Results And Shots Of Frank Bette Center For The Arts Competition And Public Showing Of Local Photo Mastery Runs From April 13 Through May 25th
Photos and text by Larry Freeman
In a world where almost everyone packs a camera of some sort or another, Alameda abounds with photo opportunities for those with an artistic eye, but showcasing visually appealing shots in actual printed form for public consumption adds a whole different perspective to lenscraft.
Enter Alameda’s Frank Bette Center For The Arts (FBC) which recently hosted its annual contest, Alameda On Camera, (AOC) for 48 select shutterbugs of all ages and stripes, who now present their best shots on display for public viewing at their center on Lincoln Ave., Alameda.
This year’s 18th incarnation of the juried competition sent those 48 to one of 48 assigned zones in Alameda, giving them 48 hours to try their shutter fingers and mind’s eyes to what raw material the community offers up for visual art.
Creativity, imagination, stamina, sometimes sheer technical skill –or maybe ‘magic moment, random luck that leads to near perfection– combine to serve up the image hunters’ final products which are now on display to the public (for more, see bottom of this story above the photo gallery)
The contest tells prospective applicants that their mission behind the lens involves
“adult artists and our youth artists (who) roam the City of Alameda and capture images of neighborhood, favorite places, secret hideaways and, if they choose, spotlight families, friends and famous (and infamous!) town characters,” according to FBC’s website.
Photographers have virtually unlimited options regarding what they wish to do –or not do—to enhance, morph, or otherwise play and present their 6 chosen, final entries to be judged in a variety of categories comprising the competition.
Selection, by luck of the draw of a numbered slip in a hat, can play a role with respect to the abundance of wealth or relative paucity of interesting raw material to be captured by the lens and lens head.
FBC’s emcee and draw hat handler, Taggert Gorman, holds forth the vessel of lots that will determine which one of the 48 zones of the city the contestant will call their shot turf for the weekend
Some works show painstaking post shoot workmanship and may present as three dimensional creations, post production manipulations through digital editing wizardry and more.
One of the contest’s nine categories of works up for awards and prizes of gift certificates or cash made possible from local business contributions, “Multi Media,” is specifically suited for those who want to use post shot wizardry and manipulations
But the majority of those shots that qualify for framing and posting in two rooms of wall display at FBC tend to the mostly natural side of the art, seeking to represent what magical, thematic or visually engaging panoplies meet the natural eye behind the camera’s viewfinder or digital screen.
Part of being one of the 48 selected participants involves substantial time, and some amount of money to prepare the works for showing, involving printing the photos in various sizes (no limits) matting, mounting, framing and so on. For some entrants that aspect of the process is much more burdensome than tracking around town at all hours to find their photo fancies. For others, it is an artistic, creative experience unto itself.
With that in mind, FBC purposely limits the Youth Division entries to 4” x 6”.
The two youth division winners, Declan McFarland for his shot, Coexistence and Best of Show Honorable Mention, Youth by Lukas Yap for Industrialism which he provided for publication at right.
Not a part of the contest is a photojournalist’s mission to try and artfully capture the competitors in action as they fan out all over town to see what assigned region will avail. Many favor certain times of day, especially early morning and late afternoon or early evening winter light that tends towards soft, golden tones and shadow play.
FBC’s Exhibit reviewer, Karen Braun Malpas writes eloquently and insightfully about the photo display that brings new, seasonal life to the walls of their building and some of the visual treasures one will behold at FBC’s public showing.
“The walls of the gallery are hung salon style i.e. bumper to bumper high and low to accommodate as many pictures as possible. Because Alameda is rich in subject matter, everyone found something worth recording, often something they had never seen before because they’d never had to look with such focused intention and intensity.”
Malpas, in a posting for FBC’s website (read her entire review here: https://www.frankbettecenter.org/alameda-on-camera-review1.html) drills beneath the surface into the allure and consciousness of the photos, noting, in part, that “Stellar among the images of reflections is Stephen Elbert’s” BLU42” showing one of the pure and elegant moments nature produces which would have gone uncelebrated had Elbert not noticed and cared to freeze the transitory.
Many other artists showed the visual echo effect of reflections to fine ends: “Water building” by Jim DuPont,” Lagoon Moon” by Michael Ruggiero, “Sycamore Selfie” by Melina Meza and “Outside Looking In” by Eddy Lehrer which produced a surprisingly Art Nouveau image. Was that art imitating life or life imitating art?”
In some cases, as calculated or patient a photographer might be to come up with an image that grabs or says it in some profound or enriching way, a ‘keeper’ might just be a matter of being in the right place at the right time, a matter of pure serendipity, or even something broaching the supernatural.
