallery Talk will be posted in the blog section of the website. The online exhibition as well as the GalleryTalk will be permanently archived after the end of the exhibition: trees (2024) At: https://asmithgallery.com/exhibitions/trees-5/ (Accessed 10/04/2024).
NIKI SOUTH 