Adil, your entry was indeed received - we always notify people if there are issues with their entries. Regarding your other inquiry: I started the competition in response to an overwhelming demand on my time. Many many people want to have their work reviewed and exhibited - I choose ten people four times a year and give those forty people as much individual attention as I possibly can, and this is in addition to my established relationships I’ve developed over the past four years of running the gallery. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find another gallery (or gallerist) expending this level of effort and attention in support of emerging photographers. I cannot possibly respond to each person who enters the competition on an individual basis.

I can’t even begin to define the genre of the Hot Shots - it’s wide-ranging, and part of the reason I love doing it is because it allows me to exhibit a diverse array of work.

Now that the competition is over, and the winners have been declared, I have some questions and a request -

Did my online entry come in complete at your end? I ask because the internet connection broke during the uploading of the images. I would be very upset to know that my entry was never even reviewed after all the effort and expense.

Can I request YOU to please take a look at my work now - which is what I originally wanted, but your gallery and site only allow paid entries to this competition. It’s nothing stellar - but I think you’ll like it.

The work that is featured on Hey HotShots - how do you define it, in terms of genre? Is it “contemporary fine art photography?” It has a different and uniquely consistent aesthetic which one does not find in mainstream media or other contests or even magazines like PDN. I also find it a bit confusing since I like it, but it does not conform to the usual artisitic merits of ‘content rich’ or ‘composition rich’.

Regards

Adil Jain
India

There is no reason I could think of to hide the facts from the hopeful. It is benevolent and beneficial to all those aspiring talents to be fully informed when trying to decide when and toward which dream our energies should be focused. Please, do the right thing.

Thanks for your explanation. I’m glad to learn that my assumptions were wrong. I guess one can get a bit cynical at how many open calls and galleries seem to focus as much on the CV as the quality of the work.

Keep up the good work! I think your contest fills a great niche and opportunity that many others are not willing to offer.

Douglas

Douglas, I’m surprised at your suggestion that there’s some kind of age limit. Many of the previous Hot Shots are in their mid-thirties, and I’m sure Joe Holmes won’t mind my mentioning that he’s a good deal older than that. This round has some young people in it, but Brad Moore, Mickey Smith and Jeffrey Krolick aren’t exactly recent college grads.

I like winning too, and understand disappointment at not being selected, but we’re hardly rejecting people willy-nilly. The competition is becoming increasingly competitive. I am blown away by the quality of work that is submitted and it just gets better with every round. They are hard choices for us to make.

I like to think that the blog is a nice complement to the competition’s finalists. Alice is doing a great job of featuring some, but certainly not all, of the contenders. Her goal is to feature the diversity of entries we receive, and I think she succeeds with that.

I also know that just being featured on the blog has led to great things for emerging and/or undiscovered photographers. Is it the same as showing in the gallery? No, of course not. But the blog gets and generates loads of traffic, so it’s a nice boost when someone’s work is published here.

Regarding the number of entries - we don’t disclose that information. We get either far more than you can possibly imagine, or not nearly as many as you thought we would. I will say this: the panelists look at every entry that comes in; we don’t pre-screen before reviews or anything like that.

It’s a lot of work to review scores of photos, but I’m happy that our panel is willing to make the effort. (And I’m impressed too, considering that most of them spend a good deal of time looking at work in their day to day lives too.)

Jen…how many applicants reached for the golden ring?

Cheers!

Peter Cohen

Cheers,

Douglas