The 2022 Paula Riff Award

The Paula Riff Award was created by the Center of Photographic Art and Lenscratch in 2021 as a way to celebrate and continue the legacy of artist Paula Riff. Paula was an innovator, using lensless photography and historical processes to create objects of remarkable beauty.

The Award is open to artists whose art is challenging conventional photography through work that reflects the artist's hand, either based on the historical/alternative photographic processes or with physical intervention through cutting, sewing, etc.

One artist will receive $1000 and have their work featured on Lenscratch and on the Center for Photographic Art website. Winners will be announced on July 29, Paula's birthday.

Guidelines:
Please submit the following materials via WeTransfer to ann (at) photography.org
1. 5-10 images
All images must be jpegs or tiffs, not bigger than 2MB, longest side 1280 pixels
Save files with artist's last name, first name and title of image
Example: Smith_Jane_Restless1.jpg
2. Image List which includes type of print, medium, process
3. Bio
4. Artist Statement

Juror
Brenton Hamilton is honored to be the first juror of the Paula Riff Award. Paula actually began her camerless/gum bichromate over cyanotype prints at the labs in Rockport, Maine, in a Mentoring Course with Brenton. They had two very intense workshops together and Brenton is proud to be a part of this award in Paula's memory. Brenton Hamilton is an historian and renowned educator and also a working artist who's especially dedicated to using 19th century photographic methods in experimental ways. He has devoted his career to the history and practice of cyanotype, gum bichromate and platinum as base materials for his personal work. In addition to his practice, Brenton is an educator at Maine Media Workshops and has taught there for nearly 30 years. Brenton's work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many public and private collections. His monograph, A Blue Idyll, was published in the fall of 2020 by Schilt Publishing.

About Paula Riff
Paula Riff was a Los Angeles based artist known for creating one of a kind camera-less photographic works on paper that embrace bold colors, form and design. She combined the historical processes of cyanotype and gum bichromate allowing her a physical and intimate relationship with the materials that she used to push the boundaries of the medium while considering themes of abstraction and the natural world.

Her work was selected for the Critical Mass Top 50 Award in 2018 and 2019, and she was a 2018 finalist for the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women in the Alternative Process Category. Paula also received the Museum Purchase Award at the Medium Photo Festival in 2019. Her work has appeared in numerous museums, galleries, publications, and exhibitions throughout the U.S and internationally, and is also held in private collections. To see her extraordinary work and to learn more about Paula, visit her website: https://www.paulariff.com/