This Sunday, Nov.20th AS220 PHOTO invites you to join the conversation for our first Open Critique and Photo Discussion Group! We know there are a lot of photographers out there looking for a place to share and show their work and gain feedback from fellow shutter snappers and lens lookers, and we're excited to provide a supportive and diverse environment for photographers at all levels.


At AS220 Photo, it is our mission and goal to offer opportunities and resources to all artists, and a vibrant and varied community is just one of those resources we can provide! Our hope is that though these monthly, free discussion groups, we can continue to build that community and create connections among local photographers working towards different goals and to gain a better understanding of all the different ways artists use photography to express their ideas.

Join the conversation this Sunday from 1-4pm at AS220 Photo in Mercantile Block studio 207 on 131 Washington St. Ring "207" on the call box. Bring work, bring friends and bring an open mind! We can't wait to see you and learn more about all the amazing art you are making!


In the meantime, AS220 Photo also has a slew of classes coming up this winter. This is just a sample, but visit AS220's online store for class details and descriptions or contact photo@as220.org for more info.

Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011
1-4pm / FREE
Open Photo Critique / Discussion Group
One Session Workshop

Wednesday, Nov.23, 2011
7-10pm/ $45
Alternative Process Vol.3: Gum Bichromate
One Session Workshop

Wednesday, Nov.30, 2011
6-9pm / $50
Photo Restoration
One Session Workshop

Sunday, Dec.4, 2011
12-4pm / $40
Digital SLR Workshop
One Session Workshop

Thursday, Dec.8, 2011
7-10pm / $50
Introduction to the 35mm Camera
Workshop Session 1 of 2

Saturday, Dec.10, 2011
12-4pm / $50
Introduction to Studio Lighting
One Session Workshop

Saturday, Dec.10, 2011
5-8pm / $75
Introduction to the Black and White Darkroom
Workshop Session 1 of 2

Sunday, Dec.18, 2011
1-4pm / FREE
Open Photo Critique / Discussion Group
One Session Workshop

Greetings Glass Negative Fans!

Can you believe it's been a full year since we first debuted prints from the glass negative collection at Providence City Hall?! Since then, "REDISCOVERED" has traveled all over Providence, into Boston, through the Photo Lottery and is landing for it's first birthday at the Sandywoods Arts and Agriculture Co-Op in Tiverton, RI.


You may remember the story behind this incredible project; the countless hours we photo nerds spent in the Providence Public Library Special Collections dusting glass plate negatives, meticulously assigning each it's own, special catalog number, photographing them and nestling them in their new, archival grade envelopes and padded boxes, and of course the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities grant that made it all possible.....

You may have seen one or two of our public exhibitions, or perhaps you've perused the online gallery, where all 1200 images are now digitally available to admire and to purchase! That's right. Any image in the collection can be made into a real-life, genuine sliver gelatin print, made lovingly by one of our Key Members right here in the Paul Krot Community Darkroom.


We are so proud of this project and are incredibly excited to be showing NEW prints from the collection (along with some fan favorites) at the Sandywoods Co-Op Gallery this Saturday, Oct.8th from 5-8pm. Please join us and see the beautiful space the Sandywoods group has built from the ground up, meet photo Key Members and learn more about this fascinating collection from Rhode Island Historical Society Graphics Archivist and Glass Negative Project Humanities Scholar James DaMico, who will be giving a special talk at 6:30.

Contact photo@as220.org for more info, or visit the Glass Negative Project website to learn more! Browse the gallery and find your favorites, then come on down to Tiverton and join us for an old fashioned photographic birthday party like no other!

The zero hour is upon us, i.e. September 24th., 6pm, when the doors to AS220's 5th Biennial Photo Lottery at 115 Empire St. finally open & the photo frenzy begins.

You got your skinny jeans on, cargo shorts or a dress/skirt/pants, whatever, your hands grubby & somewhat moist in anticipation, clutching either a short stack of crumpled/freshly minted US currency, a limber credit/debit card, a folded personal check or (for you) preferably an ID ready to show and claim your advance purchased ticket for this year's latest & greatest version of the Photo Lottery fundraiser!

If you've done this before, then you KNOW what it's about & how it goes, if not, prepare yourself! Sharpen those elbows (just kidding) & that eyesight & dash to the stage area, where you come up for a ticket, once you've gone through the gantlet & your head swims, turning this way & that way, trying to make sense of all the photos on the wall, hung salon style, varying in size, style and content & yes, one of them will be yours!




Can you stand it?

Will it be the one and only King, during his G.I. days?
Lawdamercy!
Or that of the Mother of Punk, the goddess herself, Patti Smith, shot and donated by Richard McCaffrey?
Or how about an image by one of my favorite photographers & role models: Jock Sturges!
Perhaps an image by AS220 Photo's Patron Saint: Paul Krot?
Or Henry Hornstein, the inimitable Mr. Hornstein, photo geek extraordinaire!
Or Jessica Lange! She's a movie star & a photographer too!

