Project Presentations

CENTER highlights excellence and innovative contributions to the field each year with the annual Awards and Project Grants. The selected lens-based artists receive financial support and publishing and exhibiting opportunities made possible by Analog Forever Magazine, Catalyst: Interviews, LENSCRATCH, Strange Fire Collective, and the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts.

In October 2022, each artist shared an intimate view of their project covering today’s most critical issues – mental health, systemic racism, climate change, depleting resources, and current teaching practices, among other topics – followed by a discussion with Moderator Holly Stuart Hughes, Independent Editor, Writer, and Grant Consultant.

Holly Stuart Hughes is an independent editor, writer, and grant consultant. The former editor-in-chief of PDN (Photo District News), she has organized panels and lectured on artists’ rights and the business of photography around the U.S., and served as a portfolio reviewer at several photo festivals. A graduate of Yale, she has written on photography and media for Time.com, The Telegraph, Multichannel News, Taschen Books, American Photographic Artists, Magnum Photos, Carlton Publishing, and Blouin ArtInfo Media.

Winner of the Project Launch Grant, David Walter Banks specializes in documentary, portraiture, and advertising lifestyle imagery. Banks will discuss the making of Practice Resurrection, and how his commercial assignments and personal assignments feed each other and his creativity.

Featured image “Fields leased for growing culinary herbs by Jacobs Farm Del Cabo in Santa Cruz Country, California” © David Walter Banks

Balancing Assignments & Self-Assignments –
2022 PROJECT LAUNCH GRANT

12pm MT on October 25 - watch the recording

Maximilian Thuemler’s Born From the Limb combines self-portraiture, still life, landscape imagery, and archival imagery and materials. He will explain how he created a tight-knit and cohesive sample for his Project Development Grant submission and the role of constant editing and curation in creating work that interrogate historic representation.

Featured image “Self-Portrait Toppled Over Out Back, Glynn Country, Georgia, 2020” © Maximilian Thuemler

Editing a Long-Form Photo Project & Grant Proposal –
2022 PROJECT DEVELOPMENT GRANT

1pm MT on October 25 - watch the recording

Luis Corzo was abducted at the age of 6 along with his father and held for ransom, an event he has investigated in his project Pasaco, 1996. Corzo, the CENTER Social Award winner, will explain the value of feedback and critiques as he developed new portraits, still lives, landscapes, and text to portray a chapter in the history of his family and of Guatemala.

Featured image “Juan Crozo, Jr.’s left hand - After about three weeks into the kidnapping, Juan Corzo, Jr.’s left ring finger was amputated.” © Luis Corzo

The Value of Feedback on Text & Images –
2022 SOCIAL AWARD

12pm MT on October 26 - watch the recording

Arista Slater-Sandoval, the CENTER Personal Award winner, explains how her practice of “free writing” helped create the conceptual images in her project Parable for Hysteria. Slater-Sandoval will share her advice on editing and incorporating critiques in developing a long-term personal project.

Featured image “Brazen Bull” © Arista Slater-Sandoval

Writing & Images –
2022 PERSONAL AWARD & 2021 PROJECT LAUNCH GRANT HONORABLE MENTION

1pm MT on October 26 - watch the recording

Esha Chiocchio, winner of the CENTER Environmental Award, will explain her process for editing images, audio interviews, and text in her project, Good Earth, creating engaging sequences that illuminate the human stories behind the complex issues of soil stewardship and sustainable agriculture in New Mexico.

Featured image Tommy Casados rotates his cattle through several pastures and moves them almost daily within each pasture to ensure the grass is not overgrazed. This strategy, also known as carbon ranching, helps build deep root systems which increase carbon in the soil, thereby making it more resilient to flooding and drought.” © Esha Chiocchio

Sequencing & Editing Multimedia for Clarity
2022 Environmental AWARD

12pm MT on Octber 27 - watch the recording

Callanan Excellence in Teaching Award winner Uche Okpa-Iroha, founder and director of the Nlele Institute in Lagos, Nigeria, will share some of his best known art projects and discuss his teaching, practice, and how he and his students address social and cultural issues.

Inspiring & Teaching Conscientious Creativity –
2022 TEACHING AWARD

1pm MT on October 27 - watch the recording

Me&Eve Grant winner Heather Evans Smith describes the conception, development, and crafting of the images in Blue, and how she turned a personal experience into an artistry that resonates widely.

Finding an Audience for Personal Projects –
2022 ME&EVE GRANT

12pm MT on October 28 - watch the recording

Dan Fenstermacher, winner of the Excellence in Multimedia Storytelling Award, will explain how he developed the visual style seen in his project Food Chain. He will share how exploring in-depth, long-term projects helped him find his photographic voice.

Featured image “A fisherman uses a rope wrapped around a tree and anchors the end of the line as the fishing canoes are hauled onto the beach at the end of the workday.” © Dan Fenstermacher

Finding Your Personal Voice –
2022 MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING AWARD

1pm MT on October 28 - watch the recording