ASTORIA LightBox Photographic Gallery is accepting submissions for its first Mobile Magic exhibit.

Mobile phone photographic images are part of our everyday lives. Smart phones allow us to create images with the immediacy of reaching into our pockets, pushing a button and using the processing tools of various apps.

In LightBoxs Mobile Magic exhibits, the gallery wishes to bring these creative images off of cell phones and computers and into the beauty of fine art photographic prints. Mobile Magic will be a monthly event for display in the gallery, opening every month during the gallerys regular monthly openings, which are timed with the Astoria Second Saturday Art Walk. Each month, LightBox will display archival pigment prints of the top 25 juried images, selected each month by a different renown juror from the photographic community.

LightBox will print every submission thats right, every single submission, not just the jurors top 25. All images will be printed by LightBox using 100 percent cotton rag stock and archival pigment inks on 5.5-inch by 8.5-inch paper and mailed to the photographer.

The inaugural Mobile Magic exhibit which will be Saturday, Aug. 10 is extra special because each of the jurors top 25 will be printed on 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper, matted and installed into a frame for display in the gallery. Each of these top 25 photographers will receive the matted piece in the mail after the show. (All other submissions will be printed in the smaller size, and yes, every submission will be mailed to the photographers.) LightBox is pleased to have Aline Smithson, fine art photographer and publisher of the blogzine Lenscratch, as the juror for the inaugural exhibit.

It dawned on me recently that it might be only a matter of time until photography moves completely to cell phone capture, and for those outside of the fine art world, it probably already has, Aline Smithson says. As photographers, we need to look at the cell phone as another tool and another possibility those ahead of the curve have already been using cell phones to create imagery beyond what was in our viewfinder or imagination, and its exciting to consider the future. Apps have made every approach to photography possible, and more and more fine art photographers are exploring the medium, so its important that we embrace a way of creating art that is becoming part of our visual zeitgeist.

Submissions Guidelines:

All submissions must be exposed and processed on a mobile phone, and must be the creation of the submitter.

Email your image, one at a time, to mobilemagic@lightbox-photographic.com

The deadline for the inaugural exhibit is midnight Wednesday, July 31. For future shows, submissions will be due by midnight of the last day of the month for the next months exhibit.

Use Mobile Magic as the subject title of your email. Include your image title, your name and mailing address in the body of the email

Each submission costs $10 and must be paid for using PayPal. LightBoxs paypal ID is sales@lightbox-photographic.com. Subject of the payment should be Mobile Magic. Message with payment should include the image title, your name, and your shipping address.

Every submission will be printed by LightBox and mailed to the photographer. The top 25 images chosen by the juror will be printed and displayed on the wall of LightBox starting on the Second Saturday of every month, posted on the LightBox website and mailed to the photographer after the show.

The 25 juried images will remain in an online gallery for one year and will be available for sale at the set price of $35. The photographer will receive a PayPal payment of $25 every time their image sells. Prints are printed by LightBox on 5.5-inch by 8.5-inch paper and mailed to the buyer. Every image and print is the creative property of the photographer. LightBox retains no rights to use your image other than to offer your image for sale in the gallery and online for a period of one year from the date of the opening of that months exhibit. You may choose to notify the gallery that you do not wish to offer your image for sale.

All submission fees and funds raised through these monthly exhibits go toward supporting LightBox Photographic Gallerys mission: to provide a center for the promotion of creative and alternative photography on the North Coast of Oregon.

LightBox Photographic Gallery is located at 1045 Marine Drive in Astoria. For more information, call 503-468-0238.