history : chronicle, archive, record, study, narrative, story, tale, saga, memoir, artifact, yesterday ……

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We think of this call for entry as an open call with a bit of a twist. How would you interpret the camera as a history machine?

“Are you aware what that is you are holding in your hands? Oh no, that was a name given it by someone with little understanding of the true soul of the thing. It is a History Machine. Every image you will make, immediately after you click the shutter, becomes an artifact of history, never to be exactly reproduced again. You my friend will be or are a Historian.” Franklin Cincinnatus

Kevin Tully and Amanda Smith

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“Zip Albacore, not his real name, a name he gave himself after a mind-altering psychedelic experience, he really enjoyed a can of tuna during that experience. He worked in a camera store.  No one is sure where “Zip” came from.

Zip had a standard spiel he would give all potential customers.

“Are you aware what that is you are holding in your hands? Oh no, that was a name given it by someone with little understanding of the true soul of the thing. It is a History Machine. Every image you will make, immediately after you click the shutter, becomes an artifact of history, never to be exactly reproduced again. You my friend will be or are a Historian.”

He held the title of “Top Selling Employee” for fifteen straight months in 1972 and 1973. He blamed Disco for his slump in sales in the later part of the decade.

Unfortunately, Zip was run over by a Volkswagen bus as he was photographing spent chewing gum in the streets of San Francisco. His tombstone read “Zip, Historian.” His ashes were spread in San Francisco Bay. His collection of cameras was buried in his cemetery plot. It was confusing, but not unexpected….” From The History Machine By Franklin Cincinnatus

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JUROR | Kevin Tully will be the juror for history. Kevin, co-director of A Smith Gallery, is a photographer, designer, writer and artist. He has over forty years of experience as a landscape designer, furniture designer, fine art painter, photographer and writer.  Kevin’s alter-ego and nom de plume, Franklin Cincinnatus, is currently working on a soon to be published collection of stories.

Kevin has curated and installed hundreds of exhibitions for A Smith Gallery and has been a juror for numerous calls-for-entry for the gallery, local organizations, as well as international exhibitions including All About Photo, High and Dry Texas Tech University Photography Exhibition, Analogue Forever, Dodho Magazine, Lamar University Alumni Art Exhibition, International Photography Hall of Fame, and Critical Mass. He was a past president of ARTJC, a non-profit organization of local art galleries. Kevin was an art consultant to and a founder of The Cabinet Oak Project, a juried art exhibition in partnership with The Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. Kevin also conducts portfolio reviews and mentors individual photographers as well as writing about photography and art.

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SUBMISSION | Guidelines: Digital images should be up to 1800 pixels on the longest side saved in JPEG format at 72 ppi. Each image should be labeled with consecutive numbers followed by your name, i.e. 1FirstName_LastName.jpg. The number should correspond with the number on the application form.  Please do not watermark your images.  If you need help sizing your images, please follow this link https://convert.town/image-dpi

SUBMISSION | Online:  Fill out our online application to apply, send images, and make payment with Paypal. You will receive an email confirmation upon receiving the submission and payment. You can also fill and submit the online application, print out your confirmation email, and mail it with a check for your fees to the address below.  Please note that gallery emails often end up in spam folders.  Please check your spam if you did not receive a confirmation email.

SUBMISSION | Entry Fee: $40 for the first 5 images, $5 per each additional image.  There is no limit to the number of images you may submit. Submission fees are not refundable.

SUBMISSION | Entry Reviews:  Photographers submitting 13 or more images are entitled to receive a complimentary review by the gallery directors. Photographers that enter less than 13 images, can receive a review for an additional $20. All reviews will be 30 minutes and typically scheduled a week after the exhibition results are announced.

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ELIGIBILITY | The competition is open to all photographers both professional and amateur working in all photographic mediums and styles. International entries are welcomed. Work that has been previously exhibited in an A Smith Gallery competition is not eligible.  We prefer not to accept images created with Artificial Intelligence at the present time due to the lack of clarity concerning copyright issues and the ongoing litigation associated with them.

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ONLINE EXHIBITION and CATALOGUE | Jurors will be selecting up to 47 images in total. All artist included in the final selection of images will receive the following:

1. The gallery will be featuring each of the final selection of images on both Facebook and Instagram over the span of the exhibition.
2. Gallery Directors will be hosting a GalleryTalk and will discuss all selected images.  The GalleryTalk will be posted in the blog section of the website.
3. The gallery online store will include all selected images listed for sale.
4. An exhibition catalogue including all selected images will be published and available for purchase.
5. The online exhibition as well as the GalleryTalk will be permanently archived after the end of the exhibition period.

“THE 27” HARDBOUND EXHIBITION BOOK | 27 images from the total selected images will be selected for “The 27”, a hardbound fine art book of the exhibition.  “The 27” will be available for purchase. Both the Juror and Director Award recipients will receive the hardbound exhibition book.

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NOTIFICATIONS | All photographers who have submitted an entry will receive an email notification of the juror’s selection as well as confirmation of your entry being received.  Confirmation emails are sent directly from the gallery directors and may take a few hours to be sent.  Please note that gallery emails often end up in spam folders.  Please check your spam if you did not receive a confirmation email.  If concerned, please email amanda@asmithgallery.com.

AWARDS | The awards are as follows:

Jurors Award – an online solo exhibition, “The 27” exhibition book and GalleryTalk on the gallery blog
Directors Award – “The 27” exhibition book and a GalleryTalk on the gallery blog
Visitors Award (most Instagram likes) – $100

The solo exhibition awarded as the Juror and Director Awards will be scheduled at a mutually agreed time for the duration of a month.

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SALES | The gallery has an online store and will include all images from the exhibition. The gallery will retain 30% of the sales price.  When a print sells, there are two options.  First, the artist may ship a signed print directly to the buyer.  Or the gallery will print the image for the artist.  Please see Printing Services for details.

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JURYING PROCESS | Our jurying process is blind, meaning the jurors do not see your name on the images you have submitted. All images submitted are renamed and assigned an entry/image number. The juror sees each entry together as a group in the order the images were submitted.

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USE RIGHTS | Photographers retain full rights to their own images. The gallery will use the photographer’s images for publicity purposes as well as on line gallery, online store, exhibition catalogue and “The 27” exhibition book.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION | amanda@asmithgallery.com