"Pyrotechnic #12", Copyright Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved.

The most recent B&W + Color Magazine has just come out with the results of their annual Color Single Image Contest. I was very pleased to see that one of my images (above) received a Merit Award in the Pattern/Texture category. (You can see other of my Pyrotechnic series images here and here).

"Lost Highways", Copyright Sharon Arnold. All Rights Reserved.

But I was just as pleased to see how many other Maine photographers were found in this issue, including many friends and clients. Sharon Arnold received a Gold Award in the Metaphor/Abstract category (see photo above). Felice Boucher joined her in that category with a Merit Award. Robert Moran ended up with 5(!) selected photographs, garnering a Silver Award, two Bronzes, and two Merits. Mary Woodman also had a Gold Award to go along with her two Merits. Jane Yudelman joined the fun with a Merit award of her own, as did Lynn Karlin. Carol MacLeod also had a Silver Award and a Merit Award and LeeAnne Mallonee nabbed a Bronze and a Merit. Congratulations to all of the photographers selected!

I know that all of these contests are subjective and you can only take their meaning so far, but I see this sort of result as further confirmation of the rich and vibrant photography community here in Maine. Those of us who live here already knew about that, but I’m happy to see others taking notice as well.

You can see a copy of the magazine cover below if you want to find it on the magazine racks:

On Friday I published a guest article on the VoxPhotographs blog on selecting a paper for fine art printing. Please check it out if you missed it (and bookmark that blog, too, as it has become one of the go-to sites for the Maine fine art photography community). Thank you to Heather Frederic for the platform as well.

Lastly, I’d like to link to something on the Web that I found. Petros Vrellis created an animation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night (perhaps my favorite painting) that is very cool on its own, but the animation is interactive – users can use their fingers to change the flow of stars, etc. Alas, the video itself isn’t interactive but it does show how the interaction works – I’d love to see a commercially-available version of this. It would make a great iPad app if it has the necessary computational horsepower to perform all the calculations.

"Wolf Moon II", Copyright Jim Nickelson

I’ve been thinking about juried competitions quite a bit recently – I’ve been entering many (and getting in a few), and most of my photographic friends and clients are doing the same.

Before I go on, I’d like to clarify that I believe that juried events are valuable to artists, particularly emerging artists. The obvious potential benefit (and the reason most people submit) is that getting your work in front of jurors, receiving an award or selection, and having work included in an online or physical exhibition can all result in exposure of your work to people who may be able to help advance your career. Another benefit is that selections will help fill out your artistic resume or CV and may help establish credibility and/or seriousness as an artist.

I’ve also found that for me personally, the process of selecting work to submit is a valuable exercise in editing, and who among us doesn’t need more practice with editing our own work? (If you get in the habit of frequently entering exhibitions & contests, however, your costs in time, money, and mental energy will quickly add up, so it is worthwhile to consider whether each makes sense for you and your work.)

So now let’s talk about rejection. After dinner last night when I checked my e-mail, I was staring in the face of three brand new rejections that all came in within the previous few hours. No matter what you might have won in the past or your own evaluation of your own work, a string of rejections is not conducive to warm fuzzy feelings about yourself. Most of us will inevitably start questioning ourselves, even if just fleetingly: Maybe my work just isn’t that good?

Well, who can be objective about their own work? For the purposes of this discussion, however, let’s assume that your work is good. And yet we still get rejected, time and time again. There are many legitimate reasons why any selected work will be rejected by a particular juror. First, most of these competitions are incredibly competitive – many have 1o’s or 100′s vying for each spot. Second, art is subjective. Perhaps the juror just didn’t like your work — well, there are always people who don’t like any piece of work. Maybe your work is more traditional and they were looking for something edgier, maybe your work is edgy and they wanted traditional. Maybe the juror was selecting works to curate a unique vision and, while they loved your work, it just didn’t fit it. For all these reasons and more, as artists we need to learn (and, believe me, it is hard sometimes) to not take it personally.

My lesson from all of this for my work is to embrace the rejections and recognize that they are just part of the process. Instead of being annoyed at each one like I used to be, I have now slowly come to realize that they really are subjective. And while I certainly prefer to get an acceptance rather than a rejection, getting a rejection means that I’m out there in the ring and trying to present my work to the world. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but how great is the ability to present your work that way? Now when I get those inevitable rejections, I know that I’m putting my work out there, trying for more and more competitive shows, and if I don’t get in — well, there is always next year.

