My photograph, “The beginning of hope/The hope of beginning,” from the series The Maybe Lakes, is included in the Krappy Kamera exhibition at Soho Photo Gallery.
The exhibition runs from March 15 through April 2, 2023. An opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, March 16, from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m..
Soho Photo Gallery is located at 15 White Street, New York, NY 10013, and can be reached by phone at 212-226-8571.
If you visit the gallery, be sure to see the Film is Dead exhibit by guest exhibitor Jim Rohan.
The juror for Krappy Kamera was photographer, artist, and educator Jean “Gino” Miele, who wrote:
When I had narrowed down nearly a thousand entries to just under a hundred, my wife asked me, “What are you looking for?”
“Magic,” I said. “Ooh. Aah. Better than good. A feeling. A big, unequivocal, yes!” I wasn’t looking for “good,” or “I kind of like that.” I wasn’t looking for clever, or cute. (To be honest, there was one exception to this, but it really made me smile.) I definitely wasn’t looking for cliche.
I was looking for access to another dimension. There's a dream world intertwined with this one, and we all drift back-and-forth, never entirely sure which world we’re in. The pictures I selected for the show made me feel like I could see both worlds at the same time.
We all create our own metaphorical lenses and, depending on the lens we look through, we each see a different world. I’m grateful to the final 50 in this exhibition for sharing the magic of their worlds with us. These artists understand that photography — that seeing — isn’t a passive activity. It’s an act of creation. The photographs in this exhibition haven’t captured something “out there.” They provide glimpses of half-remembered truths from deep “in here.”
These pictures all have mojo. Something extra. Mystery. Alchemy. Poetry… written with a plastic lens.
- Jean ‘Gino’ Miele, March 2023