BIG EYE GALLERY: Bar-Tur Award: Praise for the Personal Lens

Briony Campell, Family Portrait, 2011

In an advancing technological world that exponentially leaps from one new image- capturing gadget to another, photography is becoming a larger universe of tools and methods. Debates breakout over whether such things as digital images can be considered alongside traditional darkroom photography. To those involved in the newly inaugurated Bar-Tur Award these debates must seem as ridiculous as those that questioned the artistic value of photography at its inception. As one of the richest art forms of the modern world, photography seeks patrons that will feed those seeds growing in new directions.

Big Eye Gallery’s own founder Amnon Bar-Tur leads the way with the new Bar-Tur Award, devoted to diversity in photographic approaches and forms while encouraging the photographer to bring a new powerful perspective to the art world. Developed in conjunction with the University of the Arts London in honor of the late Ann Lesley Bar-Tur, the Bar-Tur Award celebrated its first winners this June in London.

Out of four alumni winners Briony Campell won best overall photograph in response to the theme Communication, and out of 12 student winners Sam Ledger won best overall in response to the theme Environment. Each walked away with £2,000 while the four themes of Environments, Communication, Identities and Lifestyles awarded a first place prize of £1,000, a second of £750 and £500 for third place.

While monetary reward is the life-blood of any art, it is only part of the honor in winning the Bar-Tur Award, which also profiles all winners in the Bar-Tur Award Publication, online gallery and traveling exhibition while also having exposed each photographer’s work to a who’s who of the professional photography world. The panel of judges included the talented and highly sought after documentary and portrait photographers Platon Antoniou and Tom Hunter, photographer Aidan Sullivan, Vice President of Photo Assignments at Getty Images, Fumio Nanjo, director of the Mori Art Museum, Caroline Metcalfe, Photography Director at Conde Nast Traveller and Shelley Page, Head of International Outreach at Dreamworks.

Briony Campell, Eating Dad's Dinner, 2011

Briony Campell and Sam Ledger are now the leaders in what is sure to become a prestigious award that not only gathered an abundance of renowned judges sure to set the standard high, but also gathered entrants that succeeded in embodying the goal of the Bar-Tur Award. Briony Campell won for her depiction of her experience during her father’s battle with terminal cancer. The winning photograph “Eating Dad’s Dinner” holds a powerful gaze from Campell herself as she sits at the feet of her father’s sick bed and eats the food he is unable to eat. Her gaze is a clear individual perspective of grief and holds the banner of personal context high.

Sam Ledger brought an entirely elevated perspective through his black and white image “79825619518114.0” of skyscrapers above a cloud layer. It is removed from the human and thus truly ethereal, but hints at some human element that allows the tower in the foreground to communicate to the mention of another in the background.

Each winner may seem at a glance to emphasize the loss of humanity through death and cold, empty constructions, but in actuality their images point to their own human instinct. This instinct forces us to capture and document the importance of one individual point-of-view and way of understanding, but also forces the humanity of the viewer to find their own way to look. All the winners of the Bar-Tur Award not only enrich the photography field, but stand fast in an ever-globalizing and homogenous society to methods of diversity and tools that extend the personal lens.

ALUMNI WINNERS