“OPEN
CALL”
ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper”. – W.B. Yeats
We’re delighted to present the results of our Open Call competition, judged by celebrated conceptual photographer Alex Prager.
For this Open Call – the last competition before our winners are exhibited in Rotterdam, Paris and Milan – we set no constraints, asking you to inspire us with your creativity, no matter the subject matter or style. It’s therefore no surprise that the resulting selection encompasses fashion, documentary, street, conceptual and portrait photography, taking us on a thrilling journey from the underground nightclubs of Sao Paolo to the ice fields of Russia. Alex Prager’s work is influenced by cinema, pop culture and street photography, and there is something of that here, but really the selection is a broad and diverse celebration of creative photography today.
Congratulations to the selected photographers, and thank you to everyone else who submitted. You can join the discussion on Facebook and Instagram.
FIRST PRIZE – WILLIAM MARK SOMMER
www.williammarksommer.com / @williammarksommer
“I was immediately drawn to this image, the way it encapsulates the Wild West through a timeless lens. There’s a depth that echos the vast history of the American landscape and a peaceful stillness that almost looks staged. I like that it makes me question the reality of what I’m viewing and reminds me a different and more calm time from the past amidst the current chaos. While this might be fabricated, it’s a very real feeling and sentiment that the photographer was able to capture through their choices.” – Alex Prager
“This image has a breath-taking, postcard-like magnificence – a view across the immense landscape of Monument Valley, and a lone figure on horseback, surveying it from the precipice. It elicits thoughts of old cowboy movies, the black and white treatment only adding to such nostalgia. The present time gives cause to re-evaluate the scene though, classic ideas of cowboys as daring heroes overlaid with a more painful reality of white imperialism and the suppression of native culture. That this horse is trained to stand at the cliff edge so that tourists can recreate this classic viewpoint and be the cowboy themselves is an idea as troubling as it is seductive.” – Life Framer
SECOND PRIZE – STEFAN DOTTER
www.stefandotter.com / @stefandotter
“I love the raw emotion that emits from this image and the pure joy I feel looking it. The humanity seeps through in every detail and choice, compositionally and through the use of color (and lack there of). I was drawn to the expansiveness of the image as well as its simplicity.” – Alex Prager
“With clean white clothing against an empty blue sky, there is a purity, a simplicity to this image, and the low vantage point Stefan takes creates a sense of wonder, a child’s-eye view looking up at these ladies’ broad, infectious grins. There is an ambiguity – few contextual clues to what, or who we’re viewing – but Stefan’s statement tells us that these ladies are in fact Japanese Ama pearl divers, who practice a traditional fishing method dating back to the 8th century. It’s a compelling, joyful glimpse into their world, a jolt of positivity in a photographic style that seems to draw from fashion as much as it does documentary portraiture.” – Life Framer
MARCO DI STEFANO
www.marcodistefano.net / @__marcodistefano
“There’s something beautiful about this image – in the rich, saturated color palette; in the framing – the curve of beach dwellers in the foreground, and lines of headland in the background drawing attention in towards the center of the frame; and in the simple fact that such a carefree, busy beach scene may not be something we experience again for some time. The tattooed man feeding a goat, almost the only person facing towards Marco’s lens, is a quirky bonus detail.” – Life Framer
DAVID KEITH BROWN
www.davidkeithbrownphotography.com / @davidkeithbrown
“This is a wonderful use of reflection to build a scene that is packed with interest, but somehow maintains a strong visual order. It’s a trick that lets us into this taxi driver’s world, while also describing the city around him, and the dichotomy between his relaxed state and the busy drama outside as he waits for his fare is very well observed. People speak of an ‘organized chaos’ in India, and this image (taken in Kolkata) captures something of that.” – Life Framer
MAKIKO
www.makikophoto.com / @makikophoto
“This is an image of Battleship Island, an abandoned mining facility off the coast of Southern Japan which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. With distant framing and desaturisation to bring out the pale grey tones, sea fading into sky, Makiko gives the image a sense of eeriness and otherworldliness, emphasizing the idea of it slowly fading in time. It paints the island like a distant memory – strange and magical and just out of reach.” – Life Framer
VLADIMIR ANTAKI
www.vladimir-antaki.com / @vladimir_antaki
“Vladimir’s is a strange but compelling perspective, asking his subjects to pose formally in their environment, distanced and with near-symmetry. It invites us to dwell on the scene – these soldiers standing together in the foliage, seemingly a cross-section of ranks and statuses, frozen in his lens for a moment before dispersing back into the world. Despite the artificiality, there’s something that feels very naturalistic about it. It’s an effective idea that, when repeated across a series of images might give a fascinating insight into the journey through Southeast Asia Vladimir takes.” – Life Framer
KEVIN PERCIVAL
www.kevpphotography.co.uk / @kevpphoto
“Stood in front of the Wornington Word Estate in West London – as Kevin’s statement tells us – this lady looks outward with uncertainty, held in worry or scepticism perhaps. In an area impacted greatly by austerity, gentrification, and a growing wealth divide, it eloquently hints at some of these trends on a very personal, human level. The viewer can’t help but envision a narrative for this lady, and imagine the changes she may have seen over the years.” – Life Framer
JONAS DAHLSTRÖM
www.dahlstroem.weebly.com / @joda317
