A brief administrative announcement: Cold snap + Heat problem = Uninhabitable gallery!

NYC weather is cold with temps only in the teens for the day and the heating system’s gone kaput. Rather than become human icicles, we’re closed for the day. We’ll resume regular hours tomorrow (Saturday): Noon – 6pm. Please come see us then!

Pink Dots by aspiring HS Grant Willing

It seems like Winter’s finally arrived here in NYC, which I’m glad about, because 70 degree balmy days are downright weird in January. Also I’m heading to LA in a few short hours, so good bye to all this! I thought I’d leave you all with something to keep you warm while I’m gone. Not just warm… hot. And by that I mean: Hey, Hot Shot!. The 2007 season is on! We are currently accepting entries for the Winter Edition. The deadline? Tuesday February 6, 2007 @ 9pm.

Alice is back in Chicago for a few short months. We miss her already, but she’ll be tending to the Hey, Hot Shot! blog while she’s away. And updating our photo stream with work from the contenders daily too.

I’m very excited about HHS! in the ‘07. We’ve got a great panel, and the 2006 Yearbook is coming soon. (I’ve seen proofs and omg! it’s gonna be fabulous.) Being a Hot Shot puts you in good company. I’m excited about the community that’s growing up around the competition, and bursting with pride over all the interesting things these photographers get themselves up to.

Speaking of which: Hey, Hot Shot! ne plus ultra, the 2006 Annual, opens next week. I hope you’ll join me and the Ultras at an opening reception on Wednesday January 24 from 6pm – 8pm. Good stuff!

The January edition of PDN has a two page spread on James Deavin’s recent exhibition, Photographs from the New World. Unfortunately I can’t link you to the article, since it’s available to subscribers only online, but a) it sure looks purty (lots of photos from the exhibition) and b) the writer, Scott Tillitt, did a great job and was a pleasure to work with.

The issue is on newsstands now, but here’s a snippet to tide you over:

In another real-life parallel, most non-professionals use the camera like a point-and-shoot and simply save small JPEGs to their hard drives—pictures of friends and family and such “to act as memory in the future,” Deavin says. And that’s how he thinks his own images can best be understood: “as a piece of Second Life history, markers of a time when people were still viewing the new world through the eyes of the old.” As gallery owner Jen Bekman sees it, Deavin is “an explorer in this new territory, largely uncharted and almost entirely a mystery to the general public.”

Being named an Innovator of the Year by American Photo makes me feel like a freakin’ rock star.

Photo by John Von Pamer

It’s not the surprising congratulations I’ve received from unlikely quarters, it’s not that it made my momma proud (in fact I don’t think she’s even picked up the issue yet), it’s not that they managed to come up with a photo of me that I actually like (after I totally dropped the ball on getting one to them, thanks guys!) But really mostly it’s the very fine company I am in. Other Innovators on the list:

Caterina and Stewart (for Flickr, but of course)

Lesley Martin, Executive Editor of Aperture Books

Joerg Colberg, founder of Conscientious

All these Innovators have something in common: They are past, present or future panelists for Hey, Hot Shot!, a cornerstone of the gallery’s program, and one of the main reasons I was selected as an Innovator. As an added bonus, Fall 2006 Hot Shot Shen Wei get an Honorable Mention in the Images of the Year section. It’s great to be in such fine company, and I know for a fact that each and every one of us has some more innovation on tap for 2007.

Also, American Photo deserves an Innovator shoutout itself. Their State of the Art blog is starting to make waves. Web editor Jay DeFoore conceived the blog as a supplement to the print version and has managed to create a nice blend of old school and next wave. It’s great to see the EIC David Schonauer making regular contributions. Miki Johnson is the chief contributor, and she’s prolific in the way that bloggers ought to be. Her recent Blog It, Share It post was widely linked to, not just because she linked widely, but because it was a great synopsis of the whole blogging photographers thang. (Go, Miki, GO!)
Originally posted on Personism, I apologize for the cross-posting/repetition.