Alberta Open Photo Competition 2010

Went to the opening of the Alberta open photography exhibition (my 5 sex worker color heads were rejected by the jury). A nice night in a nice setting. The photographs were shown in the basement gallery at the Jubilee Auditorium a very nice pretigous facility. They had food and drinks and lots of folks looking over the work. I enjoyed myself, met and talked to 5 or 6 friends. Discussing photography and being around people who love photography is always fun.

Now the not so nice part of the evening. The photos overall were of a very poor quality. Little challenged the mind and nothing that I saw challenged my heart. I walked around and heard a lot of "Thats nice or Thats good." comments but thats about it, no one became involved in the work, there were no passionate discussions, all friendly friendly/nothing nothing boredom. The work shown was stuff you could take home hang in your washroom and forget about. It was fast food photography, that was quickly eaten, forgotten and left a bad after taste.

I did like a few of the landscapes and a few of the building shots especially some by a few photographers I know well but overall the quality was exceptionally poor even worse than last year. Of the 64 images on display there was 1 portrait maybe 2 (kinda), last years competition also had only 1 or 2 portraits. There are no people in the Alberta? No people in the world to photograph? Some photographers beside myself must have submitted some portrait work, documentary work, nude work etc. How many photos of wagon wheels, bales of hay and landscapes can we look at?

JUDGES OF THE ALBERTA OPEN, PLEASE BROADEN YOUR VISION, SHOW US MORE THAN THE SAME SAME BORING BORING PHOTOGRAPHS. SHOW US MORE THAN YOU CAN SEE AT A THOUSAND SITES ONLINE, SUPRISE US, EDUCATE US, STIR SOME PASSION IN THE VIEWER, REACH FOR THEIR MINDS, THEIR HEARTS!! PHOTOGRAPHY IS A GREAT ART FORM, PLEASE SHOW PEOPLE THE POWER IT CAN HAVE.

Last years show:

http://gerryyaum.blogspot.com/2009/08/vaaa-alberta-open-photo-show-2009.html