It has been eight years since the establishment of the The Denis Roussel Award. Through this award we have met photographers from around the world and here at home.
Denis’s work and generous spirit inspired us and is the foundation of the Denis Roussel Award.
Thank you to the Roussel Family and Josephine Sacabo for your on going support.
Thank you, Christopher James, our juror who spends long hours reviewing and commenting on submissions.
Thank you to past jurors, Jill Enfield, and Jesseca Ferguson who helped us grow this Award.
Thank you to Bostick and Sullivan, Mark Nelson and Christopher James for your Awards.
Thank you to all the artist that share their work with us.
To learn more about each photographer please click on their names.
Please click on an image to see a different view.
2018 Denis Roussel Award
“Having spent a number of years making hundreds of wet plate collodion portraits, I know that to get these perfect renditions in his portfolio “Fabrica”, required hours and hours and likely going back to the drawing board if any imperfections somehow found their way onto the glass. No imperfections are seen here which means that Luther Gerlach was passionately committed to getting these results. Luther explains his, “sense of loss,” when he learned that this factory was going to be repurposed into modern apartments, and any viewer of these images is immediately brought to similar thoughts of loss, of comparable scenarios in their own world.
These ethereal images are rich with narrative and tell the universal story of places and lives being expediently erased from our consciousness for the sake of “progress.” We should thank Luther for his,“…small way of saving this factory, archiving it’s history in light and shadow.“ Thank you Luther. Jill Enfield
2018 Works of Merit
2019 Denis Roussel Award
Tina Rowe
Oyster Shell Ghost
Liquid Emulsion
“Using liquid emulsion, this artist prints found negatives anonymous snapshots from a previous era, onto oyster shells she gathers at the edge of London’s Thames River – a very unexpected conjunction of materials. She has fused two castoff elements into small handheld portraits which are oddly reminiscent in size and weight of original 19th century daguerreotypes in cases. The artist wrote that she displays these photo-objects alongside other found artifacts from her river walks. Viewers immediately handle the shells, engaging with these photographs in ways they would not, had the images been printed, framed and hung on the wall in a more conventional presentation.” Jesseca Ferguson
2019 Merit Awards
Elizabeth Ellenwood
Among the Tides
Cyanotype and wet plate collodion
“Concerned about plastic in the oceans, the artist gathers plastic items on nearby beaches, then makes photograms with them using cyanotype and wet plate collodion. She prints these images on found papers and found glass, so she is recycling/re-using in all aspects of this work. Displayed salon style on an entire wall, these images give a sense of the accumulation of plastic in the ocean. Material conveys meaning in all aspects of making the work. Additionally, she is helping clean up the environment by gathering her materials!” Jesseca Ferguson
Megan Bent
Latency
Chlorophyll prints
“This artist makes chlorophyll prints using medical imagery (her own and that of others) to comment on the hidden, latent nature of illness. Like a photograph, the illness can be invisible until it develops further. The artist engages others with chronic or invisible (to the non-medical eye) illness in this series. The communal nature of the project is important, as illness can be lonely and isolating. The fragility of the leaves and ephemeral nature of chlorophyll prints comment further on the vulnerability of illness.” Jesseca Ferguson
Koenigsgraben/The Royal Canal .
Cyanotype and gum bichromate, brick dust.
“We have all seen so many images of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, that it seems there could be no way to photograph this place without resorting to cliché. Yet this photographer manages to show us new aspects of this iconic site. He has photographed the camp’s main drainage ditch, dug by the prisoners, and also the site of numerous escapes. The work is printed in cyanotype and gum bichromate. The photographer’s excellent explanatory text points out two important aspects of the printing methods. Cyanotype’s potassium ferricyanide converts to cyanide (under certain conditions), one of the ingredients in the infamous Zyklon-B gas used to kill prisoners at Auschwitz. The gum bichromate was tinted with brick dust from Bunker 2 “the little white house”, where prisoners were gassed. Thus the very methods for printing the images convey the content of the images themselves. The artist is an adjunct professor of photography at the University of Warsaw, which adds further resonance to the work and to the statement.” Jesseca Ferguson
2019 Outstanding Work
Diana Bloomfield
Cyanotype/gum bichromate Books
“Diane Bloomfield’s cyanotype/gum bichromate books are very elegant. The cyanotype flag book printed on transparency is especially intriguing technically.”Jesseca Ferguson
Composite negatives printed in gum bichromate and cyanotype.
“This photographer’s imaginative and eclectic approach to handmade photography operates at a very high level. His devotion to teaching handmade processes is
legendary”. Jesseca Ferguson
Julia Martin
Cyanotype and platinum/palladium prints.
“These prints of abandoned interiors are exquisitely printed. The most intriguing image conceptually is the one with the dead fly on the windowsill.” Jesseca Ferguson
Cyanotype on glass
“This photographer has perfected the technique of printing cyanotype on glass.”
