We live in an age of egalitarian photography. Anyone with access to a smart phone and an Instagram filter is potentially capable of producing a beautiful image. No longer is it necessary to buy the next and best DSLR or invest in a trendy Leica. As famed photojournalist Ernst Haas put it, “The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.”
Perhaps no other photography competition buys into this reality more so than the appropriately named Krappy Kamera contest. First launched by Soho Photo Gallery 22 years ago as a group show, the now international juried competition asks anyone with a krappy kamera — a Holga, a Diana, an Ansco or a pinhole — to send in their best shots. The idea is simple: “In the hands on an artist, great photographs can be made with basic equipment.” The lousier the lens, the more Soho Photo wants to see your work.
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Soho Photo Gallery is showing the Krappy Kamera exhibit Wednesdays to Sundays, from 1 to 6 p.m., from February 4 to the 28.
