The Aperture Prize for 2008 has put out its beacon call for entries. This is a good one; Aperture is a class act, and It's great just to get your work in front of them. Get to it! If you feel anxiety, here are some FAQs.


From the press release:

The purpose of the Portfolio Prize is to identify trends in contemporary photography and specific artists whom we can help by bringing their work to a wider audience. In choosing the first-prize winner and runners-up, we are looking for work that is fresh and that hasn't been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues.

First prize is $2,500. The first-prize winner and runners-up are featured on Aperture's website for approximately one year. Winners are also announced in the foundation's e-newsletter, which reaches thousands of subscribers in the photography community.

The entry period for the 2008 Aperture Portfolio Prize is Thursday, May 1, through Friday, July 11.


Last year's winner was Jessamyn Lovell, whose project Catastrophe, Crisis, and Other
Family Traditions was really a "journal that includes the stories and the erratic, transformative struggles my family has dealt with . . . a personal documentation of an American family struggling with class, religion, and disability."

There are some really intimate portraits in this work, and a lot of humor.



Klare in the Bathroom, 2006

Lovell also includes maps of the house on her website, which I think adds a whole new dynamic and really pulls me in. These were originally simply part of her organizational method:

"I began making these maps when I first started working on my book. The purpose was, at first strictly utilitarian. I drew them in my journal in an attempt to try and retrace the history of my family's house. Being so far away from my family makes it very difficult to do the work sometimes. The maps allow me to keep track of where everything is physically. After showing them to a few people I began making more of them and including them in my book and with my work. I feel the maps allow the viewer into the space of my memory."


Map of Kitchen, from journal, Spring 2001


Lay of the Land, from journal, Spring 2003