Jesseca Ferguson
Cyanotype/gelatin silver
“This photographer invented/developed a technique involving cyanotype printed onto black and white gelatin silver paper. The statement reveals great resourcefulness in working without a darkroom in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.” Jesseca Ferguson
Gregory Brophy (Rfotofolio selection)
The Iron Triangle
Photopolymer Gravure
“I was originally trained as a painter before falling in love with photography. While I do sometimes use digital cameras, I felt that something was missing. That was the process of making things by hand and having something tangible to hold. I work in Carbon, Platinum/Palladium, Photopolymer Gravure and Gum Bichromate and strive to learn and share new ways of using these historical processes with other artists. Wanting to keep these practices alive and sharing them is what motivates me to apply for the Denis Roussel Award.” Gregory Brophy
2020 Denis Roussel Award
Lesha Rodriguez
Cyanotype / Lumen prints
“This is a beautifully crafted, realized and graphic portfolio full of painterly energy and gesture. As well, the work is resplendent with a multitude of powerful themes involving your Mexican heritage combined with an ever-evolving American identity, the internal and social struggles embodying your desire for children and that desire being challenged by the chronic health afflictions within yourself and family. It is an impossibly rich combination of themes which, to this point, you are representing with passion and power. Great work!” Christopher James
Works of Merit
Diana Bloomfield
The Old Garden
Cyanotype / Gum Bichromate / Handmade book
“Letting go of subjective perfection… Such a great release from that pressure and the expected results of a disciplined and very eclectic exercise… to create something new every 24 hours during a year. In many ways, a perfect reflection of the Denis Roussel spirit. The Old Garden embodies this idea and easily illustrates a mature artist in graceful control of the medium. Great work!” Christopher James
Kaitlyn Danielson
Of Breath and Dust
Ambrotypes
“Ambrotypes – Of Breath and Dust – You write, “I seize the moment of my fading breath and directly address the legacy of a photograph as memento mori. Each breath is captured digitally, printed as a digital transparency, and finally transferred onto glass. Just as every breath is unique, so is every photograph.”
The conversation regarding the fleeting moment of both existence, life and photographic exposure is beautifully represented in this work… I think Denis Roussel would have greatly approved of the marriage of both concept of subject and physical object. For me, this is a profoundly spiritual body of work illustrating the unknown.” Christopher James
Outstanding Work
To encourage creative work and the gifted practitioners that created it we are recognizing the following work as chosen by Christopher James and Rfotofolio.
Chris Bennett
Calotype
“I loved your scanned calotypes (really well-done paper negatives) enhanced in Photoshop and completely understand the need to marry the paper negative with digital technology. I like the images a great deal and see their compositional construction as windows isolating me from the actual experience of the nature depicted is particularly effective and quite powerful. I often felt like I was visiting the environment rather than experiencing it.” Christopher James
Kathryn Mayo
We are Selma
Wet Plate Collodion
“We Are Selma: Selma Portrait Project – wet plate ambrotypes – As you expressed, your project highlights Selma’s extremely complicated past as a pivotal placeholder in the rich history of the civil rights movement. Your ambrotype work is beautifully crafted and celebrate perfect and dignified human moments in an increasingly complicated, angry and fractured world. Your work will drive sensitivity for the changes to come. Well done!” Christopher James
David Russo
The Framer
Wet Plate Collodion
The Framer – believes the physicality of the print affects our experience of the subject – wet collodion positives on glass The works you have created are beautifully crafted. My favorite in the portfolio is the image Two Nails which, for me, beautifully demonstrates your wet plate collodion skills as well as your ability to replicate magic and illusion. I would love to experience more of this type of work! Christopher James
Ole Brodersen
Horizontal Displacement
Silver Gelatin
“Horizontal Displacement – You write, “My work explores the landscape and the natural forces that animate it – makes exposures of the horizon from a boat – “mechanical objectivity” – the process being perceived as unmediated.” –
As in the process of creating a physical painting, your photographs in this portfolio feature “gesture” as the subject… where the platform for the mechanical apparatus moves with the rhythm of the subject. This symbiotic relationship of allowing the environment to dictate the making of the image is lovely as an idea and is similar in concept to the portfolios that I feel best represent Denis Roussel’s creative spirit.” Christopher James
Phosphene
Cyanotypes
“Your portfolio has some beautiful work in it and I truly love the concept of Phosphene (the stimulation of the visual system other than by light), The experience of contemplation in solitude – and rendered as cyanotypes toned in yerba mate tea – is profound. For me, in this particular selection of work, the missing element is the rest of the body and its visual representation and relationship to the whole experience. It is more than just the head and I suspect that there is more work in this beautiful series.” Christopher James
Grieving Joy
Cyanotype
“Gestural and organic photo-graphic drawings that illustrate the depth of the artist’s internal self and relationship to life-altering loss.
I am deeply moved by this work and how humble and powerful it is simultaneously. It is evident that your skill and background as a painter, printmaker and photographer is at work in this series. This is one of the rare cases where I seriously wanted to hold the prints in my hands while contemplating their energy and purpose. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Christopher James
Joaquín Paredes
Hemicránea
Wet Plate Collodion
“You write, “Hemicránea ” is a project that conceptually illustrates the struggle of living with a chronic and ever-present illness.”
What I am responding to in this work is the reference to what is felt, what is seen, and what is experienced. I would love to see the entire series and feel that several of these images are the best I have seen interpreting the horror of living with pain and illness. Very strong work.” Christopher James
Maria Isabel LeBlanc
De la Luz
Silver gelatin and palladium prints
“De la Luz” Silver gelatin and palladium prints w 4×5 – farm fields – Monterey, CA
“You have created a solid and exquisitely crafted portfolio and I think the essence of your inspiration and resulting work has been perfectly realized. This is a very strong portfolio. I’m wondering if you have shot any of this series in color and in different kinds of weather and at different times of day?” Christopher James
Nothing, Without Us
Chlorophyll Printing
“The artist writes, “I am perceived as healthy but inside of my body, my immune system mistakes my tendons, ligaments, joints, and organs as invaders” …
This portfolio is a perfect example of the fragility and mortality of living tissue and matter. My only suggestion is to avoid the hard edges of the inter-positives you are using for the printing so that the final image is not losing its illusion to the hard-edged negative. There are no straight lines in nature and this fact creates a break in my experience with your outstanding work.” Christopher James
Douglas Nicolson
Manifestations of Spirit
Silver Gelatin
“Manifestations of Spirit, A range of work exploring the symbolic representation of self, creating psychological spaces between dreams and reality.