And lest we forget, NAN GOLDIN...no big deal. Wait. YES IT IS!!

Have you bought your ticket yet?

C'mon! Do it! Free yourself from the pack, remember, how George W. Bush said that our obligation as citizens was to go shopping, well, shop for a ticket. Now!

Pardon my gushing, but, it's for a really good cause & the generosity that photographers have clearly exhibited (pun intended) doth warm the cockles of one's heart & renders lachrymose peepers & I can't help but feel grateful/honored to be part of this event/blog post this year. For full disclosure, I'd been wanting to do this for a while, having arrived in Providence about six years ago. This time, I initially donated a small print, one of my favorite images from my first photo shoot w/ model, then, feeling further inspired by the work of others, donated two additional prints & am really glad that they're catalysts too now for a good cause.

As Washington cuts off support for the arts as a tribute to The Gipper, we've got Reaganomics in effect & not the 'trickle down economics' kind, but the one where government is taken off of (the) people's back by it cutting off (their) benefits, it's inspiring and humbling to see the people rise to the occasion and support endeavours such as this one, funds for which will enable AS220's Photo Dept. to continue serving the community.

So, buy that ticket, now, tell your friends, borrow the $ from your mortgage, kid's piggy bank, credit/debit card, partner or parent if you must. It's for a good cause & it will look really good on your wall.

Post written by AS220 Photo Member and Empire St. resident Davyde X. Photos by AS220 Photo Members Bryant Moscote and Krystal Grow.

AS220's Photo Lottery always brings in some big names in photography, and sometimes those big names come with a dose of controversy and a story that challenges our interpretation of what art truly is.

AS220 has always been a haven for the controversial, and as an Unjuried, Uncensored art space, we couldn't be happier to have the work of photographer Jock Sturges included in the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery, happening this Saturday, Sept.24th from 6-9pm at AS220's Main Gallery at 115 Empire Street in Providence. Sturges has been a long time supporter of our egalitarian approach to art and has donated work to past Photo Lotteries and we are incredibly grateful to have his support this time around too.

An original print from Jock Sturges is on it's way to AS220 and we cannot wait to see what he has chosen to send us, and what YOU could win this Saturday at the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery!

Sturges has honed his skills for over thirty years and has ruffled plenty of feathers along the way. His "controversial" style of capturing an abundance of nude women and children has been compared to and denounced in a similar manner to the work of Sally Mann. Despite an FBI raid of his studio and seizure of his negatives, prints and photographic equipment in the 1990's, Sturges work has gained a notoriety and widespread recognition for not only his subject matter, but for the beauty and sensitivity his images portray, a quality the FBI clearly missed among absurd allegations of child pornography.

Sturges mainly shoots with a large format 8x10 view camera, creating lush black and white or color portraits gracefully depicting humans as naturally as possible. He is certainly right to hold true to his vision in investigating bodies which are at their peak point of change. For many of his shoots, Sturges traveled to naturalist colonies and nudist camps where his models and subjects were truly comfortable with themselves and their environment, giving his photos a serenity and a calmness that has come to define his work far more than his haphazard brush with the authorities.

This Saturday, Sept. 24th, AS220 Photo will be proudly displaying one of Jock Sturges beautiful photographs. Tickets are on sale here! Buy your tickets now for your chance to take home a Sturges original or one of over 150 other fabulous pieces in this year's Photo Lottery!

We can not contain our excitement!

We have just gotten confirmation that a very well known artist, no, living MASTER has donated work to this years Photo Lottery!

Are you ready?

Nan Goldin!

That's right!

Goldin's work is held by private collectors, museums and galleries all over the world. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, in the late 70s, and quickly became one of photographic history's very important people. Her intimate portraits of her circle of friends illustrate a world of both pain and loss, beauty and joy.

Her work is often more intimate when viewed in person, and is frequently shown in the format of a slide show, set to the music of the Velvet Underground. Common themes in Goldin's work are: love, gender, domesticity, abuse, drug use, and sexuality. Her usage of intimate subject matter is universal and shows the simple struggle of humanity that we all readily relate to.


She was presented the 2007 Hasselblad Award and is represented in America by Matthew Marks Gallery since 1992 and Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris. Nan Goldin splits her time, living and working in both New York and in Paris France.

We would show you the piece that is available in the Photo Lottery, but we don't know which one it will be yet! Goldin herself is selecting the piece she wants to contribute to the Photo Lottery and it is being shipped directly to AS220 Photo! We will save a place on the gallery wall for her piece, and if you draw the lucky number we will either send you the piece as soon as it arrives, or, if you're lucky enough to be local AND win an original Nan Goldin print, we will alert you when it arrives and you can come down to AS220, pick it up and take it home!

