Liz Kuball Photography | Blog: Group show: <i>UnCritical Mass</i>

Photolucida’s Critical Mass is a yearly portfolio review unlike any other. Applicants submit a portfolio of ten photographs and pay a $75 fee. A committee prescreens these applicants (there were 606 of them this year) and chooses 175 finalists (180 this year, because of a tie). The finalists pay an additional fee of $200 and have their portfolios sent on to a panel of 200 reviewers—big names in the field, from curators to gallerists to editors to bloggers. . . . It’s a truly impressive list. The reviewers rank them, and the top 50 photographers are listed on the Critical Mass Web site. Photolucida publishes monographs for two or more of the top-scoring finalists (look for Amy Stein’s soon). In other words, Critical Mass is a fantastic opportunity for photographers.

I applied for the first time this year and didn’t make the cut. After I mentioned my disappointment, I started receiving e-mails from photographers who’d also not gotten in. And it occurred to me: The list of 180 finalists is impressive, but so were the photographers who e-mailed me. Critical Mass had to cut off the list somewhere, but why not give those of us who didn’t make the cut a chance to show off the work we’re proud of? And the idea for this online group show was born. I posted about it on my blog, passed the word around to a handful of friends, set a deadline about 36 hours away, and received 40 submissions, all of which are posted below.

Many thanks to Shawn Records, board president and secretary of Photolucida; Andy Adams, founder and curator of Flak Photo; Lane Collins; Katherine Dexter; Geoffrey Ellis; Elizabeth Fleming; Aislinn Leggett; Jennifer Loeber; Aline Smithson; Doug Stockdale; Michael Werner; and anyone else I’ve missed who Twittered or blogged or e-mailed about this and got the word out. And a huge thanks also to all the people who e-mailed me their work and got behind this idea with such enthusiasm.

I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as I have! Be sure to follow the links to the photographers’ sites (where available), to see even more of their work. (You can click the photos or the photographers’ names to get there.)

Finally, a huge congratulations to the 180 talented Critical Mass finalists, including friends Amanda Keller-Konya, Kevin Miyazaki, Cara Phillips, Aline Smithson, Tema Stauffer, Will Steacy, and Bill Vaccaro. Inspiration, one and all!