I met this Jamaican family 13 years ago..  i was walking to a church to do some photo work when i walked by this family, a pregant mom holding a baby, two little ones running around , and three girls at a fence calling me to come over... .. they all invited me in..  it was the first time i was so up close and personal to extreme poverty.  there was a hole in the floor , one could see right through to the dirt and trash underneath.  a family of 7 shared one bed..... one marble notebook was shared by three for school   ..  unprovoked  i helped to provide some food and atibiotics for a skck child and a piece of slab missing for ther roof where the rain poured in. i  took a number to call them from the states so i could send supplies,   i called and looked for them many times over the years and and never could find them or get a response to the call.... but i always thought of them. they felt like family

After 12 years i gave up.  Then unexpectantly  i went back to Jamaica in 2022 and lo and behold through a photo and a few people was given the route back to find her. it's a long story of tears and disbelief... a miracle of sorts...  the girls had grown... i have since helped with school  and a cook shop for them to work and earn money and take pride..i speak to them all every week,  this family has become woven into the fabric of my life and me into  theirs.. The kids, even the older ones call me Aunty Nina. We are bonded forever, and  family, even if we are not of the same blood

i am keenly aware that when i walk in a community and capture images, that i am given a great opportunity to come close and do my work with respect....... so when i have that photo in an exhbiton i feel i am giving them their moment.. a second life.. to be seen and to share what it is that transpired in that sacred moment..

so a Bigf thank you to Rise With Art...and Faces of Humanity International Exhibition, for selecting and including one of my pieces out of the hundreds of submissions.. to be shown at:

“Makery on Los Angles Street” at 260 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The opening reception will be held on July 8th, 2022, and the show will be installed until August 5th, 2022

CAREGIVING

AGING WELL FOR ALL
The NCOA Gallery is pleased to present the new photography series Caregiving—Aging Well for All. The National Council on Aging invited photographers and visual artists to share their stories of older adults in community and caregivers who have been caring for their aging loved one. We provide a platform for artistic expression in order to foster a dialogue and drive innovation in the photographic arts to encourage everyone to care for those who once cared for us, as we believe caregiving for older adults is one of the highest honors.
“ating with older adults. Caregiving requires understanding, focus and intentional support. Caring is momentous. 

"this image is when my mother was quite ill and had been in bed for a long while....

she no longer was speaking very much, but she would lay quietly and rest or stare...sometimes smile , ..and try to communicate in very simplified ways...

i was sitting on the bed with her when my mother lifted her hand up perpendicular ... when another family member then reached out to intercept it... ...

it was this immediate feeling of unity....deep connection..that hit you in the chest.... literally that touch..... I am here.... I see you .. ..I feel you... even though there were no words... ..We got you . ...Your'e safe..... You have Our power and energy with you....”

the greatest gift of all.. LOVE

my mother passed later on that year..... she lives on inside me..her vivacious spirit.. and charm.. love of friends, family, soaking up life... what i miss is the sounds of her fingers on the piano, when she was well..... she was an accomplished classical pianist..

Aline Smithson
Juror’s Statement
Creative Portraiture
2021
 
As the summer dwindles down to its final glory, I spent the last of my vacation, sitting by a lake and looking at hundreds and hundreds of images from one of my favorite genres in photography: Creative Portraiture. I have just spent the last week immersed in your photographs, revisiting and reconsidering each image. It was an exciting and daunting process, and, in the end, I selected far more images than LACP could hang on the walls. So, thank you for submitting so much excellent work and making my decisions so difficult! It was inspiring to see the range of approaches and the array of imaginative imagery. Please know that this was not a cursory examination, but a long hard look at your work. Thank you to all who submitted such varied and spectacular approaches to considering each other.
 
With the ubiquitous-ness of photography today, creative approaches to all genres of photography shift the norm and reinvigorate the medium, as evidenced by all the submissions to this exhibition. The photographs selected for the exhibition are like small novellas, captured somewhere between the beginning, middle, or ending of a personal narrative or way of seeing. Creative Portraiture is different than traditional portraiture—it allows the photographer to intervene with the experience, adding an imaginative reconsideration of the person in front of the camera.
 
It is not an easy task to juror an exhibition, especially one where metaphor, intention, and the essence of a human being needs to be conveyed in a single image. With all exhibitions, there are many wall-worthy submissions that come steps away from the finish line, only to be rejected due to constraints of space. As a juror, I look for unique approaches to a theme, photographs that are not literal or obvious interpretations, and are well executed and well considered photographs. I think about the quality of the photograph itself, the quality of expression, and look for deeper meaning, levity, or creativity. Finally, I am not only selecting single images, but also curating a group of photographs into an exhibition that needs feel fresh and have a strong point of view.
 