I would recommend translating these beautifully crafted and graphic images into a printmaking medium such as intaglio where you could control textures and colors with acids and inks. Your work is very powerful and I think it can be even stronger if the photographic evidence in play is married to an additional medium. I think the concept deserves that complexity.” Christopher James
Vanishing Voices
Wet Plate Collodion Tintypes
“This portfolio is exquisitely crafted and a perfect representation of an artist at the top of his or her game. What I am missing in “Vanishing Voices” is the sound of their spoken language and I wonder if the artist has integrated this work into a slide-tape or video to enhance the pathos and dignity of his subjects and what they represent. Beautifully done project paying homage to the last fluent speakers of disappearing North American languages.” Christopher James
Tomasz Laczny
Cyanotype
“I am very much taken by the organic and graphic power of this work dealing with the notion of loss and absence, ghosts and traces of reality. I would love to see your aesthetic, and this project, rendered with gum-oil, gum bichromate, photopolymer gravure or lithography. The surface is incredible and deserves to leave the careful substrate of photographic paper to celebrate its crazy texture. Nice work!” Christopher James
Elysabeth Cianci
Cyanotype
“This portfolio represents, I believe, the essence of what moved and inspired Denis Roussel… a blending of magic, creative human response with the barest of materials and collaboration with the natural world and what it offers. There is also the element of magic and of those transitory moments as the work changes before your eyes… and how the artist seizes upon those random gifts to represent the harmony between the artist and what is created.” Christopher James
BotaniKa: Climatic change
Mordancage/ Silver Gelatin
( Rfotofolio Selection)
“I am so impressed with your alchemical hybridization between science, art and nature.Many of my current and recent MFA candidates are following the same path that you are and it is clear that your years of teaching have honed your concept very well. I will add that my wife, an organic gardener and lover of nature, loved your work!” Christopher James
The 2021 Denis Roussel Award
Diana Bloomfield
Cyanotype / Gum Bichromate / Handmade book
Such accomplished and beautiful work… precise, playful, clearly loved in the process of making. What I truly enjoyed was how many ways this work might be experienced in person especially if given the permission to hold and move the pages and complex elements that make up each piece. In the time-honored treasure and marriage of nature collected and archived, the work clearly demonstrates the artist’s love of the subject, the concept and the physical act of creating wonder as in the trompe l’oeil stacked pages (referencing the leaves in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass) A pleasure to look at look and experience.Christopher James
Works of Merit
Michelle Huisman
Tri-colour bichromate gum over palladium
“This work is so well done… I kept returning to it over the past few weeks and appreciating how nicely your activism and dedication to community, outreach and volunteerism, coupled with the symbolism of banging spoons on pots to honor health care workers during the pandemic, meshed so well with your lovely work. This was, indeed, “An Unexpected Collection” and a perfect marriage of your life and the art you make.” Christopher James
Ana Tornel
Wet Plate Collodion
“What a strong portfolio of humanistic wet plate images in an industrial setting. Beautifully executed work and impressive in their modesty while accentuating the sensuality of both the subject and the process. The vanished ghosts of the workers returning to the site of their labors is a delight to imagine and to savor with the eyes. I have only one recommendation for you and it is a simple one having nothing to do with the work itself. Your statement is scholarly and erudite but it is, for me, actually too much so and it gets in the way, for me, of your beautiful imagery. I would recommend editing it all down to a single paragraph and letting the work carry the weight… which will do easily.”Christopher James
Outstanding Work
To encourage creative work and the gifted practitioners that created it we are recognizing the following work as chosen by Christopher James and Rfotofolio.
Megan Bent
Chlorophyll Print
“This collection of chlorophyll portrait images rivals the work of my good friend Bin Danh (take that as a great compliment please) in that it exceeds the technique, making the power of the concept, connected to our current living in a pandemic reality, all the more powerful. There was a portfolio entered in last year’s Roussel competition that demonstrated the same exquisite energy, with attentiveness to the Roussel ethos of re-cycled materials, decay and the realities of the body in time. I wrote, “This portfolio is a perfect example of the fragility and mortality of living tissue and matter.” The difference between this collection, and the one I am referencing, is that this work has found a voice that steps outside of itself and is universal in its language.” Christopher James
Phytogram/Cyanotype/Expired ortho litho film
“Love the adventure in this work and wonder about the size of it and the physical material the images are created upon… the answers to that curiosity might better enhance the issues of sustainability you reference. I totally appreciate your adoption of the phytogram process (using the inherent chemistry of plant matter to represent images of themselves) as that collaboration echoes your own with materials from your father’s studio.”
