Photography show august - october 2023

  1st Place 

Lynne Lokensgard

2nd Place

Jerome Cabeen

3rd Place

Jerry Connally

Honorary Mentions

Amy Faggard

Jim Oakes

Bruce Shollmier

Juror

Dennis Kiel

Judge Honorarium Statement By Dennis Kiel

Jurying the Beaumont Art League’s Photography Exhibition was a wonderful yet challenging experience. With 81 images, it was a daunting task to narrow the field down to the final three. Nonetheless, I found it enjoyable and exciting to discover the themes and subjects that photographers from Southeast Texas are pursuing today.

A lot of the subject matter in this exhibition is familiar. A truly creative artist is someone who can reinterpret it in a way that will literally stop us in our tracks. An excellent example of this can be found in Lynne Lokensgard’s 1st place photograph “Starry Night”, the title making us think of the shapes in the rug as constellations in the night sky. If you spend time with the image and look at the child closely, you’ll notice that her arms and legs are positioned like the letter “x”, mimicking a similar although subtle pattern in the rug. The whicker object in the lower right corner initially threw me off balance (not a bad thing) until I realized that is was the perfect device to hold the composition together.

Jerome Cabeen’s intriguing street photograph titled “Theatre de Rue (Street Theater)”, my choice for 2nd place and possibly a homage to the work of Josef Koudelka, is beautifully composed with wonderful facial expressions and compelling hand gestures, the latter creating a rhythm that leads our eyes to the man on the right who is seriously pondering over what has just been said. 

“Into the Woods”, Jerry Connally’s 3rd place image, could have easily been a traditional scene of trees in a forest. Connally, however, has taken it a step further by capturing what appears to be the sun as it creates a diagonal ray of light shotting across the scene and resulting in a beautiful semi-abstract composition. This is a perfect example of what the noted photographer Paul Caponigro would describe as “the landscape beyond the landscape”.

Congratulations to the winners listed above as well as those who received Honorable Mentions: Amy Faggard (“Light’”, Jim Oakes (“Oil Tank,”), and Bruse Shollmier (“Growing Strong”).

Dennis Kiel