Contemporary Landscape

Jurors: Jacob and Alissa Hessler
Gallery exhibition: October 10 – November 2, 2019
Exhibition prints due: September 26, 2019

Jurors' Statement

We want to thank all of the artists who submitted work for Contemporary Landscape. We thoroughly enjoyed reviewing all of the images, and it was an extremely difficult to narrow down to the final selections. There was a multitude of compelling and moving contemporary landscape images. Most of the imagery we selected had weight to it – a feeling of loss, a feeling of hope, or the last gasp of breath before the storm. We selected photographs beyond what some might categorize as a landscape image – including work focusing on the human landscape and our interaction and relationship with the natural world.

Emmanuel Monzon’s photograph of the trailer at a rest stop was selected as our Juror’s Award.  This artist showed a singular voice in the work submitted and we loved his direct and powerful images that felt almost cinematic and surreal, the human-made structures perfectly placed in the scene. Our Director’s Award goes to Joyce Ernst, who captured the twisted piece of tagged metal – a relic of some failed infrastructure – left behind in an otherwise unspoiled vista.

As artists living in the current environmental catastrophe, it is the job of the photographer to not only capture the fleeting pristine beauty of the earth but also to call attention to the ongoing destruction of this planet we all call home. We hope that by looking at this collection of work the viewer will see an underlying message: that we have gone too far. Our marks are everywhere.

 —  Jacob and Alissa Hessler

Call for Entries

Until the mid-20th century, landscape photographers tended to focus on the natural landscape, with an eye toward pristine beauty untainted by the hand of humanity. Increasingly, perhaps because the presence of man is so widely evident, landscape photographers have sought to balance the natural beauty of the land with the imprint of humanity’s presence. That balance of man and nature on the land is the subject of this call for entries.

All capture and processing methods are welcome, and we encourage your own interpretations of the idea of Contemporary Landscape.

We are very pleased that Jacob and Alissa Hessler will curate this exhibit. They 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.

Images © Jacob Hessler. Click to enlarge.

About the Jurors

Jacob Hessler is a contemporary fine art photographer, known for his expansive and meditative landscapes. Hessler’s work has explored rising seas, industrialized farming, borders and boundaries, invasive species, extinction, and more broadly, mankind's relationship with, and impact on, the natural world. His keen eye and use of scale connects viewers with the vastness of the human experience.

Jacob is a graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, and pursued his master’s degree in graphic design at Parsons, The New School for Design. He worked in New York as a commercial photographer and art director from 2006-2011. In 2011, Hessler left New York and moved back to his childhood hometown in mid-coast Maine to focus on fine art landscape photography. Jacob’s work is widely collected and displayed throughout the world. He is a represented artist at Dowling Walsh Gallery, Corey Daniels Gallery and Soapbox Arts. 

With a diverse background in art direction, photography, and film production management, Alissa Hessler has worked as both the director for creative talent and as the creative talent. She has shot and produced content for international publications and brands, art directed and produced commercial shoots, managed global launch events, and orchestrated rebrands of international corporations. In her free time she continues to champion young farmers and rural small business owners through her Urban Exodus project. Her first book Ditch the City and Go Country, was released in 2017, distributed by Macmillan Press. 

Jacob and Alissa jointly teach workshops at Maine Media, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and other institutions across the country. They also operate their own destination workshops on Cumberland Island and the Lost Coast of California.