Plastic and homemade lenses along with pinholes eschew perfection — like drawing with the charred end of a log or singing opera to the accompaniment of ukuleles. The drawing can be exceptional and the music sublime, unexpected. Removing the technical and using simplistic tools allows the image maker to focus on what is in front of them to achieve their creative vision. Images captured using toy, pinhole and any camera using homemade lenses are eligible for submission. The camera that the lens is attached to is immaterial. Creativity is encouraged….

JUROR | Amanda Smith, founder and co-director of A Smith Gallery, has a thirty year background as a photographer. She was an active board member of the Texas Photographic Society for fifteen years. Her work is in institutional and private collections across the country. She has been a juror for numerous exhibitions including All About Photo, High and Dry, Analogue Forever, Dodho magazine, Lamar University Alumni Art Exhibition, Texas Photographic Society, International Photography Hall of Fame, Slow Exposures and Critical Mass. Her body of work “LuLu’s Dreams” recently received a Julia Margaret Cameron honorable mention in the storytelling category.

JUROR | Wendi Schneider will be the juror for “landscapes”. Wendi is a visual artist renowned for her ethereal photographs that fuse the fragile beauty of the natural world with the luminosity of precious metals. Drawing upon a rich background in painting and art history and inspired by her collection of early 20th-century photographs, Schneider crafts images that evoke a sense of transcendence and ephemeral grace. Using photography as a reference for her paintings in the 1980s, she began layering oils onto her prints, a technique that evolved into the signature digital layering and meticulous hand-applied metal leafing of her celebrated ‘States of Grace’ series. Her internationally exhibited work is held in permanent collections, including the Asheville Art Museum, the Auburn University Library Special Collections, the Center for Creative Photography, the Memphis Brooks Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Schneider is represented by A Gallery For Fine Photography (New Orleans), Arnika Dawkins Gallery (Atlanta), Catherine Couturier Gallery (Houston), Etherton Gallery (Tucson), PhotoGraphic Gallery (San Miguel de Allende), Rick Wester Fine Art (New York), Vision Gallery (Jerusalem), and Wach Gallery (Cleveland).