Light Dreams
Juried Alternative /Historical Process exhibition
Juror: Jill Enfield

Exhibition Dates: July 4th – September 6th

Public reception: July 5, 5 – 7 pm
Deadline to Submit: May 19th, midnight MST

Submit at: https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=17184

Light Dreams invites artists to explore light not only as a physical phenomenon, but as an internal, psychological, and symbolic presence. The pairing of light and dreams suggests a space where conscious perception and subconscious experience overlap—where memory, imagination, and emotion shape how light is seen, felt, and interpreted.

In dreams, light often behaves differently than it does in waking life. It may glow without a visible source, shift color unexpectedly, or illuminate only fragments of a scene while leaving others in darkness. This opens space for photographic approaches that emphasize ambiguity, softness, distortion, or selective visibility. Dreams often reshape reality through exaggeration, compression, or symbolism. Translating this into photographic practice could mean using light to bend time, alter scale, or collapse narrative. Long exposures, alternative or historical processes, or unconventional lighting techniques can reinforce a sense of temporal dislocation—images that feel as though they exist outside linear time.  In this context, light is not simply descriptive; it becomes a narrative force, shaping meaning rather than documenting fact. Light can become unstable, fleeting, or uncanny—mirroring the way dreams resist logical structure and clear resolution.

Artists might consider:

Light that feels remembered rather than observed

Illumination that emerges gradually, as if from within the image

Scenes where light guides the eye but withholds full understanding

Jill Enfield:

I am a fine art photographer, educator, and author. My concentration is historical techniques and alternative processes, with annual workshops and lectures internationally. My 3 books on the subject are used in schools and have won awards since the first one was published in 2002.

My last series on immigration, was first shown on Ellis Island in 2017 and has since traveled around the country. The work consisted of portraits as well as The Glasshouse of Immigrants comprising of portraits as well as images taken on Ellis Island.

My new series is called “The Way Home” and consists of landscapes along the Hudson River.

The New American series were originally photographed using the wet plate collodion process to make ambrotypes and The Hudson River series were first photographed using an Iphone, transformed into wet plate ambrotypes and then made into palladium prints.

Thank you for our Sponsor, Freestyle Photo & Imaging Supplies