Thank you to the Los Angeles Center of Photography for this wonderful opportunity. Congratulations to all the artists included in Creative Portraiture.

We hope you will all join us for the opening reception at LACP on Monday, October 25, 7-10 pm PST, 2021. Aline Smithson will be present and will award prizes that night.

Check it out here!

https://lacphoto.org/lacps-seventh-annual-members-exhibition-virtual-gallery/

We are pleased to announce LACP’s Seventh Annual Members’ Exhibition. This will be a virtual online exhibition and will run from August 26 – October 26, 2021. A virtual opening night reception is scheduled for Thursday, August 26, 5 pm PST. The juror, LeRonn Brooks, selected images based on creativity, originality, and quality.

Our virtual opening night reception is a public event and all artists chosen for the virtual exhibition will be invited. RSVP for the opening reception HERE

The Juror

Dr. LeRonn P. Brooks (https://www.instagram.com/lpbrooks/) is the Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Founded in 1985, the GRI is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the visual arts and their various histories through active collecting and public programs, institutional collaborations, exhibitions, publications, digital services, and residential scholars programs. Dr. Brooks is a specialist in African American art, poetics, performance, and Africana Studies. His interviews, essays on African American art, and poetry have appeared in publications for Bomb Magazine, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Spelman Museum of Art, Callaloo Journal, The International Review of African American Art as well as The Aperture Foundation, among others. As the lead curator for the Getty’s new African American Art History Initiative, Dr. Brooks is charged with building and developing collections to promote advanced research in the study of African American art history.

The results are in. Arnika Dawkins has selected the Griffin’s 27th Juried Exhibition.

The exhibitors are Karen Bell, Diane Bennett, Barry Berman, Meg Birnbaum, Joan Lobis Brown, Angela Brown, Diana Cheren Nygren, Tash Damjanovic, Steven Edson, Carol Eisenberg, Pippi Ellison, Jo Fields, Danielle Goldstein, Carol Isaak, Jane Ivory, Jeremy Janus, Leslie Jean-Bart, Robert Johnson, Marcy Juran, Robbie Kaye, Michael King, Caroline Knorr, Teresa Kruszewski, Nadine Levin, Mark Levinson, Calli McCaw, Ralph Mercer, Olga Merrill, Janet Milhomme, Lisa Mossel Vietze, Lake Newton, Xuan-Hui Ng, Charlotte Niel, Dale Niles, Dorothy O’Connor, Angela Ramsey, Astrid Reischwitz, Eleonora Ronconi, Rosalie Rosenthal, Ellen Royalty, Rebecca Sexton Larson, Skip Smith, Leland Smith, Larry Smukler, Vicky Stromee, Neelakantan Sunder, Joshua Tann, Tokie Taylor, JP Terlizzi, Donna Tramontozzi, Julia Vandenoever, Nina Weinberg Doran, Sandra Chen Weinstein, Joyce Wilson, Torrance York and Dianne Yudelson.

July 15 – August 29, 2021
Reception July 15, 2021 @ 7 PM Virtual unless our Governor changes state regulations on gathering

Our juror selected 45 images for the gallery exhibition, from nearly 2000 entries submitted by photographers throughout the United States and abroad. 50 additional juror selections are on view on our website. A catalog of the gallery exhibition and online images will be available for purchase.

You may view the recorded virtual opening  via this Facebook live event to hear the juror, Susan Burnstine, director Ann Jastrab, and the 2021 MJE artists talk about the works in the show. The Exhibition images both in the gallery and online can be seen below along with the list of winner’s chosen by our Juror.

Juror:
Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published throughout the globe and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column entitled American Connection for Black & White Photography Magazine (UK). Burnstine regularly teaches workshops, is a frequent reviewer and has been invited to curate and act as juror many exhibitions for galleries and festivals across the country.

Juror’s statement
The Center of Photographic Arts maintains a special place within my heart, as it was the first organization to exhibit my work in a juried group show many years ago. Thank you to Ann Jastrab and The CPA for allowing my journey to come full circle by inviting me to jury the 2021 Members Exhibition. It was a great honor and privilege.

As an educator, I start my initial classes by asking students how they define what makes a great photograph. The beauty to that question is that there is no definitive answer. Yet there is one attribute I consider a constant, which is that a great photograph is a search for meaning. It starts by asking a question and then proceeds to ask more and more. Regardless of genre, a successful image communicates an authenticity that allows viewers to experience, consider and connect with personally. Consequently, that was the narrow measure used when selecting final images.

