Portfolio reviews can be costly or, depending on what you make of them, cost effective. This idea—set forth by Center For Photography at Woodstock Executive Director Ariel Shanberg—was the focus of a panel this afternoon at Photo Plus Expo that aimed to help attendees understand how they can maximize their time and money during portfolio review events.

Shanberg was joined on the panel by creative consultant Mary Virginia Swanson and moderator WM Hunt, a photography collector and former gallerist. The three spoke of their appreciation for portfolio reviews and their atmosphere of discovery, where reviewers are excited to find and discuss new work that they can share with others in the photo community. “If you strike a chord [with a reviewer], they will become your advocate and refer you [to others] and try to help you,” Hunt told the photographers in the audience.

Each reviewer gave examples of photographers whose work they reviewed and were amazed by, but they also offered a host of practical tips that should help photographers make the most of these 20-minute “speed dates” with editors, collectors and curators:

Mary Virginia Swanson described several different portfolio reviews but also pointed out that her article in the new issue of Emerging Photographer magazine had information and listings of several top portfolio reviews, as does her blog, here.

Swanson suggested that photographers consider bringing a tape recorder and—with the reviewer’s permission—recording their reviews rather than taking notes so they could engage more fully with the reviewer.

She also recommended that photographers ask at the end of a review if the reviewer would like to be kept informed about the photographer’s work, and if so, how (via email, print cards, phones or discs with images….). Swanson further suggested that the photographer should ask what to put in the subject line of the email to be sure to get the reviewer’s attention.

The thickness of a photographer’s portfolio is often inversely proportionate to the quality of the work, Hunt said. He explained that the most serious, confident and thoughtful photographers have the thinnest portfolios because they have refined their work.

On the subject of how much work to show, Shanberg suggested that there is a polite limit of 20 prints. You may want to show more to a book publisher who wants to see that you have 80 images for a book, or reviewers might want to see more work if they are excited about it, but putting a white piece of board as a divider in your portfolio to suggest that a reviewer can stop after 20 or so images is welcome, Shanberg said.

Swanson added that bringing multiple bodies of work to a 20-minute review is fine as long as the photographer is comfortable with the idea that they will spend the whole time watching the reviewer look at work instead of engaging in a discussion.

The panelists and moderator agreed that following up with a handwritten, physical note of thanks made a big impression. Swanson shared an anecdote about photographer Dave Anderson, who made notes at a portfolio review of which image each reviewer he saw liked, and then sent the reviewer a note with that image.

Swanson encouraged the audience to be similarly thoughtful about their leave behind pieces, whether they are cards, accordion folds, small handmade books or other pieces. Make the text style and branding consistent with your website and other materials, and choose an image or images that will easily remind the reviewer of your work.

Shanberg encouraged the audience to think of the review process as the start of a longer conversation, and reiterated the idea that although a reviewer may not give you an exhibition or publish your work themselves, each one has the potential to nominate you for a grant or fellowship, or recommend your work to an editor or curator.

Other tips:

-If you are at your first review, tell the reviewer, that so they can help you manage your 20 minutes better [Mary Virginia Swanson]

-When in doubt, shut up. Which means that talking too much suggests nervousness and distracts the reviewer [WM Hunt]

-Don’t ask what the reviewer wants to see; they don’t know you and can’t answer that. Show them what you are most excited about [Shanberg]

-Don’t hand a reviewer an artist’s statement and ask them to read it. Why would they read it when they can just hear directly from you? And it shows you aren’t confident speaking about your work [Swanson, but echoed by the group]

“Ambush, Ramadi, 22 July 2006,” by Luc Delahaye.

French photojournalist-turned-artist Luc Delahaye has won the fourth Prix Pictet, the organization announced in a ceremony this evening at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The theme of this year’s prize was “Power.”

Founded by Swiss private bank Pictet & Cie in 2008, the Prix Pictet is awarded to photographers whose work engages with themes of sustainability.

180 experts from around the world nominated 673 artists for the prize. From those the jury selected 12 shortlisted artists, all of whom will be included in an exhibition opening tomorrow, October 10, at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The exhibition will also tour internationally.

Delahaye submitted a portfolio titled “Various works: 2008-2011,” about which he wrote in his artist’s statement:

“I try to put myself in situations that I feel have a certain relevance regarding what we call a shared destiny. The reality I’m interested in is that of people who struggle to act upon it as much as they are subject to it. I sometimes work where power presents itself as a spectacle, as an event produced for or with the media, and my pictures may then take an ironic undertone. But I photograph the ordinary man more often than the leader. I usually stay at the distance where the human relationships are visible, multiple, active and where they remain problematic. I’m interested in narration and in photography’s phenomenological hold on the real.”

Among the other shortlisted photographers were Robert Adams, Rena Effendi, An-My Lê, who just received a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, and Joel Sternfeld.

Pictet & Cie, the company that founded the prize, also awarded a commission to nominated photographer Simon Norfolk to travel to and photograph a region where the Bank is supporting a sustainability project.

