Updates

First Place Winner in Focus on the Story presents Photoworks at Glen Echo's Annual Photo Slam /  by Chris Suspect

First place winning image. Espadin © 2022 Chris Suspect.

This past Sunday at MetroBarDC in Washington, DC, I took first place in the annual Focus on Story’s presents Photoworks at Glen Echo’s Annual Photo Slam Competition. This is an open call event in which participants are asked to submit 5 photos and 1 best photo for a total of 6 photos. The first 5 photos for each submitter are then presented in 4 rounds, with the judges selecting the top 3 in each round. If you make it through that, then the best photos from the top 12 go on to the final round with the judges presenting the top 3 winners.

This year the judges were Noe Todorovich, Executive Director for Exposed DC, Farrah Skeiky, Focus on the Story Board Member, Lou Jacobson, Photography Critic for the Washington City Paper, and Sharon Farmer, former White House Photographer.

When asked what my winning strategy was I told them that I approached the first 5 images as a cohesive series and that my best shot was a single that could stand on its own. At the top of this post is my best shot. It’s a conceptual work about climate change anxiety from a much bigger project that I am working on. The other five photos (below) come from my Mexican silhouette series that I have been working on for a number of years.

All 3 winners and an audience favorite will get to be exhibited at PhotoWorks in 2023.

My Top 50 Photographs of 2021 /  by Chris Suspect

2021 kicked off with the Insurrection on January 6th and then closed it out with the Omicron variant, bookending another weird and strange year with national traumatic events. Fortunately I was able to slip off to Mexico for a couple weeks for my annual Day of the Dead workshop in October, giving me some much needed respite from our divided nation. Unlike 2020 I didn’t release any new books as I needed a break and just wanted to shoot, so this year was a little less eventful. Above are 50 of my best images from the year and below is a list of my photographic accomplishments.

In January, the Leica Fotografie International Magazine Blog published my images from the Insurrection, “Chris Suspect: Chaos at the Capitol,” by Danilo Rößger, and I was the juror for Glen Echo Photoworks’ “Hindsight is 2020” competition and exhibition.

Leica Camera also used some of my work for their first global media campaign in 10 years in their advertising video, “The World Deserves Witnesses”.

In April, I participated in in a lecture and image review session with photography educator Mike Browne from the United Kingdom.

In May, I was honored to be part of an online exhibition entitled “Psychotic Reactions” by Landscape Stories out of Italy.

In June, I was included in Exposed DC’s 15th Anniversary Exhibit at Elle, in Washington, DC.

In July, it was a real honor to work with Tim Huynh on the first episode of Beyond the Frame, a slick, well-produced vignette of my photography career to date.

Also in July, I was delighted to be the MC for The DC Street Photography Collective event with two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lucian Perkins, at Slash Run in Washington, DC

In September, WhiteWall featured my work with a large solo exhibition at Photopia in Hamburg, Germany, and I was interviewed for Street Photography Magazine’s podcast episode “Chris Suspect Shoots the Insurrection.”

In October, I hosted the return to my annual Day of the Dead Workshop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The student slideshow is great!

In November, I created a series of 23 unique T-Shirts and prints for an exhibit that was unfortunately cancelled at the last minute. But, I was able to sell out most of these online and at my birthday party at Slash Run. There are still a few left here.

In December, I was filmed in Miami Beach during Art Basel Week by a French television crew for an episode of Sur Les Murs, a french documentary program on street art with artist/sculptor Richard Orlinski. This will be released in January 2022.

And, finally I was happy to have several photos included in Focus on the Story’s latest book, “Transition - The End of an Unprecedented Four Years” published this December.

Here’s to a new year! And hopefully a much better one.


Twenty awesome things that happened for me in photography during 2019 /  by Chris Suspect

Since it is the end of the year I am going to do a first for myself and in list form tell you 20 awesome things that happened for me in 2019. Then at the end, you will learn about some cool things I have cooking for the next decade.

1. I was the first place winner for the Brussels Street Photography Festival’s Eyewitness in Brussels contest that was exhibited at The Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium. And this image was also presented in a show during the actual Brussels Street Photography Festival in October.

2. I participated in a panel discussion at Gallery O on H about street photography in Washington, D.C., alongside Cynthia Connolly, Michael Horsley and Carolyn Toye.

3. I was the winner of Exposed DC’s annual contest with a family photo and part of the group show at Touchstone Gallery.

4. I was part of Community Collective Pop Up Series Vol. 4 - Light, at CreativeHandsdc Studio, Washington, DC

5. I was interviewed on DC Public Library’s podcast about my DC street photography and my project Faith.

6. I gave a lecture at Street Photo Milano - SPM entitled “Suspect Device, Faith & Gratuity Included,” at BASE, in Milan, Italy.

7. I had a few photographic works on display at Crystal City Underground for Exposed DC’s Color Study exhibit.

8. I was selected for Stop Motion’s 6th, 7th and 8th editions, and included in their year end printed zine, Stop Motion 2019.

9. I had an image printed in the World-street.photography 5 hardcover book published by Gudberg Nerger in Germany.

10. I made a guest appearance on the infamous and highly entertaining Outerfocus photography podcast out of the UK run by Ian Weldon.

11. I was an invited speaker for StreetFoto San Francisco where I gave a lecture at the Harvey Milk Center for Photography.

12. I was an invited guest at Festivalul de Arte Vizuale - VSLO in Romania where I gave a street photography workshop and presented a lecture entitled, “Project Minded.”

13. I had the honor of being an ambassador for The Miami Street Photography Festival (MSPF) and presented all of 2018’s MSPF Finalist Images at Xposure International Photography Festival in the UAE. I also had my own exhibition there of my work around the Trump Inauguration. In addition, Juan Jose Reyes, Essdras M Suarez and I gave a panel discussion on street photography.

14. I had a few photographic works on display at Crystal City Underground for Exposed DC’s “Road Trip” exhibit.

15. It was then off to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where I host an annual Day of the Dead Workshop on behalf of MSPF - this time bringing my family.

16. I had a photo series published in Dodho Magazine out of Spain.

17. I had some select work from my Gratuity Included exhibit from 2017 presented at The Cheshire in Washington, DC for the Low Brow Invitational run by the awesome Mike O'Brien.

18. I was a finalist in 1st International Biennale of Street Photography "Moment," in Częstochowa, Poland with my work exhibited at The Centre for the Promotion of Culture “Gaude Mater.”

19. I was the Director’s Choice Winner for Praxis Gallery & Photographic Arts Center’s, “After Dark” group show in Minneapolis, MN.

20. And finally, I went to the Miami Street Photography Festival during Art Basel Week in Miami for the 8th year in a row. This time the collective I am part of DCSPC got to participate in the street battle contest against members of the infamous Burn My Eye collective. We won!

So for 2020 I will see where it leads me, but I do have some concrete plans starting off with publishing 4 limited edition zines, one for each quarter in 2020. The first will be a compendium of my Gratuity Included work (it’s already designed with 40 images (most never published) spanning 60 pages!), the second will be called Leather Boyz, the third and forth I am still thinking about but will likely involve Romania and some form of music related photography. These will all be self-published in first editions of 100.

The other thing that is concrete will be my annual workshop in San Miguel de Allende Mexico - Day of the Dead 2020, with the tentative dates ofOct 27 - Nov 3.

And of course you will see me at MSPF 2020 for the 9th edition.

Thank you to everyone who helped make my 2019 an amazing year and I look forward to even more in 2020.