portal : doorway, entrance, opening, entry, gate, egress, opening, aperture, porte, exit, hatch, mirror, passage, threshold, cut, entrada, hole, scuttle, window, approach, camera, breach, mirror….

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“Portals have been sought as long as man has been man, real and imagined.

A lecturer in art history expressed that the painter Paul Gauguin sought a portal into the home of his artistic daemon by traveling to Tahiti. She defined the word daemon as: a supernatural being whose nature is intermediate between that of a god and that of a human being. Many of her students were frightened, many were intrigued. Some began painting.

Was Jim Morrison simple – “The Doors?”

Danny Sugarman sat in the Jardin in San Miguel de Allende, haranguing a retired Wyoming dentist, expressing his tremendous delight at the invention of the digital camera; “Man this place is lousy with doors, really killer doors. Can you imagine the pain in the ass shooting all these doors with film would be?”

The dentist replied, “Tan absolutamente hermosa, aqui es un lugar de puertas majias, portales de espiritu y gente muy amable.”

“Ok, yeah,” said Danny Sugarman.

“The old saying goes, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.”  So, probably right but some folk’s eyes are doors, windows are primarily made to look out of, but doors are for walking through, running through, hauling groceries through, heading out of, bringing bourbon through for the eggnog, opening when you’ve burned the bacon….” From Lost in the Neighborhood with Books  By Franklin Cincinnatus

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JUROR |Ann M Jastrab will be the juror for “portal”.  Ann is the Executive Director at the Center for Photographic Art (CPA) in Carmel, California. CPA strives to advance photography through education, exhibition and publication. These regional traditions—including mastery of craft, the concept of mentorship, and dedication to the photographic arts—evolved out of CPA’s predecessor, the renowned Friends of Photography established in 1967. While respecting these West Coast traditions, CPA is also at the vanguard of the future of photographic imagery.

Before coming onboard at CPA, Ann worked as the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco for 10 years. While being a champion of artists, she created a thriving artist-in-residence program at RayKo where multiple residents, received Guggenheim Fellowships. She was also the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco where she incorporated contemporary artists with the legends of photography. Prior to moving to California, Ann taught for a decade at the Maine Photographic Workshops (now Maine Media Workshops) in Rockport, Maine.

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SUBMISSION | Guidelines: Digital images should be 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 selected 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 – a online solo exhibition, “The 27” exhibition book and feature story on the gallery blog
Directors Award – “The 27” exhibition book and a feature story 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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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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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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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