"Wolf Moon III", Copyright Jim Nickelson

I’ve decided to start keeping a monthly list of photography shows throughout Maine to be published near the first of each month. I will do my best to be exhaustive, but please feel free to chime in with any comments or to email me with shows you’d like me to include – I’m sure I missed some of them that are out there. I’ll include any shows that I can find that include photography as part of the show.

I collect this sort of information for myself as I try to make it to as many shows around the state as I can, though obviously life and work and distance all play a role in what I can actually see in person.

Without further ado, here is what I’ve found so far for February:

Aarhus Gallery, the exhibition entitled “Blue” (inc. photographer Terry Hire, among many other artists). The show runs Feb. 2nd-26th with an opening reception Feb. 3rd from 5-8 pm.

Addison Wooley Gallery in Portland has their second consecutive Bruce Brown-curated show with two Portland photographers, Caleb Charland and Peter Gruner Shellenberger, and entitled “Artifacts and Particles”. The show runs Feb. 2nd – 26th with an opening reception this coming Thursday 5-8pm as well as the First Friday. Review here.

The new Old Salts Gallery in Camden has its February show with a variety of artists, including one photographer (Shelagh Delphyne), opening this Saturday from 5-8 pm. The exhibit, which you can read about in this press release, continues until Feb. 29th.

UMMA’s current exhibition includes Lori Nix’s The City project and is up until March 24th in Bangor.

The Portland Museum of Art has two photography exhibitions this month, “Making Faces: Photographic Portraits of Actors and Artists” that is up until April 8th and Tanja Hollander’s new exhibition entitled “Are You Really My Friend?” that opens February 4th and runs until June 17th. Ed Beem has a short review of Hollander’s exhibition here and Bob Keyes has one here.

Fryeburg Academy, Pace Galleries of Art, “Singular” show, runs until March 19th. There are 10 photographers in this show, which is curated by Heather Frederick of VoxPhotographs. You can read the press release here.

The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire (which I admit I had never heard of – thanks to Ed Beem of Yankee Magazine for the heads-up) has what looks to be great show of modernist photography (“A New Vision: Modernist Photography”) that opens February 4th and runs until May 13th.

EDIT: I just noticed another non-Maine but must-see show at the MFA in Boston – “Silver, Salt, and Sunlight: Early Photographs in Britain and France”, opening February 7th and running until August 19th, 2012. You can still catch their Modernist Photography exhibit until April 1st, too, which is very good.

As always, please let me know in the comments if you have any other suggestions for this list!

The now 7th Annual Maine Photography Show is accepting entries with all entries due by February 1st. This is always a fun one to enter and to see what gets in.

Eyephoneography #3 – Open call for entries (and no entry fees), entries due February 3rd. As you might guess, this is for the iPhone crowd. You know who you are.

Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery’s has entries due February 6th for a  show entitled “In Your Dreams”.

Aarhus Gallery in Belfast has their now annual call for art for their “44N 69W: Radius Belfast” 2012 show, open to artists of all sorts living within 30 miles of Belfast. The way this works is that you bring 1-3 pieces, make a small donation that they then pass to local food kitchens, and proceeds of any sales are also passed to local food kitchens. It is always a fun and diverse show and for a great cause. Drop-off is between Feb. 23rd and Feb. 26, so please checkout their website for details.

The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) in Rockport has a call for entries for their 2012 Biennial with entries due March 1st. Please note also that entries are physical proof-type prints that must be delivered by that date – it is not an online entry. The Biennial will be co-curated by CMCA director Suzette McAvoy and independent curator Daphne Anderson Deeds. This is obviously one of the big shows this year in Maine and well worth entering.

The PRC in Boston is having their prestigious 17th Annual Juried Exhibition, entitled “Exposure 2012″, with entries due between February 1 and March 2nd. The juror is Alison Nordström, Curator of Photographs and Director of Exhibitions at the George Eastman House. This is one I definitely recommend that all New England photographers consider.

The international contest entitled “The Art of Photography Show” in San Diego has entries due June 30th, but early entry discounts are available until February 14th.

Good luck!

Copyright Felice Boucher

Congratulations to Mainers ( and Nickelson Editions clients) Felice Boucher, Sarah Szwajkos, and Robert Moran (with a slick new website!) for being accepted into the Poetic Objects show at the Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery.

The Singular show I talked about way back when is moving to the Pace Galleries of Art on the campus of Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, with an opening reception this Saturday. It is a very interesting show and definitely worthwhile – I haven’t seen that gallery yet myself but have heard it is gorgeous.

