Childhood

Juror: Anne Berry
Gallery exhibition: December 5 – December 28, 2019
Exhibition prints due: November 21, 2019

Juror's Statement

Culling just 70 images from well over a thousand is not an easy task. I am excited about this collection of work but sad to leave behind so many worthy submissions. I thank all the photographers who submitted to Childhood and remind those not chosen how subjective and difficult the selection process is.

Every photograph in this exhibition makes the viewer stop to look closer. Perhaps it is effective use of color or composition or the subject’s arresting gaze or a poignant gesture. No distracting elements or colors distract from the subject. Objects common in photographs of children, swings, animals, toys, speak to previous work while staying consistent to the photographer’s vision and language. All the work I selected for awards went beyond the single image, making it difficult to decide which image to include in the exhibition and giving me a glimpse of the photographer’s overall vision. Juror’s Award winner Jessica Tampas’s images are about the intensity of the gaze. The composition, the shallow depth of field and the lack of color draw our attention to the eyes, confronting us and making us wonder.
— Anne Berry

Call for Entries

“Children are not like us. They are beings apart: impenetrable, unapproachable. They inhabit not our world but a world we have lost and can never recover. We do not remember childhood -- we imagine it. We search for it, in vain, through layers of obscuring dust, and recover some bedraggled shreds of what we think it was.”  — Penelope Lively,  Moon Tiger

We are interested in seeing  images that reflect memories of childhood, whether through allusion to your own experience, or your current experience with a child.  All capture and processing methods are welcome.    

We are very pleased that Anne Berry will curate this exhibit. She will select up to 35 images for exhibition in the Middlebury, Vermont gallery, and another 35 images for the Online gallery. All 70 images will appear in the exhibit catalog. While the Gallery exhibit is open, the Online selections will be projected in a continuous loop in the gallery.

Information about our printing service and free matting and framing here.

About the Juror

“My work is about the transitory nature of the physical world and the enchantment and power of the natural world, often reflected through the eyes of animals or children. Whether photographing people or animals, I capture what they wish to give, not what I construct. A sense of myth, ritual and mystery binds these images together. I’m drawn to wilderness places, children and animals. I’m influenced by literature, especially by the Romantic poets, T.S. Eliot, and Flannery O’Connor. My photographs are about the mystery that lies beneath the mundane.”

Anne Berry is an artist from Atlanta, Georgia. She is best known for photographs of children and animals that capture the enchantment and power of the natural world. She earned an MA in literature from The University of Georgia and a BA in art and English from Sweet Briar College. In 2013 and 2014 Critical Mass included her work in their Top 50 Portfolios. Anne has had solo exhibitions at the Centre for Visual and Performing Arts in Newnan, GA, The Lamar Dodd Art Center in LaGrange, GA and The Rankin Arts Center in Columbus, GA. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including The Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock, England, SCAN Tarragona in Spain, The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Arts in New Orleans. Books include Through Glass (North Light Press, 2014) and Primates (21st Editions, 2017). Anne’s work is featured in National Geographic Proof, Feature Shoot, The Flannery O’Connor Review, Hufffington Post and Lens Culture, among others. Anne is a founding member of the Pigs Fly Photography Collective, and she runs Pigs Fly Retreats with Lori Vrba. In 2017 The Dishman Museum of Art and The Greensboro Project Space hosted their traveling exhibition, Intrusions of Grace. Anne lives in Newnan, GA and is represented by Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston, TX.

See some of her work and learn about Pigs Fly Retreats here.