The Capital Region is taking over Nashville — musician Annie Scherer has advanced to the final four in Music City Mayhem, an emerging artists competition hosted by Nashville radio station Lightning 100.
The Voorheesville native, who moved to Nashville in October 2021, learned about the Music City Mayhem competition last year, and, this year, she decided to take a chance and submit, with few expectations. Scherer was one of 32 Nashville artists selected to compete in Music City Mayhem.
“I really didn’t think I was going to hear anything,” Scherer said. “When I got the email about being a finalist, I was so stoked. I knew I had to go as hard as I could to try to make it as far as I could.”
Artists went head-to-head, and the public voted online for their favorite each week. Scherer and indie rock band Nite Tide are two of the confirmed artists in the final four; the other two artists will be determined soon after the last round of voting before the live finale concludes.
The final four will compete for the Music City Mayhem crown on April 27 at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville. Voting will happen in person and online during the event from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern Time. The grand prize winner will receive an artist development and promotion pack valued at over $9,700.
Regardless of the outcome, Music City Mayhem has already made an impact on Scherer’s career — Lightning 100 played her music, along with the other competitors’ songs, throughout the competition, and she’s been able to connect with more of the Nashville music community. Winning, though, would give her advertising and heavy airplay on Lightning 100 plus a membership to HOME, which provides resources and studio space for artists particularly in the pop and alternative scene.
“(The HOME membership) is something I’ve always considered but I just I haven’t done yet,” Scherer said. “To have that (radio) package and that membership would help so much… It would be such a leap forward. I’m just grateful for everyone, everyone who’s voted and taken the time to listen to our music.”
Photographs from youth in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation are set to be on display this weekend.
CBC’s Library Partnership Project, CBC Newfoundland and Labrador, Melville Public Library and Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries are holding a community Labrador In Focus photography exhibit on Saturday.
The Labrador In Focus exhibit will be held at the Lawrence O’Brien Arts Centre from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. AT. Food and drinks will be provided at the free event.
The Labrador In Focus program is meant to give Labrador youth the tools they need to capture their unique world. The photograph subject is completely up to the young photographers.
The photographers, aged 13 to 23, chose to depict everything from life celebrations to being out on the land.
“I loved it so much,” 15-year-old Mary Saunders said of the program.
“I love this experience and I feel like people should join and try to experience something new.”
Saunders said she learned how to set her white balance and edit images. Saunders’ favourite photograph she took is one of her sister. It was one of the first pictures she took and sparked a love of portrait photography, she said.
Other photographers took pictures of things that are important to them. Elliot Pike, 20, created his own long exposure photographs showing movements of northern lights with flashlights and lightsabers.
“I always wanted to learn about photography,” Pike said. “I think I’m really proud to see the exhibit on Saturday.”
The Labrador In Focus program is funded by the CBC Library Partnerships Program. The program is to explore partnership opportunities with public libraries to further community engagement.
Have thoughts about community programming like the Labrador In Focus photography program? Reach out to the program creator here.
Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
Over the past few years, video has pushed its way to the top, shoved mainly by social media algorithms. The change has encouraged some photographers to diversify and offer video alongside photography — but how long-lived is that trend? A new survey by Zenfolio and Format suggests that the amount of photo-video creators have dropped dramatically over last year’s numbers. The same survey also showed that roughly half of photographers use artificial intelligence, but only two percent use the technology that generates images from scratch.
The State of the Photography Industry 2023 is a bi-annual survey of photographers with more than 2,000 participants. This year, most of the photographers were from the US, but the UK, Canada, and Australia also had many participants. The study is done by Zenfolio and Format, both companies behind websites and sales platforms for photographers.
While the survey contains many statistics, one of the more surprising numbers is the change among hybrid photo-video creators. In last year’s survey, 64 percent of the respondents shot photos only, and 34 percent both photos and videos. In the latest study completed in February 2023, 70 percent shot photos only, and just 17 percent dabbled in both.
