TEXAS PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

TPS 27: The International Competition

Juror Kate Breakey has selected 50 prints by 43 photographers for TPS 27. A complete list of the exhibiting artists is below, with award winners noted in bold. A hearty congrats to all!

The show opened with a public reception on May 5, 2018, from 7-9:00pm at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas, Texas, where it remained on display through June 2, 2018, before traveling to Sabine Street Studios in Houston, Texas, from June 15 through September 9, 2018. TPS 27 will appear next at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene, Texas, from October 31 through December 29, 2018, and finally Options Gallery at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, during early 2019.

Read more about the accepted works here.

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Texas Photographic Society is thrilled to announce that TPS 27: The International Competition will be juried by Kate Breakey, renowned visual artist based in Arizona. This call is open-themed, and submissions from artists of all levels are encouraged. This call for entry is now closed.

Calendar of Events
01-08-18 Call for entry announced
02-26-18 Deadline for entry (midnight CST)
03-21-18 Exhibiting artists announced and emails sent to all entrants
04-29-18 Matted and framed prints due in Dallas, TX
05-05-18 Show opens at Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas, TX; reception 7-9:00pm
06-02-18 Show closes and travels to other venues

Awards
First Place = $500
Second Place = $300
Third Place = $200
Up to 5 Honorable Mentions may be awarded

Entry Fee
Entry fee is $30 for 5 images, plus $6 for each additional image. Photographers may enter up to 10 images. Please don't forget to include your membership fee, if also joining TPS at the time of entry.

Eligibility
TPS 27: The International Competition is open to artists of all levels internationally. All photographic based work is encouraged including digital, silver and alternative processes. You do not need to be a member of the Texas Photographic Society to enter this competition. However, you may join TPS and enter this show at the same time (read more about TPS member benefits). Works exhibited previously in a TPS show are not eligible, and all entries must be submitted digitally. Current members of the TPS Board of Directors are permitted to enter but are not eligible for awards.

Instructions for entry are outlined below, following the juror’s bio and statement.

About the Juror
Kate Breakey, Visual Artist, Tucson, Arizona

Kate Breakey is internationally known for her large-scale, richly hand-colored photographs including her acclaimed series of luminous portraits of birds and flowers called Small Deaths [University of Texas Press, 2001]. Since 1980 her work has appeared in more than 100 one-person exhibitions and in over 60 group exhibitions in the United States, France, Japan, Australia, China and New Zealand. Breakey's work is held in many public institutions including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the Austin Museum of Art, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra and the Osaka Museum in Japan. Her third book, Painted Light [University of Texas Press, 2010] is a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of prolific image-making.

A native of South Australia, Breakey moved to Austin, Texas, in 1988. She completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Texas in 1991, where she also taught photography in the Department of Art and Art History until 1997. In 1999, she moved to Tucson, Arizona. In 2004, she received the Photographer of the Year award from the Houston Center for Photography. She now regularly teaches at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and The Italy ‘Spirit into Matter’ workshops.

Breakey's landscape images—selected from a life-time of photographing all over the world—were published by Etherton Gallery in a catalogue entitled Slow Light. She also works with gold-leaf to produce modern-day versions of an archaic photographic process called Orotone.

Juror’s Statement
My first thought when I am asked to jury a photo show is "what an honor and privilege." My second thought is "who in his right mind thinks I am qualified." Then when the work arrives I think, "OMG, how can I possibly choose from so many truly excellent images?" Believe me, I agonize over the selection process. The worse part is that I inevitably have to eliminate very good work. This is difficult because I know first-hand how much rejection hurts, and I never want to discourage anyone.