Christopher James
Cyanotype
“This work is so exciting graphically and exploring the concept of a complete immersion in deep ocean, outer space or the inner space of one’s mind… emerging into a new special reality. I love your work and was immediately engaged. If it were mine, I might think about integrating these powerful drawings with a printmaking technique such as lithography, or maybe even better, monotypes which they most closely resemble.” Christopher James
Dovilė Dagienė
Silver Gelatin
“Such a complex and elementary concept taking the stage at the same moment. I really am intrigued with the ideas you are working with, especially the constant of the two exposures documenting the 8 minutes it takes for the light of the sun to reach the earth. If the project were mine, I would consider two things going forward… that because it is a conceptual consideration of a reality, context is critically important and so the subject beneath the two exposures of the sun is ripe for exploration. Second, the abstract elements of time and equivalents have a lot of subjective potential. For example, in Chinese calligraphy the “sun” stands for itself but it also has several other meanings such as “the day” or “daytime.” As well, it is the yang of yin and yang (like night and day) and oddly, in contemporary internet slang, as an interjection that translates as a four-letter profanity. This is, and will be, a fine marriage of art and science.” Christopher James
Racheal Short
Platinum Prints
“The context of your narrative totally changes my relationship with the imagery. The tragedy of your 2010 accident, the arc of your life prior to it, the collaboration of friends to assist your vision with negative and print production and the meditations of life, sensuality, light and dark, life and death and the circle of life are essential in appreciating what you have created and are vital in seeing the connections to your life and art.” Christopher James
Robyn Moore
Photopolymer Gravure
“Pretty exciting work for me to look at and think about. My first reaction was totally around the idea of cinema, specifically, Ingmar Bergman. The photopolymer gravures are really well done, so much so that the content became immediately more important than the technique… an attribute we need a lot more of in alternative process photography. I really like the concept of memory embodied in the landscape and latent embedded impressions made visible. Excellent work!” Christopher James
Vaune Trachtman
Photopolymer gravures
“The idea of collaborating with your father’s images is powerful and, in several cases, among my favorite works in this year’s Roussel competition… the rower in the boat and the flying man are wonderful! The working concept of this collaboration that defies time has my imagination’s attention and is epitomized by the line, “the picture that I want to make is a moment in time that is full of other times.” That’s beautiful” .Christopher James
Morgan Ford Willingham
Cyanotype
“Your mother-daughter collaboration, attesting to “selfhood” and possibilities is rich with potential. For me, the Notions and Impressions concept has plenty of room to evolve and can be interpreted in both literal and interpretative ways. If the project were mine, I would look to your self-portrait using multiple pieces of fabric as a focused direction. Also, perhaps more playfulness, self-photograms on clothing worn for the portrait, so that the voice of childhood is a bit more defined.” Christopher James
Bridget Conn
Chemigrams
“So much to think about in your Roussel entry… First, the title of Language Acquisition has many doors to open, not the least of which is how we all learn to speak in the Tower of Babel we inhabit. I love the chemical and text interaction, the geometry and multi-dimensionality of the sewn pieces (another metaphor?). There is also an exploration of gesture, an attribute that photography doesn’t readily have access to. That it is all camera-less and made of masks, symbols and language, using contemporary hand sanitizer as a resist and your breath as an activator, is pretty energizing for me as a viewer.
Two more observations… English as a language has implications of politics and power… be careful that it doesn’t get in the way of all the other great stuff going on. As well, consider getting away from 2-D and make sculptural pieces out of your geometric forms”
Christopher James
Maureen Mulhern-White
Silver gelatin photograms toned with turmeric
“I was profoundly influenced by your statement regarding your husband’s dire illness. Like the indelible turmeric you used to color the prints, my knowledge of your situation translated the images into ones where the subjective information was a cacophony of disease inside of the body, childhood memories and blurred, quickly moving, realities. It is a powerful collection of images in context with your life.”Christopher James
Angelea Heartsong-Redding
Cyanotype
“There is no question that this installation-based work is profoundly important to you in its scale, influences of trauma and identity experience and the emotional scarring of a childhood immersed in homelessness and domestic violence. That you have the strength to make this work, and make it work, is impressive. I wish you had expanded more on the concept of Mulvey’s “female gaze” and think that had she known your work, when she coined that terminology, your work certainly would have been referenced. As a recent graduate of the art school scene, I’m sure you know the work of Catherine Opie, Sarah Lucas, Galina Manikova, Jenny Saville and Lee Price. Also, a rich archive of feminist writing from the 60’s and 70’s that gave birth to what you are creating now.” Christopher James
Kristoffer Johnson
Mordançage
“The mordançage process is custom made for implying fragility of the flesh, decay, death and the impermanence of life. That you are manipulating both the film and the print is a nice adaptation. Your work is very strong and Sudre would have proud of what you have created. ” Christopher James
Ky Lewis
X-Ray
“I like the organic and graphic quality of this work, all of which feels like illustrations for a Cormac McCarthy novel (that’s a compliment). Although your statement is rich in technical adaptations and detail, it is the drama of your tonalities, artifacts and markings within the landscape that captures my imagination. If I came across your work in a museum I would sit down on a bench and savor it.” Christopher James
Işık Kaya
Heliographs
The quality of these images, the process, and unity of this portfolio and its meaning to the photographer impressed us. Well done!
Shigeki Yoshida
Silver Gelatin
(Rfotofolio Selection}
We kept coming back to these images and that alone makes them worthy of recognition. We are very familiar with the silver gelatin process and know how gratifying it can be to create black and white images that make people stop and look again. Thank you.
