Nothing big in the grand scheme of things, but enough to make me pretty ecstatic! All are college scholarship shows and juried shows.
So far:
2007 Scholarship - Photo dept. faculty Award for Excellence in Photography (out of over 600 photo students at the college)! I displayed four matted projects on the wall for review, each one consisting of at least three prints. All work was chromogenic prints. We then had to leave the building and let the art department faculty come in and do their judging. It was only $500, but quite an honor to be *the* most highly-awarded photographer in the school, especially with a scholarship that they do not grant every year; only when they feel the work deserves it. (None was granted this year, or the prior year.) I was utterly exhausted and dead broke, so did not get frames for the ensuing scholarship exhibition show. All the mats were odd sizes, so I would have had to have made my own frames. Too bad.
2007 Annual Juried Student Exhibition -
'Photography Can Be an Unusual Medium' - I submitted three of the same four series' I had displayed for the scholarship portfolio review above, and one series was selected by the juror for display in the juried exhibition. It was a three-print photo series taken inside the Norton Simon Museum during the exhibit "The Collectible Moment", The exhibit was about the history of the Norton Simon's photography collection. The people I shot were museum guards. "'Photography Can be an Unusual Medium'" was the name of a circa 1970's-vintage article they had displayed in a glass case in the show. It had been published in one of the museum's newsletters back then. Not only did I take a picture of it, but I stole the name for my own title (but the fact that it is a title is part of my own title - notice the quotations). I did make the frames for this one, and they sucked.
Here is the series on the wall in the gallery. The prints were on 20x24 paper from 35mm negs. Myself and my father are in the reflection at left. It was the first time he had ever seen any of my work, or been to school to see what I was so crazy about with photography. (This pic was taken with a Leica IIIc and Ektar 25 film...surprised I got a usable exposure in there! The negs for the prints on the wall were shot with a Canon FTb and 50mm f/1.4 S.S.C.)
2008 Rotary Club Scholarship for vocational studies. The local Rotary Club gave the photo dept. four scholarships to dole out based on teacher recommendations, and I was one of them. $100 and a nice buffet. Whoot! I was ineligible to compete in the scholarship review this year due to a low GPA. It had been a tough prior year with my father getting sicker and sicker and finally dying, and my grades suffered. My favorite teacher felt sorry that they wouldn't let me compete, so she handed me this. I got to display an untitled piece consisting of items found in thrift stores. The first item, on the left (I built a shelf on which to display them) was a book entitled "Where and How to Sell Your Photographs", by Arvel W. Ahlers. The next two items were framed prints. One was an Ansel Adams shot (Merced River and Halfdome, I believe), framed from a calendar, and another was called "Oregon Light - For Peggy". It was a faded chromogenic print of some beautiful light streaming through the pines in Oregon. Obviously a personal photo blown up as a gift for Peggy. Both remained tagged with the prices and displayed in their cheesy gold frames.
The great thing about the annual scholarship show is that you get to put whatever you want in the show! SO it's a good chance to get things displayed that would under no circumstances get displayed otherwise!
2008 Juried Exhibition -
Latent Images - a photo project relating to my father's death, and the concept of the latent image as a metaphor. I built the aforementioned shelf specifically for this project. On the left was a framed original 4x5 b/w fiber landscape shot, on 11x14. It was a storm blowing out of Los Angeles last September. I ran up the hill to catch the clouds before heading to see a movie with my father. It ended up being the last time I saw him, and one of the last things we talked about was the pictures I had taken and how excited I was. He died three days later, before I had even developed the film. The second was an 11x14 backlit litho positive print from a 35mm color neg. in a custom-built white lightbox. The print was of my father's dead face on the slab. The third item was a thrift-store candy dish (with $3 price tag) full of my father's ashes. Mixed in with the ashes were 1" by 1" squares of a cut-up 16x20 dry-mounted version of the print. Next to the ashes was a sign that said "Please take one". Yes, plenty of people *did* take one. By the end of the show, lots of ashes has spilled over the side onto the shelf, and I estimate that about one-third of the 300-something pieces were gone. I didn't actually photograph the whole thing, but I did get this grab shot during the opening, while the juror was speaking. The bowl of ashes with the puzzle pieces was to the right of the lightbox, obscured by the two instructors:
(Picture was shot with a Canon 10D and 50mm f/1.2L.)