FIRST PLACE: Diane Kaye 'Relationship Issues'
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' FIRST PLACE: Diane Kaye 'Relationship Issues' (Click on image for larger view)
RELATIONSHIP ISSUES by Diane Kaye
FIRST PLACE
(Click on image for larger view)

Curator Bob Weil says, "I was intrigued about a number of elements in this image. The shadowy masculine presence in the middle distance with a bit of a swagger to his stance, the reclining female nude in the foreground with the crease running down the center of her body (as if she is internally divided about her next move), and the serene, even blissful look on her face that belied any concern about may happen next.

The background is a bit surreal and suggests a dream (is she subject or object?), and the textures and creases separate as much as they connect.

You can imagine any number of narratives to support what is happening in the scene – happy dreamer / imagined lover (but which is which), a moment before the rendezvous or minutes after, or unrequited attention (the man, after all, has his back to our heroine)? Works of art challenge and tantalize, and this collage accomplishes that and stays with you.
 
As part of the process of recognizing competition winners, I like to invite the artist to say something about the backstory underlying the artwork, and to share a bit of technical journey they took in creating the piece (if they’re willing to share this information).

Here is what Diane Kaye had to say about her inspiration in creating the piece:  “Her software matched her up with a handsome guy.  One night he came to dinner, but excused himself to go have a cigarette.  Hoping to seduce him, she dipped into the water.  Suddenly she had a psychic-intuitive vision of him far away, moving away, and she felt like hopelessly staying there in the deep pond, sinking.”
 
And because so many of us enter competitions to see if we can win, we also want very much to see how others achieve  their objectives in the hermetically sealed worlds they create, I like to ask a bit about technique. Because who wouldn’t like to know a bit about another artist’s creative process?

Here is what Diane has to say on this front:  “I searched in my archives for two existing 35mm negatives which would tell a story, and rather than totally overlap them, as I’d previously done, I trimmed most of the sprockets off the one and overlapped them partially, careful to keep the man in a dreamlike illusion, a smaller scale, suggesting further away than the girl. 

The cut edge is the 'water level.'  I held them together in a 4x5 glass negative carrier.”

Addional Review by curator Sandrine Hermand-Grisel:
"This image is really stunning!
It reminded me actually of the surrealist movement in France and the work of Man Ray and Lee Miller. Beautiful composition! I love it, great work!

http://www.hermandgrisel.com/index.php
Founder All-About-Photo https://www.all-about-photo.com/
 
Diane Kaye says, "I fell passionately in love with photography one night in a darkroom class back in the film days, and that energy remains alive these many years later.  Pictorialism represents, for me, one of the important ways I have of getting away from literal reality while using the most literal tool, the basic camera.  I envy the fact that painters can wake up in the morning and paint their dreams, and that particular yearning pushes me to strive as far as I dare to make some wonderful non-literal sense with my work, whichever particular way I decide to plan my little escape from reality.  Sometimes, as is the case with these 3 images, I like to explore what I can do with film and the simplest of escape techniques.
 
BIO - 3 Typical Years of Awards 
 
2018
Award for "Double Infinity", Black & White Magazine: "Looking Back—Looking Forward 2018 contest", Pinhole/Plastic Camera category, December 2018 Magazine
 
2 Honorable Mentions: The International Photographic Salon of Japan, The Asahi Shimbun, The All-Japan Ass'n of Photographic Societies, Tokyo, Japan for "Church, Santa Fe" Panoramic Infrared Lith Print
 
2017 Monochrome Awards - announced 2018 - Honorable Mentions: in Abstract for "Olancha", in Conceptual for "5 Red Balls", in Landscape for "Woman in the Dunes"
 
2nd Prize, "Still Life": "Chromatic Photography Awards International Color Photography Contest 2017" (for a Lumen Print -announced 2018)
 
2017
Chromatic Photography Awards, 2nd Place, Still Life, for "Bottles in the Rain" Lumen Print
 
2017 MonoVisions Honorable Mention for "Skin on SIlver" Series "Nude" Category
2017 MonoVisions Honorable Mention for "The Intimacy of the Photogram" Series "Fine Art" Category
 
