Still Life: The Ordinary Made Extraordinary

I am honored to have juried the work for Still Life: The Ordinary Made Extraordinary for PhotoPlace Gallery. But I have to say how very difficult it was because I don’t think there was one image submitted that could not have gone in this exhibition. However, because of the huge number of images, only a small number of them could be selected for both exhibitions. I was greatly dismayed that so much truly excellent work had to be eliminated. It’s obvious that some of the entries were from professional photographers whose work is very sophisticated, polished and technically excellent. I appreciate the care and skill that this kind of studio work requires, but I wanted to include images that had some magic and spontaneity — images that are poetic and playful, and not so carefully considered or contrived.

This was also a humbling experience. I was blown away by how much talent there is ‘out there’, and I wish everyone the very best in their lives as photographers and artists.

- Kate Breakey

About the Juror

Kate Breakey is internationally known for her large-scale, richly hand-colored photographs, including her acclaimed series of luminous portraits of birds, flowers and animals in an ongoing series called Small Deaths, published in 2001 by University of Texas Press.

Since 1980 her work has appeared in more than 90 one-person exhibitions and in over 50 group exhibitions in the United States, France, Japan, Australia, China, and New Zealand. Her work is held in many public institutions including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the Austin Museum of Art, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, and the Osaka Museum in Osaka, Japan. Her third book, Painted Light, published by the University of Texas in 2010, is a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of prolific image-making.

A native of South Australia, Kate moved to Austin, Texas in 1988. She completed a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Texas in 1991 where she also taught photography in the Department of Art and Art History until 1997. In 1999, she moved to Tucson, Arizona. In 2004 she received the Photographer of the Year award from the Houston Center for Photography. She now regularly teaches at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.

Learn more about Kate's work through her website.

Call for Entries

Still life is a genre that allows the photographer time — to reflect, to organize, to compose, to light the subject as s/he sees fit. Still life allows the photographer to elevate the mundane, or, as Edward Weston put it, “… to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.”

For Still Life: The Ordinary Made Extraordinary, we encourage fresh eyes brought to still life in all its forms, traditional to surreal.

All capture methods and processes are welcome.