2022 Denis Roussel Award
“Your work is quite wonderful and as anyone deeply connected to nature knows, there are no straight lines and it is the flaws that are beautiful and special. The fake truths that you write about are the real aberrations and have nothing to do with any nature other than the darker human ones. Your incorporation of the poisons of commerce, e.g., weed-killer, pesticides, and invasive plant species as materials in your work is brilliant (please wear gloves and a mask) and is intimately married to both your concept and study practice and workflow. I love this work.” Christopher James
Works of Merit
Michael Koerner
Chemigrams on wet plate collodion positive (tintype) plates.
“Your narrative is captivating… representing family struggles with health resulting from the Nagasaki atomic bomb in the mid-40’s and the visual representation of cancer. I think wet plate collodion photograms are the perfect vehicle for this work. The braided threads (have you used human hair yet) impregnated with presumably an iron-based developer and placed on the collodion for exposure is a perfect way to metaphorically express the way cancer grows and evolves within the corpse. Consider more subjective complexity in your materials and in using resists to manipulate the liquids in the process. I will look forward to the evolution of your idea.” Christopher James
Jessica Somers
Silver Gelatin
“Your project, My Trinity IS My Fortress, is simply exquisite, conceptually flawless in its simple message of integrating a creature, and by association, the most elemental nature (Denis Roussel would certainly approve) in collaboration with your studio practice. Your writing is humble, indicating that you, your husband and Grover have become a pack where each is free to lead. Your image Gestation, is sneaky and perfect … making no sense and perfect sense within the same moment. The shadows are remarkable and so abstracted by the physics of making a photograph from a set perspective. I have come back to this many times over the past week. Since you are bound to the tableau, have you considered amping up the surrealism by using wet collodion, perhaps on black glass, so that the elegance of the UV illumination is even more pronounced? If you decide to do this, I would recommend mixing new and old prepared collodion in a 50-50% to open your shadows and give softness to your highlights. This is beautiful work.” Christopher James
Rfotofolio Selection
Keith Taylor
Silver Gelatin
“Keith’s work does indeed take us to otherworlds and seems to glow on the screen. His images have an atmospheric quaility. They could easily be some place other than this planet, as we have seen with the Mars missions. His prints using gelatin silver are really remarkable. His portfolio is beautifuly edited. All that we can add is “very well done and congratulations”.
Outstanding Work
To encourage creative work and the gifted practitioners that created it we are recognizing the following work as chosen by Christopher James.
Robert Treat
Cyanotype
“Your work is beautiful… for me, surreal and atmospheric images of a lost civilization and the sand castles are the perfect metaphor for anything man made eventually returning to nature or being consumed, like a tide rolling in, by it. These feel like waxed paper negatives and the absolute simplicity and excellence of your interpretation is just how Denis would have liked it. Outstanding work !” Christopher James
Lou McCorkle
Cyanotype / Gum bichromate
“Your mastery of the materials, cyan with very subtle gum bichromate passes, is impressive and a pleasure to look at. I wish I had a sense of the scale of this work as I feel it would be experienced differently as small intimate pieces, pages in a book, or large demanding works on a wall. I am most interested in the images celebrating artifact and the curatorial exercise (feathers and beans) versus the Rorschach mirrored, and predictable, construction. This is not a criticism… I like this work a lot and want it to elicit a, “wow!” Christopher James
2023 Denis Roussel Awards
Lisa Nebenzahl
Cyanotypes
“I love this work for all of the languages it is speaking and for the obvious love of the craft on display. In a contemporary context, your work is profoundly emotional, lighter than air,
moisture laden, and ironically, reconstructed and housed in geometric form. For me, the work explores the vulnerability of our environmental existence and the abstracted concept of archiving little preserved and contained pieces of it that are “suitable for framing” … a natural history of inevitable change… in nature as well as life. Denis Roussel would have loved this work I think. Wondering if you have looked at German Sculpture Thomas Demand’s work with paper? Or perhaps Berndaut Smilde’s clouds within rooms? For me the work is precious and sad in the same moment. ” Christopher James
Work of Merit Award
Robert Treat
Toned Cyanotypes
“These are such beautifully crafted images… ripe with mystery (like a Giorgio de Chirico painting) or a transcendental moment in a horror film. The architectural strength is clear as is the existential suggestion of what exists around the next corner that has not yet become empirical or experienced. Your toned cyanotypes are complete and I am very interested in the scale and immersive experience of what they might be like in person… and what the next iteration might be. First thought was suggesting replicating them on 40” x 60” 1200 lb Arches paper and installing them in a white-cube space where the cube (gallery) disappears. Might be really impressive!” Christopher James
Work of Merit Award
Aindreas Scholz
Cyanotypes and Lumen
“Your work is so strong conceptually and texturally… it must be exhilarating to be at play in the studio when everything is working. The Most Beautiful Anthropocene, a collaboration of
cyanotypes and lumen printing, is a nice marriage of natural materials pushing sustainable,
conceptual and integrated boundaries. The word Anthropocene is perfect here as a definition of our time when everything we do as human activities are the dominant influences of climate and the planet. The work is, for me, as if nature were given an assignment to explain it all and decided halfway into the project that it was pissed off and wanted to show it. Your work is a good messenger.” Christopher James
Portfolio Review Award
Cyanotype
“Your wonderful selection of images, from When It Rains, is a solid exercise in using the ability of layered photograms as a visual language to explore memories as they relate to objects. For me, the works are both playful and disturbingly surreal… disturbing in that the combinations of images inspire unexpected associations in the viewer, e.g., a writer lazily enjoying a rest in a field but in danger of being impaled by writing instruments falling from above… an image of writer’s block! As well, the woman wading through a body of water while holding an umbrella and seemingly unaware of the contents of the silverware drawer falling down on her (a lot of metaphorical association with the responsibilities of curating an inherited home in this image. Of course those interpretations may not match your intentions but you can never know where your viewer’s imagination or life experiences will take your work. There is, for me, a definitive “through the looking glass” experience with your work. Very strong.” Christopher James
The Rfotofolio Award
Francois Pitot Eduardo Almeida
Statement from Rfotofolio
The submissions submitted this year presented a challenge for us. Well crafted images and very nicely assembled portfolios and very personal comments from each artist.