TRANSFORMATIVE POWERS AND OTHER FORCES BEYOND JUST THE PHOTO
“You don’t fly if you don’t try,”
Maya Euell Hazard, a young, first time entrant who took Honorable Mention, the contest’s second top prize, recounted her experience at the awards ceremony on April 5th, speaking to the deeper side, of what, for her, was transformative , with, just maybe, a pinch of destiny or fate when it comes to what she captured into permanency with the lens.
“I felt so excited when my name was called. My heart was palpitating. I’m doing something called rejection therapy to learn that if you fear that you’re going to be rejected, just do it anyway. So I decided to just sign up and do it anyway.”
At that moment, for reasons unknown and perhaps unfathomable, a mosquito hawk flew past her face and both she and interviewer recoiled and winced at the fleeting exclamation point.
“Imagine my surprise that I found out that I got selected, and that four out of five of my pieces got put into the show. I was even more shocked that I even got Honorable Mention,” she gushed, face aglow amidst a wide smile and bright eyes.
To other folks who share the crimping power of rejection fear, Ms Euell-Hazard shared that it “ is the fuel of doing something that you are afraid of.. Fear is self protective, but it is also the fuel for you to do something that you wouldn’t really do. If decided not to do this, I wouldn’t have made it this far,” in what she suggested was a breakthrough moment for her.
“You don’t fly if you don’t try,” she said to herself and others impacted by the ‘holdback’ experience.
For “Best Of Show” winner, James Van Slyke, his dynamic was fueled more by happenstance and a kind of casual approach instead of a willful effort of self assertion or preconception.
Van Slyke took the approach of just ambling along with no set star to guide his mind’s eye preferring to just wait until the photo opportunity showed up in the here and now.
Speaking of the origin of his top prize shot, taken in the shimmering vault of photo ops that abound at Alameda’s former Naval Base, Van Slyke noted that he was just out walking his dachshunds in a morning ritual, and on this day, he and his basic, non pretentious, pocket sized point and shoot camera captured a classic, –albeit traditionally folksy — deep red façade reaching out in the morning light.
Noteworthy in the shot’s framing is how Van Slyke stood oh so slightly off center of the middle of his side frames to take full advantage of the gleaming glass frame of the windows on either side of the backlit stars and stripes. The color contrasts and tonal variations, of the shot’s reds whites and blues stand in near perfect synchronicity with the nation’s flag in the morning’s first gleaming.
Van Slyke noted that a powerful draw for him when first he beheld the red and gold allure of the photo, was ruminating about how, in days past when the former Alameda Naval Air Station housed combat aircraft, the structure was a hub of war back in the strife ridden days of Vietnam.
The locale’s conversion into a place of play provides him with an appreciation of the irony of then vs. now.
But what was then, in terms of those rich, varied 48 hours as collected through the multiple lenses, thousands of shots with over a hundred photos on display from the 48 adult participants and eight youths, belongs to now with respect to the public’s chance to behold the works of art through the lenses of their own eyes.
IT’S SHOWTIME AT FBC !
The Alameda On Camera public reception takes place Saturday, April 13 from 3 – 5 pm with a mid-show reception on Saturday, May 11, 3 – 5 pm. The exhibit will be up and open to the public free of charge until Saturday, May 25th. Normal opening hours are 11a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday-Sunday. Many of the photos are available for purchase at the center for those who wish to enrich their walls with local talent taking local shots. For more, please see Musuem website at https://www.frankbettecenter.org.
BELOW find a small gallery of some of the photographers at work during the weekend of 2/23-2/25 as they went ‘a huntin’ for their would-be prize shots.
PHOTO GALLERY
TO WHAT LENGTHS AND HEIGHTS? Alameda Photo and Special Education Teacher Bryan Farley, in his first year as an AOC contestant, searches for sunset light options that play with the Pampas Grass and clouds in the skies above the Harbor Bay Island bayshore. As it turned out, after two hours of driving to the location, eyeballing, framing, shooting and making position changes and more, the magical alignment of mother nature’s offerings that eve did not make the cut for Farley’s entries.
LIST OF THE WINNERS
Best of Show ~ James Van Slykefor Window of Hope
Best of Show Hon. Mention ~ Maya Euell-Hazard for Playing in the Dark
Nature ~ Ryan Lanthierfor Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’?
After Dark ~ James DuPontfor Alameda Hospital and the Moon
Every Picture Tells a Story ~ Barbara Jamesfor Early Catch
Historic Alameda ~ Ken Banksfor Green Shadows
Mixed Media ~ Karen Braun Malpasfor Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling
2025 Call for Art ~ Jeff Cullen for Webster Tube Best of Show
2025 Marketing ~ Jeff Shelby for Fire Escape
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Youth ~ Declan McFarlandfor Coexistence
Best of Show Hon. Mention, Youth ~ Lukas Yapfor Industrialism