Previous Prix Pictet winners include Mitch Epstein, Nadav Kander and Benoit Aquin.

Related: Prix Pictet Announces 12 Photographers Shortlisted for Prize

A couple of weeks ago photography writers Jörg Colberg and Colin Pantall put their photography blogger contact lists to work in order to generate some commentary on this question (I’m paraphrasing): Which photographers have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe. They asked bloggers to name up to five photographers on their respective blogs, and then explain why they chose them. Both Colberg and Pantall then published those lists on their own blogs here and here, respectively.

The result of this co-authored project, called “Towards the 21st Century,” includes responses from 15 photography bloggers and commentary on the work of approximately 50 photographers. A few of the bloggers overlapped on a handful of their picks, but not many. And while some of the picks are more recently known artists (Christian Patterson, Jessica Eaton), many are well known (Jim Goldberg, Broomberg & Chanarin, Collier Schorr, Abelardo Morell). So the project provides a review both of new ideas, and of ideas that were new and continue to influence the medium. So where is photography heading in the 21st century? Evidently it’s moving in a lot of different directions, just as it always has.

Pedro Guerrero, a fine art and architecture photographer best known for his association with architect Frank Lloyd Wright, died yesterday at home in Florence, Arizona, according to reports in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He was 95.

An art school dropout, Guerrero arrived unannounced at Wright’s winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona one day in 1939 and introduced himself as a photographer. He presented a thin portfolio, and Wright took notice of several nudes, according to The New York Times. Wright took Guerrero under his wing, and Guerrero spent the next 20 years interpreting Lloyd’s work, until the architect died in 1959.

The partnership made Guerrero’s career, and led to assignments for a number of magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar, House and Garden and other magazines. He photographed buildings by other architects, including Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, and Marcel Breuer, but projects for Lloyd always took precedence during Lloyd’s lifetime. After Lloyd died, Guerrero also photographed work by sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson.

Guerrero was born in Casa Grande, Arizona in 1917, and grew up in Mesa. He attended Art Center School (now Art Center College of Design in Pasadena), studying photography there briefly before returning home to Arizona. His father, a sign painter, pushed him to “quit lazing around the house” and go introduce himself to Wright, according to The New York Times.

Members of Magnum Photos held their annual general meeting this week at the Rencontres D’Arles photo festival in France, and selected three new nominees for the photo collective. The three are varied not only in their experience but in the kind of work they do.

They are:
Zoe Strauss, a photographer based in Philadelphia who describes her work as focusing on “the beauty and struggle of everyday life.” This year Strauss was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 2001 to 2010, Strauss hosted an annual, one-day exhibition, installing her work on pillars below an I-95 overpass in her neighborhood in South Philadelphia.

Jerome Sessini, a documentary photographer based in Paris. Previously represented by Reportage by Getty Images, Sessini has covered conflict and humanitarian crises in the Balkans, Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. He won the 2010 F Award for Concerned Photography for his work on drug related violence along the Mexico-US border.

 Bieker Depoorter, a Belgian photojournalist who got her masters in photography in 2009. Accepted to the 2012 Joop Swart Masterclass, Depoorter produced a project, “Ou Menya,” while traveling via the Trans Siberian railroad and staying in strangers’ homes. She is working on a similar series in the US.

The work of these three photographers might represent the different kinds of work now produced by Magnum members. Two years ago when we reported on Magnum’s choice of two news photographers as nominees,  Alec Soth, a Magnum photographer, wrote us to say: “One of the reasons I wanted to be in Magnum is because of the diversity of approaches to the medium. There is such a broad spectrum within the agency that these lines between ‘art’ and ‘photojournalism’ have blurred beyond recognition.”

It’s interesting that women make up two thirds of this year’s nominees. That’s a much higher proportion of women than in Magnum’s current roster: (A list of Magnum members and associates is here.)

Magnum also announced that Jacob Aue Sobol has become a full member of the cooperative; Moises Saman is now an associate member.

More information on the annual general meeting can be found on the Magnum Photos web site.

Related Articles:
Magnum Adds Two News Photographers as Nominees

Cindy Sherman and Bruce Nauman are among the 23 visual artists and architects honored by the National Academy in New York City. For the first time in the institution’s 187-year history, photographers were included in the annual roundup of “Academicians.” Last year the membership categories changed from “Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking and Architecture” to “Visual Arts and Architecture.” This revised designation allowed the inclusion of photographers, videographers and installation artists.

The National Academy was established in 1825 to “promote the fine arts in America through instruction and exhibition,” and includes a museum and art school. As part of the designation, each National Academician contributes a “representative work” to the National Academy’s permanent collection. Visit nationalacademy.org to see the complete list on honorees.

Sherman’s retrospective at Museum of Modern Art in New York City wrapped up this month and will be on display next at SFMOMA from July 14 to October 7, 2012. After that, the exhibition will move on to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from November 3, 2012 to January 27, 2013. Check out our review of the exhibition for more details.