We ran into an interesting dilemma in the truest sense of the word during our review for the Rfotofolio award. Rather than continue an unresolvable discussion and decision we have made a unique decision. It was sort of like a debate over which is better tasting, an apple or an orange. Both are delicious and in a perfect world you would be lucky to have them both. We decided that a tie would be appropriate and so we will have two winners of the Rfotofolio award this year.
Francois Pitot’s technique is stunning. His photos inspire the viewer to imagine a story. His portfolio was beautifully presented. It has a sense of mystery and left us wanting to see more.
Eduardo Almeida gave us a breathtaking view of some of the most dramatic scenes in mountainous terrain. They are truly beautiful and show us a world few of us will ever easily see. He presented a unified portfolio that is well presented and provided a very clear explanation of his interest in analog photography and made us wonder what he might present next.
As always we would love to see both of their images in person as prints. While the website does a great job with their images, in our opinion nothing is better than seeing the image as a print.
CR and JR
Special Recognition
Wendy Constantine
Platinum and Silver Leaf, Salted Paper
“What beautiful salted paper work you have created… and then extended with platinum and silver leaf. Indeed, these are visual meditations related to healing and loss. You mention “hidden shame” but the work is, for me, less concerned with a specific event and more attuned to peering into the depths of its reflection of meaning. Notice, that all of your work demands negotiation with the image and of the place seen. There is always something in the foreground preventing the viewer from having free and unobstructed access to what is important to you.” Christopher James
Special Recognition
Samantha Barthelemy
Cyanotype, Chine collé
“This work is really interesting to me and I am impressed with the translation of a photograph through the techniques cyanotype, printmaking and an alternative medium such as collage / montage. As well, the 2-D photographic experience is further enhanced via the chine collé which enhances the tactile experience of the reconstructed landscape. It is an extension of the impulse to make the initial image and a new and refreshing way of seeing the familiar. Very nice work!” Christopher James
Special Recognition
Vu Nguyen
Cyanotype
“I like the energy in this work… applying a street photographer’s sensibilities to the static
experience of looking at a cyanotype. For me, the work represents a dialogue about being
unable to stabilize an experience in a photograph and then rendering it in blue. Even the way you are applying the sensitizer to the paper is rushed and random and perfectly, for me, in harmony with the images you are making. The work is about not belonging to a place. An immigrant’s experience versus a tourist or resident experience. My favorite in this collection is the first one with the sprocket holes as it is as much about the analog photographic experience as it is about the subject. It is a really wonderful image… one that I would love to experience as a giant print in person.” Christopher James
Special Recognition
Mykola Myronov
Film
Special Recognition
Melanie Walker
Toned Cyanotype
Special Recognition
Yves Francois Wilson
Cyanotype
2024 Denis Roussel Awards
Judit German-Heins
Wet-plate Collodion
I feel that your thesis series, A Monster In the Shape of a Woman, is drawn from your personal experiences of the loss of a child, sexual abuse and growing up female, while being subjected to patriarchal expectations and edicts, successfully represents both your own story and those of women throughout the world… from pretty much the beginning of time. Your work is so powerful in its serendipity, encouragement and acceptance of narrative interpretation — a great relief to a viewer as the wet plate collodion process has recently become so self-satisfied with the predictability of the static subject in the middle of the frame.
I totally appreciate your restraint, permitting the viewer to find themselves and create with you… providing their own life experiences while contemplating your images. Your diptych is one of my favorite works in this year’s Denis Roussel Award competition. As well, I love the non-studio intimacy and artifacts of the piece, The Scar, and the counterpoint references to the proverbial hidden mother in Victorian era studio portraits.” Christopher James
Work of Merit Award
Robert Treat
Cyanotype
“I think that I recognize your style… the gestural and organic photo-graphic drawings that illustrate the depth of the artist’s internal self and perhaps the metaphorical relationship to someone close (or far away) who is intertwined with your life… and often a reflection of it. I am affected by this work and moved at how humble and powerful it is simultaneously. This work feels important … very much a personal and visual contemplation.” Christopher James
Work of Merit Award
Cristina Saez
Cyanotype
Christopher James Award
Melanie Walker
Cyanotype
“I love the kinetic energy of the actual photographic banners and their integration with the translation of the subject matter represented on the fabrics. The pathos and beauty of this visual anthem is enhanced when contextually associated with the on-shore winds and the sea, in memory of those who have lost their lives seeking refuge in another country in hopes of a better life. This work is in perfect harmony with every considered element and the spirit of Denis Roussel.” Christopher James
The Rfotofolio Award
Adam Davis
Tintypes
Adam Davis, a self taught creator of Tintypes, is working to document the lives and images of Black Americans. His tintype portraits will serve to give light to the lives of an important community that often times has been under served and whose contributions have been overlooked in the development of our society. Also we love the fact that he is sharing his (one of) works with his subjects. We look forward to seeing his study of the black rodeo culture so they can take their rightful place in our countries history. C.R. and J.R.