12th Annual Black & White Spider Awards:
Honorable Mention: Abstract Category for "Spontaneous Dance"
Nominee: Abstract Category for "Raindrops on Lumen Print"
 
10th Annual Pollux/Gala Awards:
Finalist, Fine Art "The Long Moment" Color Series
Honorable Mention, Still Life, "The Flow" BW Series 
Invitation to show at: 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography, Barcelona
 
10th Annual International Color Awards: Nominees in Abstract ("Birds of Paradise"), in Fine Art ("English Cathedral", and in Still Life ("Blondes Have More Fun")
 
Honorable Mention, The 77th Inernational Photographic Salon of Japan, The All-Japan Ass'n of Photographic Societies and the Asahi Shimbun, Honorable Mention
Honorable Mention, New York Center for Photographic Art, "Liquid", Juror: Debra Klomp Ching, Owner of Klompching Gallery, NYC
International Photographer of the Year 2017:
Fine Art - Abstract "His and Hers" 
Nature - Trees "Arboretum of the Imagination Series" 
Category: Open Theme "Glass I Series"; in addition, "Organic Whoosh Series"
 
2016
IPA 2016, Honorable Mention, Still Life for "Sehnsucht - 3D Lumen Print"
 
"Pannonia Reflections Salon of Photography" International Exhibition
 
"The 77th Annual International Photographic Salon of Japan" "The All-Japan Assoc. of Photographic Societies"
Honorable Mention for "Heel and Toe", to tour various Japan cities for 2 years starting March 2017.
 
"Monochrome Awards": 7 Honorable Mentions in Landscapes, Conceptual, Nude, Abstract, and Fine Art
 
11th Annual Black & White 
Spider Awards:
Nominee in Abstract | Dune Goddess 
Nominee in Abstract | Spontaneous Dance 
Nominee in Fine Art | Sweet Dreams 
Nominee in Nature | Achafalaya #1 
Nominee in Nature | Storm, Monument Valley 
Nominee in Silhouette | Into the Light 
Nominee in Still Life | Equivalences 
Nominee in Still Life | Medusa's Bouquet 
 
9th Annual International Color Awards:
Nominees in Abstract: "Yellow Whoosh" and "Red from Lumen Series"; Nominees in Still Life: "Organic Purple Heart" and "Dance of the Trumpets from 'The Beauty of Decay'"
 
"ND Awards 2016" Honorable Mentions in "Fine Art Other" and "Fine Art Abstract"
 
Finalist, International Photography Competition "NAKED" at Soho Gallery, NYC
 
Short-listed: Magnum Photography Awards 2016
 
Prix de la Photographie Paris, Honorable Mentions for 2 Series: "Alternative Process Reds" and "The Blink of an Eye"
 
Piazza Italiano, Berlin, Germany (5 Images): "4th International Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography”
 
EDUCATION
Liberal Arts Degree, University of California, Berkeley: Edward Frank Kraft Scholarship Prize; Distinction in General Scholarship, Phi Beta Kappa
Karl August Universitaet, Goettingen, Germany
Studies with Ruth Bernhard, Michael Kenna, Jerry Uelsmann, Ray McSavaney, Ansel Adams, Rod Dresser, and other master photographers ”
 
www.FineArtBotanicals.net  
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The Pictorialist Photograph HOME:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil

First Place:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/first-place-diane-kaye-relationship-issues----/1

Second Place:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/second-place-ellen-jantzen-to-have-and-have-not----/1

Best Series:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/best-series-rebecca-clark-civil-brutality-idyllic-repercussions-and-obsessive-reflection----/1

Honorable Mentions:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/honorable-mentions-chelle-delany-mother-i-michael-jantzen-mobile-home-park-jane-schultz-the-unraveling-sonia-melnikova-raich-butterflies-of-memory-mykel-rose-study-for-a-beach-installation----/1

Exhibition #1:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/exhibition-1/1

Exhibition #2:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/exhibition-2/1

Exhibition #3:
http://www.laphotocurator.com/the-pictorialist-photograph-curator-bob-weil/exhibition-3/1