© Caren Alpert/Courtesy of Harry Ransom Center

The Harry Ransom Center, the humanities library at the University of Texas, has appointed Jessica S. McDonald to be its new chief curator of photography. McDonald is currently a curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

At the Ransom Center, McDonald will oversee the library’s photography collection, which includes about 5 million prints and negatives, as well as photo books, manuscripts and photographers’ notes and journals spanning the history of photography.

At SFMOMA, McDonald curated the recent exhibition “Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.” She has previously worked with George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and the Visual Studies Workshop, both in Rochester, New York. In 2011, McDonald received an Ansel Adams Research Fellowship from the Center for Creative Photography.

In announcing her appointment, Thomas F. Staley, director of the Ransom Center, said, “McDonald’s broad experience–from teaching to curatorial–confirmed that she can lead our photography department, build the collection, support research and plan exhibitions.” She will begin her new job in September.

Frank Hallam Day, who is based in Washington, DC, is this year’s recipient of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award. The annual contest celebrates photographic works that explore “the interaction between man and the environment with acute vision and contemporary visual style—creative, groundbreaking and unintrusive,” according to the Leica site. Day’s winning series “Alumascapes” shows landscapes that include RVs or motor homes, which are lit from within and tucked away amongst the trees and foliage of Florida. To learn more about Day’s work, check out his interview with DCist.

This year’s Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award, which honors “prospective” photographers who are 25 years old or younger, was given to Piotr Zbierski of Poland. His submission included images from his long-term project “White Elephant,” which is a series of black-and-white portraits of strangers he has encountered throughout Eastern Europe and India.

Both winners will receive a Leica M9-P camera and lens (estimated value of 10,000 euros) on July 3 at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in France. Day will also receive a 5,000 euro cash prize.

The Oskar Barnack Award was established in 1979 to honor the centennial of the birth of Oskar Barnack, who invented the smaller format 35mm “Leica” camera. Past recipients of the award include Sebastião Salgado, Eugene Richards, Luc Delahaye, Narelle Autio, Guy Tillim, Julio Bittencourt, Mikhael Subotzky and Jan Grarup.

When the inaugural Photoville event kicks off on June 22 in Brooklyn, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, not only will it boast a village of exhibitions housed in 30 freight containers, it will also include plenty of educational programming and events for visitors.

The slate of artist talks, lectures, workshops and other events run June 23-24. On the 23rd, BagNewsNotes editor Michael Shaw will speak about the state of news photography, and a panel discussion moderated by Pete Brook of Prison Photography blog fame will discuss “documentary, institutional, vernacular and legal photography and the political uses of images by media.”

That night MediaStorm will give a presentation on “digital storytelling and the cinematic narrative.”

Workshops that run on both days will cover topics like analogue photography, printing, light painting and zine making.

Programming on the June 24th will include a talk about contemporary documentary photography by Ed Kashi, Lori Grinker and Benjamin Lowy, moderated by Glenn Ruga, and a talk about how photography is being used to promote human rights.

That night there is a “show and tell” opportunity for anyone who wants to bring work and talk about it for three minutes, and throughout the day the Center for Alternative Photography will run a “Tintype Photo Booth” where visitors can have their portrait made and learn about this alternative photo process.

There is a slate of exhibitions by photographers from all over the world. For example, Open Society Institute will show Wyatt Gallery’s work from Haiti; Nooderlicht in the Netherlands will present 11 photographers documenting life in prison; The Magnum Foundation will exhibit recent work by Bruce Gilden and Sim Chi Yin. Feature Shoot is showing work by young photographers, and PDN is showing the winners of The Curator contest.

Add to all this the beer garden and food, and the dog run where you can get photos taken of your pooch at play.

For more on the Photoville schedule visit their Web site: http://photovillenyc.org/about.html

photo courtesy Paris Photo

Californians: Have you ever wanted to attend Paris Photo, but couldn’t face the airfare, jet lag, or chance of a general strike?  Paris Photo, the international art fair, will launch its first event in the US next year. The organizers of Paris Photo, which is managed by Reed Expositions France, yesterday announced the creation of Paris Photo L.A., featuring roughly 80 French and international galleries exhibiting inside the 100-year-old Studios at Paramount in Los Angeles from April 24 to 28, 2013.

Paris Photo, which takes place each November in Paris, includes an art fair that last year lured 140 galleries to exhibit at the Grand Palais, plus portfolio reviews, the Aperture Photobook Awards, and a lot of networking opportunities in venues around the city. In the car-dependant city of Los Angeles, the fair will be centered on a single, sprawling location. A full schedule of events and a list of exhibitors will be announced this fall.

The timing of the fair looks likely to overlap with the Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA), which was launched in 2009 to showcase the Los Angeles photo community through interconnected exhibitions, seminars and a portfolio review.

The full announcement of Paris Photo Los Angeles is available here as a PDF.