Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Collections, Part Three -- Slow Exposures 10th Anniversary Retrospective



One of the major events on the annual Southern fine art photography calendar is the annual SlowExposures juried show and general photography festival held in and around Concord, in Pike County, Georgia in September. 

The folks who run SlowExposures describe it as "A Juried Exhibition Celebrating Photography of the Rural South," but it is in fact much, much more. In addition to the show itself, there are the satellite shows, the portfolio review, the discussions and seminars with distinguished photographers, the parties, and the black tie Ball.

The whole thing adds up to a major celebration of photography in the American South, well worthy of the notice its gotten nationally in recent years from the New York press, including CNN, Elizabeth Avedon, and the New Yorker magazine.

Here's a History of SlowExposures, especially in the early days.

Last year, 2012, was the 10th annual SlowExposures show. As people do when they realize they have been doing something, and doing it successfully, for a significant period of time, the folks at SlowExposures decided to have a retrospective of the history of their enterprise, a special show drawing together work from all of their previous shows, to be held at the Whiskey Bonding Barn.


So, there you are. Where else can you go to a major photography show in a building called the Whiskey Bonding Barn?  A building that has its own website? And in a field in rural Georgia, at that?

But what was important was what was inside, which consisted of work by a group of photographers who attend to the rural South, and with some success, photographers who had made art and found meaning in the fields and forests and small towns of the part of the South that is still most in transition from the hardscrabble world of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the glittering postmodern worlds of internationally interconnected cities like Atlanta and Charlotte and Miami and Dallas.

The folks chosen for this show are worthy of being known to us precisely because they have worked successfully in  the part of the South where past and present and future intersect most vividly, where the conflicts and contradictions and tragedies as well as the triumphs and the joys and the celebrations are the most distinctively Southern.


And here they are, with links to their websites when I can find them.  

Gary Cerasoli   
Amy E. Davison 
Gilbert Dean   
Gary Gruby  
Susan Hadorn   
Greg Huber   
John Sumner    
Yvette Tolson   
Joe Walter  
Charlotte Weber    

An impressive community of folks! Here's what Mr. Bennette had to say about the event. 

Congratulations to all these folks, and especially to Nancy and Chris and all the folks who make SlowExposures possible. Everyone interested in photography and in the American South is much in your debt.

5 comments:

  1. I have been following your blog for about 8 months now and wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your point of view, the photography you feature and the resources you offer. As an emerging photographer I have found your blog to be an inspirational, invaluable resource and have learned much from your insight. I entered the SlowE 2012 competition and was accepted! I attended a few of the events in Concord, GA and met a few of the folks mentioned in your blog. I owe you a big “thank you”.

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  2. Thank you so much for your kind words. Support like this keeps me going! JNW

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  3. oh my gosh -- this is so nice to read! The Whiskey Bonding Barn is such a wonderful place to have a show and SlowExposures is special. I am pleased to be part of helping at the barn and have work juried in SlowExposures. AND -- to see the photo of me in the barn on the blog is extra fun!

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