Rejected: VAAA Open Photography Exhibition Call 2010

Got rejected from this years VAAA Photography Open Alberta Wide Exhibition. I got accepted to this group show last year but this year got a rejection, last year I submitted photographs of poverty (was accepted, 2 of 5) this year submitted sex worker images on white backgrounds (no nudity, 0-5) and was rejected.

I find this frustrating, I have had very positive feedback now 2 years in a row from different judges in my photo club meetings for the sex worker on white photographs (top b/w image for 2009 and 2010) but I cannot get the work shown in a gallery, this is the 3rd time (2 times from the VAAA and 1 time from "The Works Festival") that the sex worker on white background photographs have been turned down.

This work has also been collected by various serious collectors, but still I cannot get it shown locally! The collectors told me the work would be shown in Florida museums. Why can it it be shown in larger galleries there but here I cannot get anywhere (large or small) to show even 1 photograph?

What bothers me is that I saw the photographs that were accepted last year in the 2009 open exhibition, I found 4 or 5 images involving but the rest were so mediocre, so uninspiring, so by the numbers, so seen that before but done better. Most of the work shown used various processing gimmicks to hide the mediocrity of the image. A good photograph should be able to stand on its own and does not need to be printed on canvas or metal or use some ancient technique, if the photo is not strong enough to be shown on silver gelatin fiber with a white mat then toss it!, a gold painted dog is still a dog.

I hope the work that got in this year at least tries to do something of some substance/importance, we do not need to see more art that plays it safe and does not try to challenge the viewer. Putting up work that puts the viewer to sleep accomplishes nothing, we should be awakening each other, we should be getting people who view the photographs asking questions, we should be putting up work that slaps them out of their stupor and gets the viewer involved, it should draw an emotional response.

There is so much more to photography than making pretty pictures, photography has a power that no other art form does, the feeling/illusion of reality. The reality that a photograph hints at can be a powerful tool for the photographer. We should use that strength not to take more safe/stale/pretty photographs but instead use the photograph to hammer home the reality of the story we want to tell.

Am on a bit of a downer now going into making new photographs in the months to come. I have to buckle down and do the photos I think are strong, make the work that I feel is important. I cannot create work that I know will be accepted (how many landscape exhibitions can we all view before our minds melt?), I cannot compromise and sell out to get a show. I have to make work that tells the story I want to tell and shoot that story in the the style I feel conveys the message in the strongest fashion, sooner or later someone locally will want to tell the same story I do.

I feel like I let the people down that I photographed, I wanted to tell their story to people in my city but failed.

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Dear Gerry

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Visual Arts Alberta again received a excellent response to this call to Alberta photographers, with over 231 photographs submitted to the jury for consideration. Due in large part to space constraints only 63 pieces were able to be shown in the VAAA Gallery for this photography exhibition, and unfortunately your submission was not among those selected by the jury this year.

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