Small Town, Edge of the World

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Lawrence Russ, United States
• Date of Photograph
  2006-2023
• Studio
  Lawrence Russ
• Website
  https://lawrenceruss.com

Partly to emphasize vision, and partly to challenge my own, I've limited the sites for capturing these images to the tiny harbor and boatyard, and two beaches, of one town on Long Island Sound. I might have called this series “The Universe in a Small Place.” I hope these photographs reflect the reality that we do not live among separate, multiple worlds – physical world, dream world, political world, spiritual world – but only one, which contains all of these and other dimensions. I aim to evoke what Ernst Haas called “the poetic element,” what the poet Robert Bly called "the deep image."

Lawrence Russ received a Master of the Fine Arts degree from the Writing Program of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he was one of two Honorary Fellows in Poetry. He published prose and poetry in many journals and anthologies, and was a First Runner-up for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. His photographic work, to which he's been dedicated for the last 23 years, has been chosen in international competition for exhibition, publication or honors by galleries, museums, magazines, and centers in every region of the U.S., and in many global awards competitions.

Awards International Photography Awards (2015, 2022-2025) total 1 Juror Top 5 Pick, 2 Honorable Mentions, 10 Official Selections; London International Creative Competition Awards (2024, 2025) 1 Shortlist, 2 Official Selections; Tokyo International Foto Awards (2025) 3 Honorable Mentions; International COLOR Awards (2021-2025), 1 Category First Prize, 7 Honorable Mentions, 39 Prize Nominations; Fine Art Photography Awards (London) (2025, 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2015), 3 Honorable Mentions, 10 Prize Nominations; reFocus International Color Photography Awards (2023-2025), 1 Honorable Mention, 3 Prize Nominations; reFocus World Annual Photo Awards (2024, 2025), 2 Prize Nominations; Architecture MasterPrize Awards (2025), 3 Honorable Mentions; Analog Sparks International Film Photography Awards (2023), 2 Silver (category) Prizes; NYC4PA (New York Center for Photographic Art) (2024-2026), 3 Juror's Selections; PhotoPlace Gallery (Middlebury, VT, U.S.) (2021), Juror's Honorable Mention; A Smith Gallery (Johnson City, TX), Director's Honorable Mention (2016); COLOR Magazine, Annual Single Images Contest (2010), Merit Award; Housatonic Museum of Art (CT U.S.), Annual Open Juried Exhibition, 1st Honorable Mention (2005).