Aperture is delighted to honor 2011 Portfolio Prize winner—Sarah Palmer—as well as four runners up: Thibault Brunet, Lisa Lindvay, Andrew McConnell, and Louie Palu. The work of these exceptional photographers has been chosen from nearly one thousand portfolio entries from around the world.

The 2011 Portfolio Prize site is now live, featuring five full slideshow galleries featuring the work of this year’s finalists, biographical notes, and elucidatory statements written by members of the judging panel—including Publisher, Lesley A. Martin, and Editor, Denise Wolff—casting an editorial eye on the work of each 2011 finalist.

We are also pleased to offer new limited-edition prints by winner Sarah Palmer, and finalist Andrew McConnell in our online shop.

Featured at top: The Bomb (Also) is a Flower by Sarah Palmer, $600, available here.

The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan is on a project to support young photographers, buying up work for their permanent collection. They are now calling for entries to the Young Portfolio 2012, a seach for exceptionally original work that pushes the boundaries of photographic expression or methods of production.

Qualifications for submitting to the seventeenth annual event are very inclusive. Basically, curator Yuko Yamaji writes:

As long as a photographer is under thirty-five years of age, he or she can participate as many times as they like, with the result that there are people who have taken part for over ten years and who have as many as one hundred works in our collection. Whether it is their first work or they have been published before is quite irrelevant.

Submissions will be accepted Sunday, April 15, 2012 – Tuesday, May 15, 2012. For an idea of the kind of work they tend to go for, the 178 images by 26 photographers that were selected last year with be on view at the museum Saturday, March 24, 2012 – Sunday, June 24, 2012.

This year’s selection committee is made up of Kikuji Kawada, Hiroh Kikai, and Eikoh Hosoe, Director of the Museum and photographer of the groundbreaking, classic Japanese photobooks Barakei and Kamaitachi. His 1963 collaboration with controversial author Yukio Mishima Barakei, part photographic performance, part surreal portrait of Mishima as both iconoclast and self-mythologist, was faithfully reproduced by Aperture as a facsimile in 2009, limited to 500 signed copies. Kamaitachi, another collaborative work produced with Tatsui Hijikata, founder of ankoku butoh dance, in 1969 was reproduced in close consultation with Hosoe by Aperture in 2005 as a limited addition facsimile, and again reprinted with an updated text in 2009. The work is a “magnificent and seductive combination of performance and photography,” a “subjective documentary” chronicling Hijikata’s spontaneous interactions with the landscape and people of the Japanese countryside.

Young Portfolio 2012
Submissions accepted:
Sunday, April 15, 2012 – Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Young Portfolio Acquisitions 2011
Exhibition on View:
Saturday, March 24, 2012 – Sunday, June 24, 2012

Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts
3545 Kiyosato, Takane-cho, Hokuto-shi, Yamanashi 407-0301 Japan

A1-29 (A1-The Great North Road), 1982, © Paul Graham

Photographer Paul Graham has been named the 2012 recipient of the Hasselblad Award, the first British photographer to win the prominent international prize.

Graham, hailing from Buckinghamshire, is a pioneer of color documentary photography in 1980’s Britain, influencing successive generations of young photographers. Self-taught, he grew up studying the works of American pioneers, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Paul Strand. A-1 The Great Road North, a color series shot along the British motorway and Beyond Caring, a string of photographs shot in unemployment offices, were projects that brought Graham to critical and international acclaim in the early 80’s.

More recently, Graham’s work has become purposely abstruse as he challenges preconceived notions of the ‘style’ of documentary photography. The most exaggerated example is American Night. The series, shot in 2003, explores social and racial issues of the United States through over-exposed images that appear almost invisible. “The photography I most respect pulls something out of the ether of nothingness,” Graham states. American Night is featured in Graham’s body of work that is a part of the exhibition trilogy, The Present, now being exhibited at the Pace/MacGill gallery in New York City.

With the acceptance of this award, Graham joins the ranks of noted past winners and Aperture published photographers, Robert Adams, William Eggleston, and Nan Goldin.

Graham discusses his career and fresh photography in Aperture issue 199.

When Kickstarter launched in 2008, it more or less revolutionized the way people went about funding their creative or artistic endeavors. It also popularized a new investment sector long-embraced by non-profits that some experts say has the potential to boost our sluggish economy. By making it incredibly accessible for anyone with an idea to reach out to the world for funding or self-publishing (instead of looking for the ‘right’ institution or donor for a grant). Kickstarter also helped unleash a flood of potential investments and start-ups–some worthier than others.

This is why we at Aperture have started our own Curated Kickstarter page, where we showcase the most promising and exciting projects we find to bring creative people and like-minded investors together. As one Kickstarter user told David Pogue of the Times, “Kickstarter is to Amazon as Craigslist is to eBay,” Michael Critz wrote in an email, “It’s a community.”

So far, four of the projects we’ve selected have been successfully funded.

Emily Schiffer’s “See Potential” will install mural-sized documentary photographs in the South Side of Chicago amid urban decay to bring to light the lack of affordable, healthy foods in the neighborhood and “use public art as a platform to transform urban blight into community engagement.”

Radiant Labs in New York earned nearly $3000 over their projected to goal to get their Long Island City photo lab “up and running and keep analog color and black & white darkroom practices accessible to the community.”

Booklyn, a decade-old organization that provides resources for and unites artists looking to create unique and limited edition books and works on paper, raised over $14,000 to turn their “digital database into a functional, friendly, searchable website.”

