The Digital Photography Exhibit is an annual international juried competition presented by Bradley University and the Peoria Art Guild. The original Exhibit, in 1994, was one of the first "art galleries" to be presented on the World Wide Web. Unlike most shows on the web, the Digital Photography Exhibit has a dual existence. It consists of both the virtual images on the Internet, and the actual matted prints on the walls of a "real" gallery. If you were not in Peoria for the exhibit, you can see the gallery in Virtual Reality.

This is the third year of the Exhibit. The 1994 and 1995 exhibits are still available for viewing on the web. This, the 1996 exhibit, opened in Peoria (and right here) on April 26, 1996. The prints will remain on display at the Art Guild gallery in Peoria until May 25, 1996. They will be available at this web site indefinitely.

This juried exhibition sought entrants worldwide from artists working in "digital photography," defined as "a two-dimensional image which originated in a lens-imaging device and was then brought to completion on a computer." T his includes images originally captured by conventional (film) cameras, video cameras, still-video cameras, digital cameras, and 3D-scanners.

This exhibit includes resources designed to extend the connection between the artist and the viewer of the art on the Internet. The artists each provided:

An "artist statement" for which they were invited to write about their personal artistic goals and philosophies.

A "technical explanation" which explains in detail the steps involved in the image's creation.

A self-portrait, either a conventional photograph or a computerized exploration of their visual self-image.

A sound file of the artist speaking.

Many of the artists are linked in the "artist's pages" to their e-mail addresses. Those who have their own home pages may be visited directly.

An alphabetical index of all the artists is provided, as well as a digital photography bibliography.

Prints of most of the images are available for purchase. Price, size, and print-medium information are to be found in the large-image pages.

There were 202 images entered in the competition. Entries came from 68 different artists from across the United States and from three other countries. The jurors were Shelly Katz, Contributing Photographer for TIME MAGAZINE and Christie Ferguson Cirone, A ssociate Professor of Fine Arts, Illinois Central College. They selected 45 works for the show, from 38 artists, representing a wide range of techniques and aesthetic visions. Exhibit award-winners were selected from the prints on the wall at the gallery exhibit.

The visual design and HTML coding for the Digital Photography '96 web site were created by Kevin Reynen, Danny Jacobs, and Dave Dreghorn as an independent study project at Bradley University, with Assistant Professor of Art Emily Stern. Reynen, Jacobs, and Dreghorn also created the PhotoShock v1.1 "Digital Fauxtography" image manipulation project.

This exhibit is an annual event. For information about next year's Digital Photography Exhibit, please see the exhibit prospectus.

We welcome your comments about the exhibit. The Digital Photography Exhibit is curated and administered by Bradley University Associate Professor of Communication Howard Goldbaum.