Despite social media’s prioritization of video, video-only platforms like TikTok remain on the bottom for marketing efforts — only 1.6 percent of photographers earning more than $100k considered it a marketing focus, and only 1 percent among photographers earning less than $10k.
Does that mean video is on its way out? Not necessarily. The two companies conducting the study and the survey itself primarily focus on photographers. Many of the respondents were likely those using Zenfolio and Format. That means the study doesn’t say much about the state of the videography industry or photo-video creators such as social media influencers. The statistic does not indicate trouble for the videography industry.
What it does suggest, however, is that fewer photographers are feeling the need to diversify by adding video to their repertoire. As cameras became capable of doing both in one device, some photographers added video services. Others are investing in high-resolution video cameras and pulling the stills for prints. Some platforms have even theorized that this process of taking stills from video will eventually replace event photography. Yet, the survey suggests that fewer photographers in 2023 are shooting stills and video than the previous year. This is good news for photographers that have felt that video pressure from social media yet lack the time or desire to diversify.
The study also dove into the growth of A.I. in photography. While only 20 percent of participants thought the technology was good, almost half said they integrated AI into their workflow. Around 36 percent said they used the tech sometimes, with nearly 14 percent using it regularly.
However, only two percent admitted to using an AI photo generator. A majority use the technology for sharpening and noise reduction. That’s followed closely by auto-subject, background removal, and skin smoothing. Facial recognition and photo culling were also on the list.
Generative AI has mainly been criticized by the photography community, from copyright lawsuits over the training data to a photographer who won a photo contest with an AI image to prove a point. But, not all AI is wrong — 91 percent of those surveyed listed editing among the top three tasks that demand most of their time. Roughly 41 percent said they wanted to spend less time editing. Besides the obvious answer of getting it right in camera, AI-based technology is already helping to make that possible. Just look at Lightroom’s ability to automatically select the skin or teeth in a portrait or Photoshop’s ability to detect and select the subject.
There is a wrong way to use AI — generating an image without properly labeling it as a computer’s creation. Only two percent of respondents said that they used an AI photo generator.
It took two years for Golga Oscar to finish a fur parka that appeared in a dream.
Two elders gave Oscar the long parka in the dream. It was made out of wolf and mink fur, materials traditionally worn by the Yup’ik people of Alaska. The bottom of the parka had black and white embroidery and the arms were lined with a black stripe, something Oscar had never seen before on a Yup’ik style parka.
“The parka design was really elegant and beautiful,” Oscar, 25, said. “One of the very unique parkas that I never seen in my life.”
That parka will be one of the centerpieces of Fashion Week Minnesota’s Northern Lights Native Nations Fashion Night next Tuesday at the Machine Shop in Minneapolis. Fashion Week Minnesota kicks off Sunday and goes through Saturday, Apr. 29 with a different theme each day.
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Designer Golga Oscar, 25, will appear in Fashion Week Minnesota on Tuesday, April 25, 2023.
Courtesy Golga Oscar
Oscar is headlining as the main Alaskan designer, along with two other Indigenous artists, in the Native Nations Fashion Night show. The show is dedicated to showcasing the lifeways of Yup’ik Alaskan and Great Lakes Woodlands Anishinaabeg cultures.
“What connects the three of us designers together are the Northern Lights, which happens in the wintertime and springtime,” said Delina White, Native apparel designer and organizer of the show. “It’s considered in the Native nations that those are our relatives.”
Oscar is a two-spirit artist from a small, rural village in western Alaska and is also a member of the Yup’ik Nation, an Indigenous group in west and southwest Alaska. Fashion Week Minnesota will be Oscar’s first fashion show outside of Alaska.
“I want to tell the world that the term Eskimo does isn’t doesn’t really define the majority of Alaskan Natives,” said Oscar. “My work represents Yup’ik culture and defines a specific tribe other than the term Eskimo.”
They are a self-taught artist specializing in sewing, beading, carving and basket weaving. Oscar’s work, which includes parkas, headdresses and mukluk boots, draws inspiration from archived photography collections of Yup’ik traditional clothing and books on cultural history.