We're absolutely ELATED to include a piece from Nan Goldin, in the 2011 Photo Lottery. For a single $125 ticket you could win her print or one of over 150 other spectacular works in this year's show! Purchase tickets to the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery online or at the AS220 gallery on the day of the event, this Saturday Sept. 24th 6-9pm. Come down and mingle with Providence's photo community, party and support AS220 Photo!

Every ticket is a winner, and this year, you could WIN BIG!

Henry Horenstein quite literally wrote the book on photography. His "Black and White Photography" book is still used in most introductory photo classes today, including AS220 Photo's own Intro to the 35mm Camera and Intro to the Darkroom classes. He's published more than a dozen other books for bodies of work he has produced over the last three decades of his photography career.



Horenstein studied and still works as a photo professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been showcased across the country and around the world, and has covered subjects such as sea life, dogs, friends and family, country music, the nude, horse races and burlesque.

We're ecstatic to include a piece from an artist as diverse as Henry Horenstein in the 2011 Photo Lottery. For a single $125 ticket you could win a print of your own! Purchase tickets to the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery online or at the AS220 gallery on the day of the event, this Saturday Sept. 24th 6-9pm. Come on down, support AS220 photo and bring home your own piece of photo history!

Since 1995, the Paul Krot Community Darkroom has been providing affordable access to traditional black and white photo facilities, offering photographers at all levels of skill, interest and experience the chance to behold the magic of the darkroom.

Needless to say, we wouldn't be anywhere without Paul Krot and his groundbreaking chemistry, Sprint Systems . As a photography instructor/mad scientist, Krot had a reputation as an eccentric and incredibly talented artist, teacher, inventor and arts advocate. He believed in the power of art to transform lives, and the idea that access was key to that inspiration and transition.

This year, AS220 Photo is proud to include the work of the one and only Paul Krot in the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery.



This is the first time we have EVER had original artwork from Paul Krot in the Photo Lottery, and we are thrilled that this year one lucky winner will take home this beautiful image from the patron saint of AS220 Photo.

Like most people that knew Paul Krot knew that he was not your average photographer, and this photo comes to the 2011 Photo Lottery by extraordinary means. Current Sprint Systems President Marlaine Noel presented us with a challenge: two black and white 35mm direct positives, taken by Krot himself. If we could find a way to turn positives into a print, we could have them for the lottery.

So your favorite photo nerds got to work, first transforming the positives into negatives by contact printing the two tiny frames onto one sheet of Ortho film, then enlarging that 4x5 negative into one 11x14 print on archival, fiber based paper.

This is the piece that YOU could win on Saturday, Sept.24th. An original image taken by Paul Krot, reinvented and recreated in the Paul Krot Community Darkroom at AS220. This is a truly special piece that sums up the true spirit of AS220 Photo, inspired by one of the most exceptional and extraordinary photographers and photo-advocates of our time.

We couldn't be more honored to have Paul Krot's work gracing our gallery walls this year, and to offer YOU the chance to win this important piece and support the program that Paul Krot himself inspired, in the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery.

Tickets are on sale now, so get yours while they last! Advanced ticket buyers get first dibs on the lottery drawing! Tickets will be available at the door, but don't wait until Saturday to draw your ticket and walk away with one of over 150 pieces of original photography and know that you dd your part to keep AS220 Photo and the Paul Krot Community Darkroom up and running for years to come.

See you Saturday!

Sometimes you think you know someone...but then realize they are really more spectacular than you had ever imagined. Case in point: Jessica Lange.

You may remember the actress from her roles in such classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Tootsie, Cape Fear and Tim Burton's Big Fish, but did you know that this Hollywood high roller is also a talented photographer?



That's right photo fans! In a mere 6 days you could win this very photo, taken by THE Jessica Lange, in the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery!

We are incredibly honored to have this photo in this year's Photo Lottery and are pleased to introduce you to Lange's work as a photographer. Having recently published a book of her photography and showing a collection of work at the Eastman Kodak House, Lange is showing the world how she sees things behind the camera, after a virtual lifetime in front of it.

Her book, 50 Photographs, is a collection of black and white photos taken mostly during her travels as a movie star and some of her family and friends. As a college student in Minnesota in the 60's, Lange became interested in photography, but the hobby slipped away from her in the midst of international stardom. Now, she is returning to the comparitively quite and uncomplicated world of still photography, and we are more than thrilled to have this piece as one of over 150 pieces YOU could at the 2011 Photo Lottery this Saturday, Sept.24th from 6-9pm.

