We just received the information from Gallery Director Amanda Smith: Congratulations!  You have been accepted into A Smith Gallery’s “earth” exhibition juried Paula Tognarelli.  Of the 486 submitted images, 52 were selected for the exhibit. 

Exhibition dates: February 3 to March 12, 2017.   The reception for “earth” will be on February 25, 2017, from 4:00 to 8:00 pm during the Nugent Ave Art Walk, Johnson City, Texas.  I hope you can attend.

Laszlo’s image “Foggy Dawn” (Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone NP)

Lexi’s images: “Grand Prismatic Pool” and “Prismatic Pool” (Yellowstone NP)

I just received the information from the organizers (head: Jean-Jacques Milan) of the 10th Salon International Photo-Phyllis 2017 worldwide contest, Bordeaux, France, (1856 entries from 303 authors, 32 countries) about the finalists and the accepted images for the exhibition. Three of Laszlo’s images are on the wall (Category A: “Memento, Burned Pine Trees” color image, Category B: “Aspens of Gunnison” and “Dogwood” black and white images). Unfortunately, Lexi’s images were not selected for the Final, but one of her last year’s contests Highly Commended images were selected for this year’s exhibition advertising poster.

Dear Friends photographers,

At first thank you for your participation, which is going to allow us to realize one more time a very beautiful exhibition and to make discover to the visitors, in particular to the youngest, some wonders of the world of plants, mushrooms and myxomycetes.

The photos of the Salon Photo-phylles 2016 will have been hung in all during almost 5 months. They are at present exposed at the Home of the Nature of Gradignan, until February 12th; on Sunday last January 29th, 329 visitors were counted.

The list of the marks of 2017 is visible here: http://www.jjmilan.sitew.fr/#Resultats_2017.D

The prize list will be published before the end of the week.

Best Regards,

Jean-Jacques MILAN

Here are the remarks of juries and the complete list of marks obtained by your photos.

This document is temporary, perhaps it contains mistakes (names, titles of the photos, etc.) that I do not want to find in the catalog. Please let me know as soon as possible!

Results: (link)

Judgment and notation: The rooms of the Botanical garden of Bordeaux do not allow to expose in good conditions more a great number of photos but in accordance with custom we declare “accepted” from 20 to 25 % of the received photos; in 2015 it was 25 % in each section, about 600 in everything ; only 152 were exposed. In the biggest international Salons it’s much worse: 80,000 received or sometimes more, 20,000 admitted, 400 exposed!

Notes vary traditionally from 0 to 5, according to the very simple following scale:

0: Photo off theme, no mark.

1: Banal subject and big defects.

2: Big defects but some qualities.

3: Average photo, possible exhibition.

4: Photo deserving being exposed.

5: Photo deserving to be awarded.

I ask systematically to the judges to attribute one 4 or one 5 to approximately a quarter of photos, so that their marks are spread in a similar way and so that none of them takes a dominating influence on the others. The photos of the young participants are noted at the same time as the others, without being indicated to the jury. They receive a bonus of 1 point for the category 16-20 years, 2 points for the category 11-15 years and 3 points for the youngest people who are 10 or less.

How to miss an entry: Photos being individually judged, two frequent errors decrease the probability of getting exposed photos:

– Follow the fashion. In 2014, we received hundreds of poppies, roses and blurred photos; in 2015, lots of drops of water and insects in flight around flowers. On 200 photos of the same fashionable subject, perhaps 50 will be accepted… and 2 or 3 exposed.

– Present similar photos. They will be already compared between them before being compared with those of the other competitors, only one at best will be exposed. Furthermore, their author gives to the jury the impression that he does not know how to choose in his own production.

Conclusion: do not take care too much of what the others make, do not try to imitate them, make what you like and not what you believe that the jury is going to like, finally always compose entries as diversified as possible.

Patronage: For the 8th salon (2015) and the 9th (2016), we asked only for the FIAP Auspices, not patronage. The reason is that we could not obtain the patronage without sending a printed or CD catalogue. In one hand such a catalogue needs money and in the other hand we do our best in order that entering the Salon remains free. In 2017 we will ask for the patronage because on line catalogues are now allowed. For this Salon we it was too late and the financing was not insured.

After some delay, the 2016 Salon obtained the FIAP Auspices : AUSP 2016/04

Visitors and entrants:  The Photo-phylles Salons are not like other ones. In fact most of our entrants are a part of a great and faithful family of both plants and photography lovers. They participate for the pure pleasure of showing their best works, They know that each exhibition receive several thousands visitors, among them lots and lots of pupils and schoolboys come with their teachers to learn much things related to the world of plants and mushrooms. It’s also why we take great care of the catalogue and include numerous pictures which were not officially accepted but remain rather good and informative ones.

Végétaux, flora, vegetables, plantae, fungi, protista, etc.: In French, we call “végétaux” an heterogeneous group of living beings the cells of which have walls formed by cellulose, such as flowering plants, ferns, mosses, seaweeds… There is no equivalent English term, at least in the ordinary language, to indicate globally this set. The cells of mushrooms have a wall made of chitin, as those of the animals, hence the separation of the kingdoms Plantae and Fungi. Myxomycetes are a part of Protista, a very heterogeneous set of unicellular beings which we also classify in a separate kingdom.

The limits of the kingdoms are not clear. It is the men who classify, not the nature. Lichens, for example, are formed by the association of a seaweed and a mushroom. In English, “vegetables” means salad, spinach, etc. , whereas “flora” indicates both plants and mushrooms.