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Filling the Frame
Juror's Statement
“I like to work in that area where content almost overwhelms form.” — Garry Winogrand
One of the great pleasures of jurying an exhibition like this is seeing the wide range of approaches photographers took in their efforts to fill the frame. There were detailed close-ups, cityscapes, and magnificent natural landscapes; blurred action shots and still lifes; bold colors and subtle shades of gray; individual portraits, throngs of people, and a complete absence of humans. The rich variety on display here is a tribute to the artists’ visions, their ability to find order and beauty amidst the plenitude the world offers us.
The pictures that stood out for me were the ones that filled the frame with their subject matter (that was the relatively easy part), but that also had something to say — images on the brink of chaos that could find a way to sing. The photographs I selected were ones where I wanted to study every nook and cranny of the picture, and then I wanted to step back and revel in the entire composition, which would lead me back to the details and then again to the larger vision. Simply put, the images here are the ones I couldn’t stop looking at and reveling in.
The pictures that earned the Juror’s Award and Honorable Mention didn’t just fill the frame from side to side and top to bottom, but they also engaged the foreground, background, and middle ground, so there was a real sense of depth to the images. Rather than simply looking at these photographs, I felt that I could see into them, that I was in fact almost already inside them.
-Dallas Crow
The Director's Award revels in abundance—a tangle of intersecting lines that seems almost alive, pressing against every edge of the frame. Amid this dense geometry, two small figures ground the scene, offering a moment of narrative clarity inside the visual storm. It’s a beautiful demonstration of how complexity, when handled with precision, becomes its own form of harmony.
-Gallery Director Zach Hoffman
Banner Image: Anthony Striplen
Call for Entries
“The more stuff in the picture, the better. . . . In a sense it’s more fun to add more
stuff if you can, and still make the picture.”
— Lee Friedlander
For FILLING THE FRAME, we invite photographers to celebrate more: layered compositions, intersecting subjects, overlapping lines, patterns, and textures that fill the space with intention. Think of street scenes bursting with energy, crowded markets, tangled forests, intricate still lifes, or abstractions that challenge our sense of visual harmony.
This exhibition celebrates the art of composition under pressure—the creative act of finding beauty, coherence, and story in the midst of visual complexity. How close to chaos can you come and still make an engaging, aesthetically compelling picture?
We are honored to have Dallas Crow as the juror for Filling the Frame. He will select up to 35 images in our Middlebury, Vermont Exhibition gallery and another 40 images for our Online Gallery. All 75 images will be reproduced in the exhibition catalog and remain permanently on our website, and be promoted on social media with links to photographers' URL.
Submission Fee: $39 for 5 images, $6 for each additional image
Find more information about submitting your images here.
Click to enlarge
About the Juror
Dallas Crow is a teacher, photographer, and writer who lives in Atlanta. He has had work in juried shows in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Halifax (Canada), Athens (Greece), and Tokyo (Japan). In addition, his solo exhibition of photographs from the 49th parallel, "The Other Border," was mounted at Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis in the fall of 2018, and in the spring of 2021 he had another solo exhibition, "Thankful for the Blues," at Space Place Gallery in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. He has previously juried eight exhibitions for Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis, including Words, Words, Words; Letters, Numbers & Signs; Frames Within Frames; and On the Road Again.
His writing has appeared in numerous periodicals. His first poetry chapbook, Small, Imperfect Paradise, was published by Parallel Press, and another, Troutwatching, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.