So, how do I choose? What makes me select one image over another? This is complicated. To start with, I am human, so I have personal tastes and aesthetic preferences that can’t be put aside. There are the obvious things that are necessary—mastery of the medium, use of light, composition, the message, the imagination and artistry applied. A combination of all these are required to make an image powerful. But, I pick images that interest me for other reasons that are harder to put one’s finger on. It is very difficult to be ‘original’ in a world full of images, especially when advertising constantly borrows from fine art in order to appear fresh, quirky and alternative. To me, however, these images have a slick coolness that isn’t convincingly genuine because they are selling us something. This is to say, I am jaded from seeing so many contrived, clever, provocative but soul-less images everyday. I am much more drawn to images that have ‘heart’—that make me want to look longer because there is more to the image than meets the eye, because an individual cared to make something that was meaningful to them and understood their intention in doing so. As image-makers, we hope our work moves someone to want to understand something too subtle for words. I choose images that I think do this, and therefore make me want to come back to them again and again.

Prepare Your Files
1. Files should be 1200 pixels in the longest dimension and saved in JPEG format on the highest quality setting. Images should also be saved in RGB color space.

2. Label each file as FirstName_Lastname_ followed by consecutive numbers. For example: Sam_Jones_1.jpg, Sam_Jones_2.jpg, etc. Please don't forget to include the "jpg" extension.

3. Do NOT use spaces in the file name, and do NOT use special characters such as :;’”/?}{()[ ]+=*&^%$#@! (use only alpha-numeric characters).

4. Please prepare the following information for each image: (1) print title; (2) process [Archival Digital Print, Gelatin Silver Print, Platinum/Palladium Print, etc.]; and (3) price or NFS.

Submit Your Entries and Make Payment via Online Entry Form
Please select the “Enter Now” button and follow the prompts to make your payment online (or by check) and then upload your files. If you experience difficulties with this online entry form, please notify TPS Executive Director Sarah Sudhoff at sarah@texasphoto.org.

Sales
TPS encourages the sales of exhibited work and does not seek commission from print sales. Please review the Bath House Cultural Center's Policy for Exhibitions. The Bath House Cultural Center Advisory Council requests a 14% commission on all art sold during the exhibition. Bath House employees are not allowed to accept payments from prospective art buyers, but they can collect contact information from them. Transactions for the purchase of artwork shall be directly between the purchaser and the artist or his/her official agent.

Be sure to print your name, address, telephone number(s) and price on the back of each accepted print. If your print is Not-For-Sale, simply note NFS but provide a dollar amount for record-keeping purposes. If you do not indicate a dollar value, the artwork will be listed as NFS.

Liability
TPS and the venues will exercise all due care when handling your work but will not be held responsible for loss, damage or replacement.

Reproduction
TPS and the venues retain the right to display, project and reproduce work accepted for this exhibition for publicity and promotional purposes only. Individual photographers still retain copyright to his/her own individual images. Also, an exhibition catalog will be created to showcase the selected works.

If Your Work is Accepted
1. Prints must be mounted and overmatted using 16" x 20" 4-ply (minimum) white museum quality mat board with at least 2" of mat visible on all sides of the print. Maximum print size is 12" x 16". Smaller prints, 3" x 5" for example, are acceptable if they are mounted and overmatted to the 16" x 20" size. To ensure consistency in presentation, please frame your work using simple black metal frames with Plexiglass ONLY (no glass). Also, attach hanging wire on the back of your frame, and clearly label the back of your framed work with your full name and contact information. TPS reserves the right to exclude works from the exhibition that are not matted and framed according to specifications.

2. A pre-paid return shipping label MUST be provided with your work (FedEx or UPS preferred) for prints to be returned to you when the exhibition concludes. Work WITHOUT return shipping will NOT be included in the exhibition and will NOT be returned. Prints will be return shipped in the container in which they were received. No packing “peanuts”, and please be considerate of our limited storage space when choosing the size of your packaging.

3. Prints must arrive at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas, Texas, no earlier than April 16, 2018 and no later than April 29, 2018.

Remember, our friends at Frame Destination in Dallas, Texas, have prepared a special all-in-one kit for TPS artists that meets our matting, framing and presentation requirements. This affordably priced package can be purchased online here.

Questions?
If you have any questions or concerns after reading all the guidelines, please contact TPS Executive Director directly at sarah@texasphoto.org.