Photographer Cara Phillips raised $17,000 to publish her first monograph, Singular Beauty, “a photographic exploration of the world of cosmetic surgery.”

Two other projects await the same:

There’s just over a day left to support Anton Orlov’s Photo Palace Bus, a one-time yellow school bus turned mobile studio and darkroom traveling cross-country in support of analog photography.

And the makers of Hot Spots, a new documentary on Magnum photographer Martin Parr, his creative process and biting humor, following him as he travels through the South for a rare museum commission, are looking to reach their $23,000 goal by February 29.

Copyright by artist, clockwise from top-left: Sarah Palmer, Louie Palu, Lisa Lindvay, Andrew McConnell, Thibault Brunet

Thanks to all the photographers who took part in our annual Aperture Portfolio Prize contest this past year. Judges have gone through the submissions and after much deliberation, we’re pleased to announce the five finalists:

Lisa Lindvay

Andrew McConnell

Sarah Palmer

Louie Palu

Thibault Brunet

For almost a decade now, our contest has helped to identify trends in contemporary photography and bring the work of innovative and emerging artists to a wider audience.  This year, first prize is $3000 and an exhibition at Aperture Foundation.

Check back with us in the coming weeks as we get ready to announce the winner via email newsletter and our website and showcase their work. Don’t forget to check out the winning images from years past here. And remember, it’s never too early to start thinking about submitting for next year’s prize.

Digital Media Assistant
Aperture Foundation

The position will be responsible for translating content from within the Foundation to our online platforms, including the Aperture Website, Exposures blog, Facebook, Twitter, and our Vimeo page. This includes promoting and publicizing planned events and content, as well as creating an online video and/or photographic archive of these events. The candidate must be comfortable filming, editing and publishing video to both the blog and our Vimeo account.

The ideal candidate is passionate about all things photography and art-related, well-versed in social media and SEO, and familiar with the global photography community as well as the Aperture brand. Candidate must be flexible, organized, efficient and able to juggle multiple projects at once. Candidate must also enjoy working in a small, close-knit team in our busy New York office.

Primary Responsibilities:
• Analyze and report on user activity data; develop the Foundation’s understanding of visitors behavior and their connections to us online
• Strategize ways to increase site audience & engagement• Publish daily content with SEO value, track metrics, monitor and respond to conversations
• Film, edit, and publish video that archives and promotes events
• Moderate blog comments and participate in blog discussions
• Listen to users and solicit and interpret user feedback
• Translate feedback into actionable recommendations for audience growth
• Spearheading & executing social media plans for all blog content
• Assist in updating Aperture general website and store with multi-media and visual content as necessary
• Coordinate and ensure the coherency of Aperture’s social media presence and Aperture’s other activities

Qualifications:
• Experience in the following: online writing, editing, and blogging
• Experience in video and sound recording, editing, including podcasting
• Experience with still photography a plus
• Strong social media and SEO skills and experience
• Strong research, organizational, writing, and communication skills
• Basic understanding of HTML, Google Analytics and WordPress
• Interest in and/or experience with photography, New York cultural institutions, and art-related events

Please send cover letter and resume to newhire@aperture.org

Aperture is now accepting submissions to the 2011 Aperture Portfolio Prize, an international photography competition and the best way to share your work with Aperture’s editorial staff.

First prize:
-$3,000
-Online portfolio showcase
-Exhibition at Aperture Gallery & Bookstore

Deadline: Wednesday, July 13

Find all the details here.

See the 2010 winners here.

Editorial RM announces the second edition of The Best Photo Book of Latin America competition. The Mexico- and Spain-based publisher is dedicated to celebrating the best in Latin American art, and its latest call for entry seeks photo books—with or without text—where the work’s primary message is carried through photographs.

The competition is open to all photographers residing in Latin America, regardless of nationality. Registration is free and open through July 15^th at www.editorialrm.com. All submissions must be previously unpublished, shot within the last five years, and prepared for high quality book publication.  Submissions will not be returned.

The winner will be announced November 1st on RM’s website.  His or her work will be published in book form (in both English and Spanish) and promoted internationally by RM. The winner will also receive fifty complimentary copies of the book. In addition to the winning project, RM will display fifteen to thirty outstanding projects on its website as well.

This year’s highly esteemed jury includes Martin Parr (U.K), Horacio Fernandez (Spain),  Ramon Reverte (Spain / Mexico),  Jonathan Rockemore (U.S.A),  Dierre Neubert (Germany),  Iata Canabrava (Brazil), Marcos Lopez (Argentina), Paolo Gasparini (Venezuela), and Andreoti Olivier (France).

For more details, visit www.editorialrm.com.

For questions, email fotolibro@editorialrm.com.

And coming next week on EXPOSURES: look for behind-the-scenes coverage of Aperture’s upcoming fall release,

The Latin American Photo Book!

In this clip, photographer Christine Callahan explains how her work is inspired by the uncanny in ordinary places and her interest in light and geometry in her process of image making. Callahan also speaks about her influences and certain trends in her generation of photographers that appear in the exhibition.

reGeneration2: tomorrow’s photographers today exhibition and accompanying publication was recently presented at Aperture Gallery and is now on view in France at Galerie Azzedine Alaïa in Paris, and opening in Mexico on May 9 at the Centro de los Artes in Monterrey.

Click here to purchase the accompanying publication of reGeneration2: Tomorrow Photographer’s Today