The Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation announced today that Brooklyn-based photographer Emily Schiffer has been selected as the winner of the 2010 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. Judged as a separate category in PDN's Photo Annual competition, the Arnold Newman Prize recognizes an individual for his or her innovative approach to photographic portraiture.
Miss Schiffer's winning portfolio documents youth on the Cheyenne River Reservation in rural South Dakota, where she founded a photography program in 2005. For her winning work, Schiffer will receive a $15,000 cash award and an August 2010 exhibition at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME. The exhibit opens on Saturday, August 14 and will be included in PDN's 2010 PhotoAnnual special issue.
“Our favorite locations are the fields and abandoned buildings on the fringes of town, forgotten places thick with the past that lend themselves to imaginary games and textured photographs,” Emily Schiffer explains. “My images explore 'play' as a vehicle through which youth reveal and negotiate their emotions, traumas and desires. Children have a unique ability to experience love and joy alongside pain without compartmentalizing their experiences. I wanted to convey this complexity through my photographs,” she added.
Final judging was conducted by a panel of respected and influential members of the photographic community including New York gallery owner Howard Greenberg, and Michael K. Komanecky, chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum.
The “Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture,” first announced at last year's PhotoPlus Expo, is completely underwritten by the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation with support from Maine Media Workshops, the ASMP, Photo District News and the Farnsworth Art Museum. Schiffer was selected from a large pool of entrants who requested consideration for the Newman Prize from their entries to PDN's Photo Annual competition.
The call for entries for the 2011 Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture will open again in October 2010. For complete rules and guidelines, please log on to the contest page.