“To have Oscar’s artwork and a piece of his traditional cultural arts in Minneapolis is really special, rare and unique because it doesn’t happen often,” said White. “His work is beautiful and such a distinctive art form.”
Oscar said art saved their life from “Western ideology and Western toxicity.” When Oscar’s not working on a new parka or headdress, they teach Yup’ik language and arts at a local school in their village with an emphasis on decolonizing Indigenous culture.
“I’m doing this for myself, my family and especially my community and my students,” said Oscar. “I want them to understand that pursuing artistry, pursuing your culture, pursuing your identity can bring you to many places and unveil a lot of hidden facts about your cultural identity, and the history behind it.”
Tickets for the Northern Lights fashion show start at $75 and are available at fashionweekmn.com.
PORT TOWNSEND — Shelly Leavens is joining the city of Port Townsend as its new communications and marketing manager.
She will begin work May 4.
“Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together,” said Leavins, the former executive director of the Jefferson County Historical Soceity.
“Now is a great time to join the city team,” she added. “With so many opportunities to communicate on city priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”
Leavens recently stepped down from her position with the historical society, an organization she led for nearly five years.
Prior to that, she was curator and public events manager for the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, an Instructor at University of Washington, and an independent contractor focusing on curatorial work, collections, and oral history.
She holds a master’s in museology from University of Washington, focusing on public history interpretation and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University.
Her hire “is a significant step forward in improving how the city communicates, engages, and works with our community and partners to make a real difference, according to City Manager John Mauro.
“I’m thrilled to introduce Shelly as our new Communications and Marketing Manager, although she likely doesn’t need an introduction to the community she knows and loves so well,” Mauro said.
“Shelly stood out among a number of really excellent candidates for her deep leadership skills; her clear, approachable, and strategic communications and marketing style and acumen; her collaborative ethos; and her strong commitment to positive change in this community,” Mauro said.
“She brings a wealth of experience to this new role as an artist, storyteller, communicator, and change-maker.”
The role functions as the city’s strategic lead for communications and marketing, providing technical expertise as a conduit between internal teams and external organizations to plan, coordinate, and deliver strategic communications, marketing and engagement with the Port Townsend community and beyond, according to the release.
The city is undertaking a number of high-profile public engagements this year, including decisions concerning the Port Townsend Golf Course, an aquatics center, streets, housing and financial sustainability.
Shelly Leavens says: “Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together. Now is a great time to join the City team. With so many opportunities to communicate on City priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”
Nine current open positions can be found at https://cityofpt.applicantpool.com/jobs.
Leroy CooperThe man whose arrest sparked the Toxteth riots has said an exhibition of his photos was a “labour of love” after 40 years of telling the story of his city on the streets.
Leroy Cooper was 20 when his arrest in July 1981 became the the catalyst for nine days of disturbances in the Toxteth area of Liverpool.
Now a photographer he has taken more than 250,000 images in his career and said the exhibition was important for the city’s black community.
Liverpool Through The Lens is running at the Museum of Liverpool, Skylight Gallery.
In the run up to the riots, tensions had been rising in the inner-city area with police having a reputation for stopping and searching black youths.
Mr Cooper’s arrest on Selbourne Street, near Toxteth’s Granby Street, was watched by an angry crowd on the evening of Friday 3 July 1981.
The Merseyside officers’ treatment of Mr Cooper led to a fracas in which three policemen were injured.
The disturbances escalated rapidly and turned into full-blown riots with pitched battles between police officers and youths throwing petrol bombs and paving stones. It was the first time CS Gas was used in England to quell the disorder.
In the years after his arrest Mr Cooper enrolled on a photography course and pursued a career as a photographer and produced images to counter negative depictions of the neighbourhood.
He said the Liverpool Through The Lens exhibition showed the area as a “place of warmth, community and family”.
“I think after Liverpool’s connection with black people over 300 years it is a very important moment in the city. They are celebrating my work after 40 years of being on the street telling the story of our city,” he told BBC North West Tonight.
“It’s a labour of love – I genuinely love the people of Liverpool.”
