September 14, 2019 through November 05, 2019
Alternative Visions
Juror’s Award • Angel O’Brien • Never Fall in Love on a Monday
Alternative Visions
September 14 – November 5, 2019
An International Exhibit of Alternative Process Photography
Juror: Christina Z. Anderson
Please join us for the Opening Artists Reception on Saturday September 14, 5-8pm.,
as part of the 2019 LightBox Symposium for Alternative Process Photography
Congratulations to the Photographers selected for Alternative Visions
Michael Atha • Ray Bidegain • Per Bjesse • Diana Bloomfield
Julia Bradshaw • Greg Brophy • Ronald Butler • Kimberley Chiaris
Monika Danos • Leah Diament • John Dubois • Rory Earnshaw
Christopher Erin • Jim Fitzgerald • László Galos • Ryan Gillespie
Andrej Gregov • Sarah Grew • Patricia Holgate • Suzanne Izzo
Karen Johanson • Barbara Justice • Sally Kim-Miller • Douglas King
Travis Lovell • Jocelyn Mathewes • Marek Matusz • Julie Moore
Harini Krishnamurthy • Susie Morrill • Barbara Murray • Angel O’Brien
Walt O’Brien • Ralph Rinke • Philip Schwartz • Jennifer Gioffre Todd
D.E. Todd • Michael Puff • Melanie Walker • Ajuan Song • Tri Tran
Laura Alice Watt • Yelena Zhavoronkova • Rebecca Zeiss • Ryan Zoghlin
Juror’s Awards
Juror’s Award 1: Angel O’Brien • Never Fall in Love on a Monday
Juror’s Award 2: Ray Bidegain • Becoming Invisible
Juror’s Award 3: Michael Puff • Blue Nude
Honorable Mentions
Ralph Rinke • Fork in a Dish
Julie Moore • Her Choice
Ronald Butler • Walk Away
Suzanne Izzo • My Favorite Tree
Kimberly Chiaris • Genetic Memory
Marek Matusz • Tulips
Diana Bloomfield • Rose Hips
The Alternative Visions Exhibit is part of the 2019 LightBox Symposium for Alternative Process Photography , (click on link)
hosted by LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon on September 13, 14, 15, 2019.
We are honored to have Christina Z. Anderson, one of the nations’ finest photographic educators as juror for this Exhibit.
“The alternative process “movement” which began around the 1960s was largely a return to 19th century hand coated processes as an alternative to corporately controlled gelatin silver paper. Today there has been a conflation of gelatin silver, C-prints, 19th century processes, and printmaking into the alternative process genre. Even digital means of image capture are now a part of this practice with some processes such as image transfer or palladium over ink jet which use digital printing in part. The hallmark of the field is that the end result is a hands-on, handmade print.
The entries into Alternative Visions represent a large variety of such processes. Entries ranged from cyanotype to gum, platinum/palladium, silver gelatin, Van Dyke brown, carbon transfer, photogravure, wet plate, tintype, ambrotype, lith, casein, chemigram, lumenprint, and wet plate collodion. The handmade print, taken into so many directions, is obviously alive and well. I was impressed with the variety of technique and subject matter in the entries.
When judging I looked over each image again and again and again, knowing that sometimes an image may not grab my attention at first, but after multiple viewings it does. I have often found that these “quieter” images end up in some sort of prize category after multiple viewings!
The narrowing down phase after the initial selection is always the difficult part: why this image and not that? Which of these two? I could easily have included another thirty images for this show on top of the sixty selected.
Jurors bring their own biases to jurying. Now into my twentieth year of being a professor (I once estimated I grade 1500 photographs a semester) I look for excellent technique (hard to judge online, at times) as well as concept. I appreciate a good marriage of the two, a well-crafted print that has depth. Excellent craftmanship “sings”— a tonally rich platinum print, the deep blue of a cyanotype, the evocative color palette of a gum print, the moodiness of a wet plate, the detail of a carbon transfer, the texture of a gravure. Excellent concept is trickier to grasp when I am not able to dialogue with the photographer as I am with my day-to-day students, with whom I can discuss whether the photograph accurately expresses their intent. With online jurying, sometimes the concept is hinted at in the title. Other times I have to make educated guesses. I really appreciate images that show certain subject matter—nudes, flowers, landscapes, portraits, for instance—in new or evocative ways (e.g Michael Puff’s Vermeerlike Blue Nude of a male instead of female). I like images that make me feel. And I joke that I am always a sucker for lone trees.
_Out of all submissions I selected sixty images. My task was to choose a first, second, and third place image and honorable mentions. Of the sixty images chosen, I found twenty that fit in those categories. It was painful to narrow those final twenty to ten awards.
It was a pleasure to be a part of LightBox’s Alternative Visions show and I thank Michael and Chelsea Granger for the invitation to do so as well as all the artists who took the time to submit to this show.”
— Christina Z. Anderson
“In the 1960s a number of photographers rebelled against the corporate control of photography and returned to 19th century processes as “alternatives” to making photographs on manufactured black and white or color paper. The “alternative process photography” movement was born. All forms of hand coated processes were revived—Vandyke brown, platinum/palladium, salted paper, gum bichromate, carbon, wet plate collodion, tintype, cyanotype, and casein to name a few. The alternative process movement began as a very niche field within the greater realm of photography. Today, this niche has burgeoned, now as alternative to digital methods of image making. Photographers have re-embraced gelatin silver and chromogenic prints as part of this culture of the handmade print. Lines have blurred; there has been a conflation of gelatin silver, c-prints, 19th century processes, and even photographically derived printmaking such as photopolymer gravure. Many of these processes start with digital methods of image making, but all end with a handmade print.“
~ Christina Z. Anderson
_Christina Z. Anderson’s work focuses on the family snapshot, gender identity, the altered landscape, and the contemporary vanitas printed in a variety of 19th century photographic processes, primarily gum and casein bichromate, salted paper, cyanotype, platinum, and mordançage. Anderson’s work has shown internationally in 110+ shows and 40+ publications.
“Visit christinaZanderson.com.