Art for Your Feet + Nature’s Castles: Photography 2021 Winners

Shoes are miniature sculptures and sandy rock formations go black and white with these Photography 2021 winners.

Chris Francis is a Los Angeles-based contemporary artist and self-taught fashion designer known for his one-of-a-kind shoe designs that embody punk rock and 20th-century art movements. With his eye for detail and commitment to quality construction, Francis’ shoe designs are regarded as modern art pieces and can be found in numerous museum collections across the country. In 2019, the SCAD FASH Museum of Film + Fashion hosted “Chris Francis” (above) Shoe Art, an exhibition showcasing the gorgeous footwear. To promote the showcase, photographers Colin Douglas Gray and Ashley Camper captured high-quality images of the shoe exhibits to display on SCAD’s website and for promotional materials. In this Platinum-winning set of photographs, Camper and Douglas highlight how the exhibit’s displays perfectly accentuate Francis’ shoes by emulating each pair’s qualities, form, color, and design. 

Paco Macías Velasco is a professional photographer and artist located in Mexico City. Although his work covers various styles, including portrait, landscape, automotive, product, and still-life, he has always held a personal affinity for black and white photography. His Gold-winning photograph “Castles of Lime and Sand” (above) was taken while visiting the city of Cuatrociénegas Coahuila, Mexico. Velasco was fascinated by the sand and lime formations located in the nearby desert land and decided to change the photo to black and white to enhance the shadows in the sand and the formation’s shape and texture as well as the lighting to produce a more striking image reminiscent of those taken in a darkroom laboratory. In an anecdote shared by the photographer, he describes how after seeing that their family album was predominantly black and white photographs, his 5-year-old grandson Francisco asked, “In your time was life in B&W?” Velasco laughed and explained to him the difference between a color photo and black and white photo and emphasized that black and white photography has been present in everyone’s family history and the whole world in general: “That’s how important the art of stopping time is.”

If you are interested in submitting your work to our Photography 2023 competition, click here to learn more!