Jeff Hamada is one of the three judges in the Student Competition of the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards. He is the Founder and Editor of Booooooom, one of the world’s largest art websites.
Hamada is passionate about helping people get to the next level in their career and he is happy to give advice to students entering our competition this year.
The Student Competition is one of the world’s leading programs for photography students. Each year, all registered universities are given a unique 1st challenge, with a time frame for their students to respond and submit a series of between 3-5 images per institution. A shortlist of 10 students are then selected and given a 2nd and final challenge, to which they will respond with a series of between 5-10 images.
How did the idea of the website Booooooom came up?
I created the site in 2008 as a way to highlight young emerging artists and it quickly became one of the largest art blogs on the Internet. In the years since then I published more than 12,000 articles, mostly focused on art and photography.
How did you become involved in photography?
Most of my time now is spent searching for new talent, writing about people who submit their work to our site, and connecting creatives to brands, agencies, and art galleries. I’m passionate about helping people get to the next level in their career and feel very fortunate that this has somehow become my job (it doesn’t feel like one).
You dream up collaborative art projects...
I also love creating collaborative projects in an effort to get people to make art even when (or especially when) they don’t consider themselves artists. One of my favourites was a project where I challenged people to remake famous works of art as photos. Images from the project spread all over the Internet and it caught the eye of Chronicle Books in San Francisco. They published a fantastic hardcover book of the project and I was able to send copies to all of the contributors.
What are you currently working on?
I’m currently organizing a big group exhibition at Thinkspace Gallery, California in March, and having fun publishing e-zines focused on work by our community members.
What entries would you like to see at the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards?
I’m really excited to see what gets submitted. I’d like to see work that demonstrates a firm grasp of the fundamentals of photography and a consistency, but more than anything else, I’m looking for a unique eye.