The selected images for the 2021 Members Exhibition represent a diverse snapshot of current approaches to image making: from the earliest of historical processes to the latest in digital technology. But what they unanimously realize is the ability to connect, surprise, contemplate and at times provide a much-needed laugh.

Selecting from approximately 2000 images is an immense responsibility that I do not take lightly since it was just fifteen years ago that I was one of the lucky few selected to exhibit at the CPA. With space for only 45 artists in the physical exhibition and 50 artists in the online exhibit, I deliberated over each and every image for days. In the end, I was deeply torn by not being able to include countless submissions I admired. I applaud every photographer who submitted and I thank each of you for your courage to share your vision. I congratulate the selected exhibitors and I thank each one of you for sharing your unique and inspired vision.
—Susan Burnstine

Exhibition Dates: April 10 – May 9, 2021
Exhibition catalog may be purchased in the gallery

https://www.sec4p.com/womens-view-online-exhibition

I have the pleasure to announce you that your work submitted to the 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards has been selected by the jurors Elizabeth Avedon, Rebecca Richardson, and Analy Werbin as juror and curator of the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, as worthy for exhibition in the non-professional section. We congratulate for you excelent work and your contribution to the appraisal of photography.

Following the rules of that competition, this letter is to confirm you our invitation and proposal to exhibit your selected work in the 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition to be held in the Gallery FotoNostrum in Barcelona on March 2020.

You have been awarded:

Honorable Mentions in Portraits.

Hello,

I am pleased to announce that you have been selected for the official program of Rotterdam Photo Festival, during Art Rotterdam Week from 6th till 9th of February 2020 at Deliplein, Rotterdam (NL

Congratulations! Your photograph noted in this email has been selected by our juror, Paula Tognarelli, for inclusion in the 2019 International Juried Exhibition. It will be displayed in the CPA gallery, on our website, and published in the 2019 IJE catalog. You can be very proud of this achievement considering there were over twenty-two hundred submissions from around the world and only 45 images were selected.

You and your guests are cordially invited to join us on Saturday, November 2, 2019, 4:00 - 5:00 pm for a curator led walk-through by Ms. Tognarelli in the CPA gallery, Sunset Center, Carmel, CA. An opening reception, catalog sales will immediately follow from 5:00 - 7:00 pm in the CPA Gallery.

Photographic Exploration Project, Berlin, Germany

It was wonderful to be accepted into the 2019 competion for the Photo Review

http://www.photoreview.org/wordpressindex/2019-winners/gallery/page/2

Thank you Stephen Perloff

Thank you Julie Grahame and Soho Photo Gallery for including me in the Soho Photo National Competition, 2019

I have always wanted to be a part of Soho Photo, but never participated because i always failed to submit..... this year i decided i would make sure to do it...... 

and what better an allure then Julie Grahame, as juror.. 

Opening Reception July 2, Soho Gallery, 6pm

In Your Mother Tongue: A Word and Image Dialogue
Various
June 26 – September 14, 2019

Reception Sept 14, 2019 4 -6 PM

Free Falling, was chosen to be included in the online exhibition of Dive in , for Don’t Take Pictures Magazine. I am honored

this is one of my favorite images of the year…..the sense of letting go… seeing where you land… feelling freedom and joy or fright or whatever comes.. but just letting go.

http://www.donttakepictures.com/gallery-dive-in

I was very proud to have participated on this film, taking many of the still images.

2018. 83 m. Paula Eiselt. Abramorama/Film Collaborative/Tamar Simon. US. English. Rated NR. 

“Brings an instinctive yet clear-eyed sympathy for these women’s remarkable story, joined with an ability to be candid about the difficulties that arose within the group and with the greater Hasidic community.” (Los Angeles Times)

“A rip-roaring ‘only in America’ success story.” (East Bay Express)

Set in Borough Park, Brooklyn, 93Queen follows a group of tenacious religious women—including the one-of-a-kind Rachel “Ruchie” Freier, a no-nonsense lawyer and mother of six—who shakes up the Hasidic “boys club” by creating Ezras Nashim, the first all-female ambulance corps in New York City. Part of what motivates them is that strict prohibitions on contact between the sexes prevent some ultra-Orthodox women from calling for medical help when it’s needed. Director Paula Eiselt’s unprecedented insider access creates a unique and inspiring portrait of a group of observant women who take matters into their own hands to change their community for the better from within. An entertaining, feel-good documentary about women taking care of women.

https://www.pbs.org/pov/93queen/