Saturday, October 24th:

Panel discussiosns 2PM - 4PM

Gallery opening 4:00PM

100 images were selected by a blind jury process to be hung in the North Fork Arts Center’s gallery @ The Sapan Greenport Theater. 500 images were entered into the show by 175 local East End artists. We’re sorry we didnt have room for more of them. Many more could/should have been in the show.

The Call to Artists:

Every so often, a photograph stops you. You don’t choose it — it chooses you. You linger, you lean in, and long after you’ve walked away, it stays.

IMPACT is a search for those photographs. Not the technically perfect ones, necessarily — the unforgettable ones. The frame that holds a moment, reveals a beauty, or tells a story you can’t quite shake. We’re inviting you to share yours

What makes a great photograph, how do the pros select images to be published. What do they look for.

WHAT MAKES A PHOTOGRAPH IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET?

We have all seen photographs that stay with us long after we have looked away. Some have become iconic, part of our collective memory. Others may be known only to us, yet somehow we can’t forget them.

Why?

What gives a photograph that kind of impact?

Is it the subject? Composition and light? Timing? Emotion? Originality? The story behind the image? Does a powerful photograph need context, or should it be able to stand entirely on its own?

And how much of its impact comes not from the photograph, but from us—the viewer? The same image can move one person deeply and leave another untouched. Time, culture and personal experience can change what we see and how we respond.

What can we learn from images that can make our own photography stronger? What do experienced photographers, editors and jurors see when looking at a photograph? Why does one image rise above hundreds of others? And perhaps most importantly, when looking at our own work, how do we recognize the photograph worth showing?

There is no formula for creating an unforgettable photograph. But by understanding why certain images stay with us, perhaps we can become better at seeing, making and selecting the photographs that have the greatest IMPACT.

Amnon Bar-Tur

Amnon Bar-Tur is a photographer, photojournalist, entrepreneur and co-founder of the international BarTur Photo Award. Born in Israel, he began his career as a military photographer and correspondent and later photographed for Haaretz before moving to London to study photography at the London College of Printing and Graphic Arts. His work was widely published internationally before he moved to New York and built C2media, a major digital imaging company. In 2011, Bar-Tur and his family established the BarTur Photo Award, which supports and recognizes photographers whose work addresses important social, environmental and cultural issues.

www.barturphotoaward.org/2023-jury-1/amnon-bartur

hotmirror-magazine.com/

Jim Willse

James Willse is a distinguished American journalist and newspaper editor whose career spans more than four decades. He served as editor of the New York Daily News and later as editor of New Jersey’s Star-Ledger, where the newspaper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist eight times and won twice during his tenure. Named Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation in 2000, Willse began his career covering the civil rights movement in Alabama and went on to work for the Associated Press and San Francisco Examiner. He has also taught nonfiction writing, including as a visiting professor at Princeton University.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Willse

Harvey Stein

Harvey Stein is a New York–based photographer, educator, author and curator whose career spans more than five decades. A longtime faculty member at the International Center of Photography, Stein has taught at ICP since 1976 and has also taught at the School of Visual Arts, New School University, Drew University and Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the author of ten photography books, including Coney Island People 50 Years, Harlem Street Portraits and Mexico: Between Life & Death. His photographs have been widely exhibited and are held in more than 60 permanent collections. His work is especially known for its intimate exploration of people, place and the relationship between photographer and subject.

www.harveysteinphoto.com/

Panelists

Guerin Blask

Guerin Blask is a New York City-based photographer and director renowned for his striking celebrity portraits. Raised in both Tucson, Arizona, and Cooperstown, New York, his work is deeply influenced by the contrasting landscapes of the Southwest’s desert and the quaint charm of the Northeast. Guerin has earned a reputation as one of the most sought-after image makers in music, advertising, and entertainment, delivering bold visuals that captivate audiences across multiple industries.

His distinctive style has attracted an impressive roster of clients, including TIME, The Washington Post Magazine, New York Magazine, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Music, Universal, Atlantic Records, Fast Company, The Sunday Times Magazine, Forbes, and The New York Times.

www.guerinblask.com/tearsheets

Macall Polay

Best known for her work on film and television productions, Macall Polay is a photographer whose stills have been published internationally in books, magazines, and newspapers and featured on billboards, movie posters, and online extensively.

Her many TV credits include Game of Thrones, The Penguin and Boardwalk Empire, while her films include A Complete Unknown, In the Heights, The Goldfinch, and Burn After Reading. She has worked with directors such as James Mangold, Jon Chu, The Coen Brothers, Wong Kar Wai, Lin Manuel Miranda and Park Chan-Wook.

She’s a longstanding member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers (S.M.P.S.P.) as well as a member of the International Cinematographers Guild. In 2019, Polay received the prestigious ICG Publicist’s Award for Excellence in Still Photography for Television.

A graduate of New York University, she is also known for her travel photography and portraiture. Polay lives in New York City.

www.macallpolay.com/Behind-the-Scenes/1

Deborah Feingold

Deborah Feingold began her photography career in an unusual darkroom: a Boston prison cell, where she taught troubled youth in the early 1970s. This experience cemented her belief in the camera’s power for self-expression and communication, laying the groundwork for her distinguished career. Moving to New York City in 1976, Feingold quickly rose to prominence with her iconic portraits of music legends such as Chet Baker, B.B. King, James Brown, Bono, and Madonna. Her ability to put subjects at ease resulted in intimate, enduring images that have appeared in Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Feingold’s work, featured in her 2014 book “Music” and the PBS special “Icon: Music Through the Lens,” continues to inspire and influence the world of music photography.

deborahfeingold.com/portraits/

PanElists