Special Recognition
Susan de Witt
Polymer Photogravure
“I appreciate and enjoy the concept of considering image and text, the beauty of the Japanese cursive script that you are celebrating in your work, and the lament that you write about pointing out that the art of cursive writing (drilled into us as the Palmer-Method and the joy of nailing our extenders and descenders) is all but gone from our public school systems.
What I am missing in your portfolio, and something that can be easily addressed, is knowledge pertaining to what is being written in the Japanese cursive flow. Not a direct translation of course, but perhaps noted in the caption / title of the work. In this way, the way you interpret the writing photographically in your still life is connected to the text itself”. Christopher James
Special Recognition
Siobhan Byrns
Chlorophyll printing
” My very first reaction to your portfolio was to write a tribute reference to my friend Binh Dahn….. I’m sure you know his work and like Binh, your technical skill and craft is very special and simply enhances the focus you have applied of working dirty with your hands… with materials the earth provides. As well, your regard for the social and political pressures weighing on women and the environment, and the ephemeral reality of their life-giving existence, is beautifully respected by the quality of your work. Chlorophyll image creation from positives has become increasingly popular and very much in concert with low-consumption image marking… I really like your work and urge you to work more with multiple substrate combinations as in your piece, Keep Them Closed. This is one of my favorite works in this year’s competition.” Christopher James
Special Recognition
DM Witman
Gold-toned salted- paper on handmade abaca paper
“Your portfolio is eerily familiar, with the textures and tonalities of the very first light markings on light sensitive substrates… I imagined, while contemplating your images, a future observation of 1000-year old photographs of what the moon used to look like before it disappeared from our solar system. Your work inspired fantasy and pathos in me… and I really love it… for all the faults and artifacts of ancient and simple salted paper images. The circle inspires narrative. The artifacts inspire obliteration of the sphere. The sphere inspires feelings of the proverbial planetary home now melancholically missed and absent. Sorry if I’m reading to deeply into your images but my digression is very much a compliment and I admire the risk you took with your work. Your portfolio represents, for me, a perfect example of the balance between intellect and art” Christopher James
Special Recognition
Hahnemühle Award
Lisa Brussell
Gum Bichromate printed over salt prints, cyanotype and/or ziatype (palladium).
Special Recognition
Photogravure
Special Recognition
François Pitot
Bromoil
Special Recognition
Bob Carnie
Gum Bichromate
2025 Denis Roussel Award
In the Garden
Donna Gordon
Photogravure
“Lovely work and beautifully crafted. I was immediately focused on the young woman in a garden at the end of a working day, outlined with diffused light and a mountain in the background which has the contours of the one that we live on in our Dublin, NH studio. The woman presents herself directly to the observer, immersed in the nature and abundant growth, feather in hand, she meets the viewer’s gaze with considerable confidence, neither performative or passive but content in the perfection of that time and place. Her smile is beatific, knowing, for me like the way it feels returning home after a long time away… a return to nature perhaps. This subject of this particular image, like others in the portfolio, is timeless. The presentation of the subject defines through its ambiguity and openness to viewer interpretation, the cyclical nature of the garden, connection to the earth and confidence in a secure feminine identity, the place itself and all that it represents. She represents, for me, the feel of satisfying labor tending the garden. The power of this image is in its restraint and the slow-burn of that beautiful moment.
The single image that occupies its own meaning is the interior still-life with its layering of traditional meanings and references… in both the pose of the primary subject and the environment the subject occupies. Unlike the majority of images in the portfolio, this image incorporates classical memes such as the posed demur nude, the white horse, the artist’s studio (the paintbrushes) and what appears to be the edge of a Steinway grand piano. At the same time, nature is brought inside as inspirational prompts for re-creation and interpretation. This image is different from the majority and appears to signal the artist’s dichotomy of interest, treasuring the exterior landscape with the same intensity of the more abstracted internal one.
The last image I will reference is the one of the woman consumed and camouflaged by her floral-patterned dress and the light and shadows of the frenetic natural world. For me, it immediately brought to mind the spring season when all living organisms are hell-bent on rebirth and procreation and nothing is calm. When considering the image, I was thinking about Stravinsky’s 1913 avant-garde performance of The Rite of Spring and its parallel with the first minutes of David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet when theidyllic identity of a suburban neighborhood or the familiar progression of notes in a musical score are fractured and shattered beyond control. In this image there is a duality of urgency and chaos in tandem with peaceful light, stillness and calm. The viewer is given the opportunity of making the critical decision of how to see and experience the image.
