Mild to Wild: First Annual Bob Mizer Emerging Photographer Competition

The Bob Mizer Foundation has announced its First Annual Bob Mizer Emerging Photographer Competition. It is the Foundation’s 4th anniversary and the 70th anniversary of the beginning of Bob Mizer’s amazing career.

Entries will be evaluated by a panel of internationally recognized professionals, including photography critic Vince Aletti, working artist John Sonsini, and editor Dian Hanson of Taschen Publishing.

Gene Eberle

Winners will receive cash and original, unpublished Bob Mizer photographs.

While Mizer’s best-known work was erotic or semi-erotic in nature, his experimental work often was not. This competition is open to all subject matter—from mild to wild.

Jimmy Lewis

If you're a fan of this blog and of the photographs at my vintage beefcake blog, you know Mizer nearly all by himself invented the concept "male model" in the 1940's in Los Angeles, California. When you jump to this post on the blog, you can read about Mizer in my interview with Dennis Bell, the current owner of the Athletic Model Guild and founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation.

Jack Conant and his wife

With this competition, Dennis Bell’s primary focus is to encourage emerging, unknown photographers to publicly share their vision.  Professional photographers are welcome to submit experimental work that has not been commercially sold or publicly exhibited.  Images should focus on experimental photographic methods—whether historic or modern—and may be shot digitally.  (There's a separate category for analog photography.)  Entry categories are: Figurative, Portraiture, Erotic; "Retro," Any Subject, and Analog Camera (i.e. traditional film).

John Winship

Entries must be received by the end of the day on November 30th, 2014.  Applications are available on the Foundation's website.

Winners of the 1st Annual Bob Mizer Foundation Emerging Photographer Competition will be announced December 30, 2014.

Hank Evans

For further details about the 2014 Bob Mizer Emerging Photographer Competition, including the list of awards, award judges, and their credentials, please go here.

Email the Foundation for all submission and media inquiries.

You can help support the Bob Mizer Foundation by donating directly at its website. There you will find more information on Bob Mizer, the Athletic Model Guild and the Bob Mizer Foundation, including its mailing address for your donations and updates on gallery shows, screenings and lectures.