The museum said “Leroy’s evocative and insightful images are a love letter to the city and the Liverpool 8 community.”
It added: “Accompanied by text written by Leroy himself, the images chosen reflect on themes including racism, justice, the transatlantic slave trade, community, inequality, empire, migration, pride, solidarity, culture, family and regeneration.”
Helsinki-based Felicia Honkasalo’s research-based photography connects history and geography, life and death, and human and animal. The artist’s 2019 book, Grey Cobalt saw her imagine the life of her late grandfather (whom she never met), through the objects, photographs and documents she inherited from him. For Wallpaper’s April 2023 issue, Honkasalo brought a highly attuned perspective to our story on Finnish design icon Björn Weckström’s epic sculptures and chunky jewellery. While the frailties of the human condition are a lifelong preoccupation for Weckström, Honkasalo’s work explores the stories we tell ourselves in order to understand seemingly inconceivable or imperceptible things.
Spread from Grey Cobalt, 2019
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo/ published by Loose Joints)
Wallpaper*: Describe your style and process
Felicia Honkasalo: My artistic process usually starts with something small or seemingly trivial that catches my eye, won’t leave me alone, and then turns into a full-blown obsession.
Recently, I have been pretty obsessed with gothic horror and different mythologies related to how people understood death and contagious disease before the advent of modern medicine. Vampires stand out from other mythological characters in European folklore because there is actually quite a substantial amount of archaeological and legal evidence of what people in those times believed they were capable of accomplishing. I have also been interested in how profound grief makes us turn to magic and the supernatural, and perhaps this is how we come to understand that the border between life and death is perhaps not as easily defined as humans would like to believe.
During my artistic research, I use photography as a way of arranging and reforming the ideas that I collect. This has been a practice of mine for a long time, and usually, these photographic series morph into the final installation. Creating still-lifes in my studio helps me narrow down what it is I’m actually looking for and distil that idea into one image.
‘Silenced’ (1978), by Björn Weckström, as featured in the April 2023 Issue of Wallpaper*
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: How did you bring your way of working to our shoot on design icon Björn Weckström?
FH: I actually haven’t had as much fun shooting in a long time as I did during this assignment. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, there were just so many beautiful, intricate and otherworldly objects in his studio. I could have stayed there forever! Archives are something that has a gravitational pull on me, and the influence of sci-fi on his works was something that resonated with my own practice.
A plaster model inside designer Björn Weckström’s home in Espoo, near Helsinki
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What do you think is the most interesting thing happening within photography now?
FH: I have been fascinated by AI and how it is used in contemporary art. Those AI-generated images that lots of photographers posted on Instagram were something really fun to look at, but at the same time, somehow terrifying. I guess reading too much sci-fi doesn’t help, but there is this feeling of unease when you look at computer-generated images that are that good. It seems like a phenomenon that in the beginning is taken up with lots of excitement, and only later the long-term political and social consequences become apparent.
From Grey Cobalt, 2019. Published by Loose Joints
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What’s on your radar?
FH: Ever since I was young I have really loved reading, as a way of obtaining knowledge but also as a way of escaping to other worlds, created by other minds. Recently I have been reading authors that use horror as a kind of narrative tool to explore the environmental degradation happening all around us but also embodied experiences of terror and grief. Authors such as Silvina Ocampo, Mariana Enriquez, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Carmen Maria Machado have really influenced my thinking.
Quite a few of Enriquez’s stories are also written from the point of view of teenagers, and I have been interested in this liminal position, and the connected indifference or maybe aggression that society has towards teens. In some ways, teenagers are ostracised, ridiculed and feared, as if their liminal existence really is a threat to the general population.
Afterimage, 2023. Still Image, Upcoming video work
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What’s next for you this year?
FH: Currently, I’m finishing a new video work starring the amazing rodeo star Kaylee Barker, which was filmed during my residency in New Mexico. I will also be an artist in residence at Sema Nanji in Seoul, South Korea, which is pretty exciting. I have a solo exhibition coming up so a lot of work goes into preparing new works.
feliciahonkasalo.com (opens in new tab)