Tickets are on sale now, so be sure to get yours while they last! Advanced ticket buyers get the first crack at the lottery drawing, so don't wait until Saturday to take your chance at winning this and other pieces of exceptional, original work and to support AS220 Photo!

Stay tuned for features on other great artists and artworks up for grabs at the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery!! See you Saturday!

Here at AS220 we are proud to announce that this year's Photo Lottery will feature a donation by Richard McCaffrey, critically-acclaimed freelance photographer of the music industry since 1971. McCaffrey's photographic donation, a portrait of world-famous singer-songwriter Patti Smith, is a clever visual reference, a tribute to an older portrait taken of Smith by himself the same year.



Richard McCaffrey has been featured in such publications as Rolling Stone, People, Blender, Playboy, Billboard, Look, Cream, Circus, Guitar Player, TV Guide, The Providence Phoenix, Providence Journal, San Francisco Examiner, Oakland Tribune, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, and has been featured in the following books:
Bob Dylan: The Illustrated Record (Alan Rinzler) Harmony Books); Linda Ronstadt (Vivian Claire, Flash Books); The Official Book of the Deadheads (Paul Grushkin, William Morrow & Co.); Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Dorling Kindersley Ltd.); Phil Lesh: My life with the Grateful Dead (Little Brown); San Francisco Rock (Jack McDonough, Chronicle Books); Talking Heads (David Gans, Avon Books) and others.

McCaffrey is represented by Getty Images and currently lives in Providence, RI where he is a news and entertainment photographer for The Providence/Boston Phoenix.

This is just one of the incredible prints YOU could win this year at the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery, coming up on Sept.24th! Buy your tickets here and get them soon! Photo Lottery is usually a sell out, so get yours while they last!

Every ticket sold directly supports the public access photo program at AS220 and helps us keep our classes cheap, our spaces open and our resources available, accessible and affordable.
For more info visit the Photo Lottery website or contact photolottery@as220.org.

Greetings From Photo Land!


The Photo Lottery is fast approaching, and for the first time in it's history is up in the gallery and on display for the entire month of September! We have a few events to officially invite you all to so you can mix and mingle with other photographers, learn more about the ever expanding world of AS220 Photo and bask in the glory of the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery!

This Friday, Sept.9th from 6-8pm in the AS220 Main Gallery at 115 Empire St. we are pleased to be hosting a meet and greet with the New England chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and the Rhode Island branch of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Both of these organizations help foster community and support innovation in photography and graphic design, and we are thrilled to welcome them to AS220! Please join us for an evening of casual conversation and brief slideshow presentations from AS220 Photo and Photographic Memory. Admission is free, so come join the fun and geek out with fellow photographers and graphic artists and get a sneak peek at the current Photo Lottery exhibition!

On Sunday, Sept.11 from 4-7pm is the official Photo Lottery Gallery Opening! Come to 115 Empire Street and see this constantly growing collection of photography from local artists, professional photographers, members of our public access photo program and youth photography program and nationally recognized artists! Scope out some of the incredible pieces up for grabs in the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery and chat with AS220 Photo Staff and Key Members who have been working for months to pull this epic fundraising event together. Get pumped for the main Photo Lottery event on Sept.24th by stopping by the Main Gallery this Sunday evening and take in one of the most diverse and exciting photography exhibitions in Providence!


And, of course, we cordially invite all of you to the Main Event: The 5th Biennial Photo Lottery! On Sept.24th from 6-9pm, join the photo frenzy and take your chance at winning one (or more) spectacular works of photography as we again host the most exciting photo-fundraiser in the biggest little! Every ticket is a winner and all ticket sales directly support Rhode Island's only publicly accessibly black and white darkroom, digital photo lab and community lighting studio. A single $125 ticket could win you the work of Jock Sturges, Richard McCaffery, Jessica Lange or a piece from one of your favorite local artists and helps keep our ever expanding photo classes affordable and our photographic resources accessible to interested artists at any level of skill or experience. Join in the fun while supporting your favorite local photo program and winning amazing artwork! It's a win/win/win scenario!

Last but certainly not least, we will be throwing a Photo Lottery After Party immediately following the main lottery event on Sept.24th. We have four awesome, semi-local bands slated to blow your mind as we shake loose and celebrate the epic undertaking that is the 5th Biennial Photo Lottery. Bands start at 9:30 and admission is a $3-$6 sliding scale donation that supports AS220 Photo. Come see Boston-based rock n' roll three piece On The Fence (my little brother's band!), photo nerd metal heads Predator Drone, one man music mutant Dying is the Only Way to Fame and headliners Downtown Boys!


For more information about the Photo Lottery, visit our website! Tickets are on sale now through the AS220 Online Store, so get yours while they last! The Photo Lottery typically sells out, so make sure to get yours before it's too late!

Celebrate Photo Lottery all month long with AS220 Photo! See you soon!