“Images of city architecture, with stark contrast between light and shadow and a lone figure passing through can feel a little trite, but this image is fantastic. There’s a real sense of drama and scale – a depiction of the enormity of our urban constructs, and in the graffiti an almost futile effort to personalize it. It’s engaging and visually satisfying, and the tiny bird perched on the lamppost – nothing natural left for it to engage with – is a lovely, unexpected detail.” – Life Framer
ALEXANDRE B LAMPRON
www.dronehikers.com / @dronehikers
“Picked out against the snow in setting sunlight, these gravestones are a stark reminder of loss, as experienced by this lone figure at the cemetery gates. It’s a powerful scene, captured from a vantage point that accentuates the shadows and hints at the scale of loss. There’s an obvious bleakness, but the warm light perhaps offers a suggestion of hope.” – Life Framer
MACKENZIE CALLE
www.mackenziecalle.com / @yippee_calle
“In a wry, subversive and visually satisfying way, Mackenzie comments on the impacts of single-use plastic, consumerism and over-consumption. By placing this hackneyed message directly in the landscape, it wittily emphasizes our wont to take as we please from the environment. Sharply done.” – Life Framer
CLAUDIA TURNER
www.cloudyturner.com / @cloudyscribbles
“Taken during the clean-up operation of an oil spill off Daesan port in South Korea, there is something a little comical in the way this man’s suit billows in the sea breeze, but ultimately the message is bleak. As this man stares out into nothingness, it seems to describe a world less and less habitable to humans by our own doing. The cigarette he holds is a wonderful detail – a coping mechanism in one sense, but also a symbol perhaps of the damage we wreck not just on the environment but on ourselves.” – Life Framer
CASPAR ARNHOLD
www.caspar-arnhold.de / @caspar.arnhold_works
“This is a fascinating portrait that straddles fashion and fine art. The subject’s ‘collar’ – the title of the series from which the image is taken – is highlighted against the dark strokes of ink, and is charged with meaning: something that represents decoration, but also control and constraint. The messy, impulsive treatment of the image seems apt – there is beauty but also trauma.” – Life Framer
NOAH DOLINSKY
www.noahdolinsky.com / @noah.dolinsky
“Capturing a face in the crowd, there is something in this image – in the colors, the softness, and the brief moment of human connection – that makes it beguiling, as these citizens of Bangkok go about their business during Chinese New Year in Chinatown.” – Life Framer
DEB LEAL
“An otherworldly view of Badlands National Park, painted in unnatural and alluring colors, and with this stranger navigating its unfamiliar contours. It has the feeling of a dream – fuzzy an unknowable – and is incredibly artful.” – Life Framer
LUCAS GIBSON
www.lucas-gibson.com / @lucascgibson
“Taken from a series that documents alternative nightlife in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, this is a brilliant portrait – in the mysterious outfits, in the blank stares, in the symmetry, and in the way they hold at each other’s necks, part lovingly, part menacingly. It captures something of the creativity, the excitement, the camaraderie and the edginess one can imagine makes up this underground scene.” – Life Framer
HUSSAIN ALI
www.hussainalsaden.me / @hussainalsaden
“Documenting a region in Southern Turkey that has been flooded by the construction of a new dam, Hussain presents a scene that is almost abstract in composition – an inverted sky and a single electricity pylon floating in the stillness, its red paintwork popping against the turquoise. There is a silence and peacefulness that conceals the destruction, and the displacement of hundreds of people that Hussain describes in his statement. That contrast makes it all the more engaging.” – Life Framer
DUY PHUONG
www.fuongle.com / @duyphuong_lenguyen
“Duy photographs an advertising hoarding, marketing a luxury residential development. Already warped and deteriorating in the weather, and with a strangely unsettling color palette due to the artificial night-time light, it hints at the messy reality behind the glossy, immaculate lifestyle being sold. In Vietnam, where construction is happening at an alarming pace and so many still live below the poverty line, the ideas this image communicates are particularly significant.” – Life Framer
KOSTIANTYN STUPIVTSEV
@squaretheframe
“A gorgeous image which is arresting and inspiring – a single figure untethered in a magnificent, unspoilt landscape. It highlights the absolute immensity of the world we inhabit, and nods perhaps to the ultimate insignificance of our lives as individuals, in a freeing rather than gloomy way. The way the light hits the ice creates a terrain that looks like a sky filled with stars, the whole scene seemingly inverted in this way.” – Life Framer
ISIS ASCOBERETA
www.isisascobereta.com / @ascobereta
“Covered in plastic sheeting, this statue – in the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris – takes on a new form: more abstract, more playful perhaps. It emphasizes the idea of the statue as an oblique ode to the past, things we pass in the urban realm every day, often without knowing or really caring about in who’s image they are cast. One can’t help but think about the many statues being toppled around the world in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement – this statue may or may not be protected or hidden in that context, but either way it questions how we engage with the past.” – Life Framer
ANGELIKA KOLLIN
www.angelikakollin.com / @angelikakollin
“This is a deeply emotive portrait that describes love and companionship in the face of loss. Titled simply ‘Hold me ‘til I go – a story of cancer’, it explores a painful subject, but is structured to emphasize the complexity of feelings – there is a hint of light in the darkness, there are elements of softness against the cold, concrete backdrop. Bare and in intimate embrace, what ultimately prevails is their togetherness in facing adversity.” – Life Framer