Congratulations to NE client Terry Hire for being a participating artist in the upcoming “Blue” show at Aarhus Gallery in Belfast, Maine, which runs from February 2nd through the 26th with an opening reception Friday February 3rd, 5-8pm.

Copyright Jim Nickelson

Sometimes we take for granted modern inkjet printers because of their competence and reliability. Modern printers, though, are incredibly complex machines, particularly with respect to the printheads. Each printer and its printheads is designed for a particular range of environmental conditions, including temperature and humidity. For most home printing situations, humidity is most likely to be the issue as temperature ranges in most houses stay within a relatively tight range. Epson printers (which is what I use) have a recommended humidity range of 40% – 60% for optimal operation.

So, does this really matter in the real world? Generally speaking, yes. My personal experience, and that of many others, is that operating one of these printers outside this range (particularly at lower humidity) can result in much more frequent clogs and, as a result, wastage of ink from nozzle cleanings and wastage of both ink and paper from ruined prints. (to read the full article, please go here).

"Dragon", Copyright Jim Nickelson

First off, Happy Chinese New Year to all as we enter the Year of the Dragon. Sadly I did not have a photograph of a real dragon to provide from my archives, but I’ll use this shot from my Stolen Ninety-Nine project as a placeholder until real dragons become a bit less mythical.

I have quite a few random things to talk about this week. First off, congrats to Nickelson Editions client Brendan Bullock for making the cover (as the photographer, not the subject, that is) of the latest issue of Maine magazine that appeared on my doorstep today.

Congratulations also to NE client Jane Yudelman (as well as fellow Mainer C.E. Morse) for being accepted to the Snow & Ice exhibition at the 1650 Gallery in decidedly non-icy and snowy Los Angeles (see link for all accepted images and here for Jane’s, one of my favorites).

The Maine Photo Alliance has just published its January 2012 Online Exhibition, this one entitled “Odd Shots” and curated by Susan Davens. This is an interesting one as all participating photographers had to submit shots that do not fit in with the rest of their work, and Susan has done a great job of pulling together what I imagined were pretty disparate entries.

If you are interested in utilizing social media to market your photography (grudgingly or not), you’ll find Photoshelter’s new (and free!) guides to the subject very useful. I just read the updated guides and they are pretty good. You can find all of their free guides here.

I have a number of other blog posts in the queue for this week, so stay tuned…

Copyright Arla Patch. All Rights Reserved.

Congratulations to Arla Patch, as her work is featured in the current print edition of B&W + Color Magazine. The article includes five images and is based on her newest body of work entitled “b. 1950″, featuring projection of images (in this case, watercolors) upon her own body. You can see (and purchase) all of the images in this body of work here.

In big news this morning, Adobe released the free beta version of the newest Lightroom product. You can read about and download LR 4 here and a more detailed explanation of the new features is here. I definitely recommend this free 22-minute video showing the new features if you are a current LR user – Michael Reichmann is definitely an expert on LR and has a practical and lucid approach to these matters.

So what are the big improvements? For me the biggest improvement is soft proofing for print – this is finally implemented, and in what appears to be a very intelligent fashion, making LR now an even more viable alternative for printing exhibition-quality prints. Other big improvements are separate curves for each RGB channel, a revised tone mapping system (blacks, whites, contrast, etc.), integration with Google Maps f0r GPS-enabled cameras, integration with Blurb for making books, and significantly improved ability to handle video. I believe the full version will be available in March or so.

So should you try this out? If you’ve never tried LR this is a great opportunity to sample the program for free. If you are a current user, it is definitely worthwhile to play around with it and see what kinds of differences there are, or to use it for special applications that require some of the new capability. I do not recommend, however, using the program for any production work unless you are very careful. I personally will not use it for ‘final’ processing of any of my images until the final program is released. Besides the possibility of errors in the code, there is also the possibility that any changes, settings, or processing you make in the beta will not carry over to the final project.

Lastly, circles and squares. There were two interesting posts on The Online Photographer in the last few days that I thought I’d mention. First, a discussion of the possibility of square sensors. I wish! There are decided technical advantages to doing so, but I’d say it is still unlikely in any mainstream product. What we will hopefully see even more of, though, is at least square crops available in-camera – I find it a decided advantage to be able to compose in the square and I miss that capability in my Nikons. There was a follow-up post on the even more unlikely possibility of a circular sensor, but a nice discussion by Michael Johnston on alternative frame shapes throughout the history of photography.