This body of work is grounded in myth and meaning and is a satisfying experience for me as a visitor to the work.” Christopher James
Work of Merit Award
Watermarks Anne Gabriele
Cyanotype
“For me, the simplicity of each singular image is their power to evoke and represent the gracefulness and elegance of the portfolio and its intentions. I’ve spent a significant portion of my life in the ocean as a SCUBA diver and each immersion in that realm, in the day or night, had its own narrative and collaborative meaning. When I read your statement, that these elementary abstractions, performed as hand-painted cyanotypes on watercolor substrates, were done in daylight, on the seashore, in collaboration with the ocean and the beach itself, I was so impressed. It reminded me of the many times I experienced making cyanotype murals with children at the beach, racing into the ocean at the end of the exposure with the exposed cyanotype sensitized fabric to wash it out, and the joy that that physical act of creation inspired in the kids who were the subjects of the mural. As well, the fragile and undefined memories of being in the ocean’s influence, moving with the currents and the 360-degree ungrounded experience of immersion. Most of all, I love your working with the physical materials of nature to illustrate itself was so embedded in the philosophy of Denis Roussel’s Roussel’s work… and what this important annual competition represents.
The absence of definition of subject invites the viewer to experience their own creative impressions and memories. Your watermark abstractions invite projection, and for me personally, melancholy and a restrained visual philosophy that is embedded in the concept of what is felt — rather than in what is seen. Wonderful work.” Christopher James
Work of Merit
A Reckoning Caroline Waterman
Platinum Palladium
“These images were made with a child’s plastic camera to visually interpret and represent the memories and events of a teenage girl’s life in Ireland during “the Troubles.” There is an emotional mosaic of moments remembered in this portfolio, each one singular when not in context, where the child’s camera is not simply an instrument of capture, but a conceptual gesture. The subjects of each image, often due to the limitations of the camera, are softly focused, grainy, dense with light and darkness, partial in detail and fleeting in the moment. The images themselves are like an act of reclamation and performative… exploring the unreliability of traumatic memory, which almost always resists detail and perfect representation. In this way, the very act of making beautiful images, for so many artists throughout the history of the arts, is a form of healing and restoration.
The bird soaring above the canal represents an escape to the sea. In another image, the forensic doll-like visage in the sand is a surrogate body and communion-like innocence… and a symbol of a violent experience where the evidence is surrounded by large footprints in the sand. The hand painted sensitizer borders, far from being an aesthetic flourish, becomes a performative signature… declaring that there was nothing present before she arrived with her artistic intentions and that she alone is responsible for the photographic representation of her own experience.”Christopher James
Christopher James Award
Immediate World
Katie Kindle
Bostick and Sullivan dry plate process on tin plates
“The immediate impression I get from your portfolio is one of a catalogue of things no longer present or alive — reading like a personal archive of objects once exquisite and now represented in a visual elegiac. That these are made using a difficult dry plate process on tin illustrates the degree of importance that your subject matter represents in your life.As you wrote in your statement, “It is a process dependent on light, time, water, and alchemy – as is the process of creating the initial images. Working with the earth and the images reminds me of the power of being present in the moment and the ephemerality of life.” This may be best exemplified in your X-ray like image of the black flowers, their bulbs and hairy roots… the anatomy of a tulip where the life-giving tendrils are as present as the once colorful and living flower itself.
Where most floral images celebrate the bloom, your image is monochromatic, full of the processes’ artifacts that yield an organicphysical quality to the work. The image, in its beautiful simplicity, doesn’t nostalgically depict the flower in the moment… it remembers it. I’m wondering if you know Olivia Parker’s work from the 70’s?
One other feeling I experienced while thinking about your images this past week was how you have reconstructed your subjects… the 38 flowers, the dead honey bees, the dragonflies… the tulips. They are suspended in time, playful in death, deconstructed for meanings that permit the viewer to find a personal impressions in the work. Your images are secure in their independence and philosophical examination and successfully satisfy your intentions and audience.” Christopher James
2025 Denis Roussel Award Rfotofolio Selection
J’ai hiverné dans mon passé
François Pitot
Bromoil
To encourage creative work and the gifted practitioners that created it we are recognizing the following work as chosen by Christopher James and Rfotofolio
Special Recognition
Aaron Packard
Palladium
“This is a beautifully realized portfolio of portraits illustrating a provocative combination of intimacy and detachment. The images feel deeply personal, but the vantage point from where the viewer experiences the subjects is oddly detached from that very intimacy. Where the camera is, is where the viewer is, and with an exception, placed in the role of a child or seated observation in contrast to the taller subject. From a cinematic perspective… a more powerful presence than the viewer.
The images are beautifully done and your craft is sublime. They all fit easily into a formal photographic tradition and the hand painted borders of the sensitizer adds a layer of tactile intentionality that signifies and reinforces an impression of agency. The trace of the brush strokes, the printed edges of the analog Kodak film stock, frame each image as an elegant artifact of dedicated, and wet, studio practice where patience and craft reward the artist.
The images are portraits without context and are ambiguous in their meaning as a collection except for the fact that they are beautiful examples of their craft and your own dedication to the intimacy of the materials and process that you employ. The depiction of the subjects may be an exploration of identity, association or intimacy… possibly the politics of representation. In these ways, your portraits both reveal and conceal, and as is the case of a lot of the best work in this competition, allow the viewer to come to their own experience and conclusions about who they might want to hike a trail or have a beer with — giving the viewer the opportunity to integrate context and narrative. Like the very best of work, your images inspire questions and linger long after the immediate viewing is done.” Christopher James
Coffee toned Cyanotype
Energy and Extraction
Bailey Russel
Cyanotype
Senses of Nature
Rachael Short
Silver Gelatin
Rockey Mountains
Bill Hao
Wet Plate
Thank you to all of the photographers that have shared their work with us.
To learn more about The Denis Roussel Awards please click here.
