Juror's Statement
Since photography’s inception, weather has been a constant subject. It is always with us. It permeates our cells, affects our clarity of mind, our day-to-day existence. It can be beautiful, terrible, spectacular, frightening, cosmic, still. As related to photography, weather determines the quality and quantity of natural light.
The photographic work seen here beautifully depicts weather in its many guises. These images convey some of the multitudes of weather’s impacts: thrilling flashes, serene landscapes, the hypnotic orb of a blazing sun, and the weather’s influence on humans.
Carrie and Eric Tomberlin’s striking photograph earned the Juror’s Prize. It is dynamic, picturesque, vaguely haunting and certainly beautiful. The central figure holding the umbrella provides a moment of stillness within an otherwise busy scene. His upward glance and a purple umbrella command attention. Whatever the moment held for him, I find it magnetizing and powerful.
Jamie Belden’s photograph of a post-disaster suburban scene is regretfully all too familiar. I’m drawn to the placement of the mirror and its reflection, the quality of light, and the use of selective focus. That the gutted interior of the flooded home can be seen clearly adds to the experiential quality of the photo.
Among the Honorable Mention images, those of Lisa Cutler and Chel Delaney demonstrate the effects of our changing climate. Lou Novick’s is a fantastical, otherworldly photograph of a weather system in action. Lawrence Russ gives us a somewhat bizarre and unreal-looking, snowy landscape that grabbed my attention right away, not least for its “what’s going on?” quality. The light in Robert Anderson’s luscious photograph makes fog across a rolling landscape silken and ethereal, and very much like a seascape.
Overall, I selected photographs that made me feel the weather—temperature, humidity, heat, cold. The goal was to transmit these many variations within one exhibition, with a few small repetitions that I see as showing a different facet of the same subject—lightning, for instance.
Thank you to all the photographers who submitted their work. I hope you enjoy.
— Aylssa Coppelman
Call for Entries
Weather plays a far more prominent part in life than it did just a few years ago. Its intensity now frequently exceeds anything we have previously experienced.
For this exhibit, we seek images that describe the new weather suddenly upon us — at times bearing all the beauty it always has, while at other times bearing its newfound intense heat and cold, rain, snow, drought, storms, and now fire. All capture and processing methods welcome
We are very pleased that Alyssa Coppelman will be jurying and curating this exhibition. She will select approximately 35 images for exhibition in the gallery, and 40 for our Online Gallery. All 75 selected images will be reproduced in the exhibition print catalog and remain permanently on our website, with links to photographer’s URL.
Information about our printing service and free matting and framing here.
Banner image: David Mayhew
Click to enlarge image.
About the Juror
Alyssa Coppelman is an Austin-based photo editor and photobook consultant, and Deputy Art Director at Harper's Magazine and Art Researcher at the Oxford American magazine. As a consultant, she works directly with photographers to fine-tune the editing, sequencing, design, and editorial aspects of portfolios and book projects. She is also Archival Researcher for the Emmy-nominated PBS NewsHour series, Brief But Spectacular, finding visual accompaniment for the series. Coppelman regular juries photography exhibitions, has taught editing workshops, and enjoys being a guest lecturer to both undergraduate and graduate photography students.
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