TEXAS PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY | Backyard: A Themed Exhibition

Backyard: A Themed Exhibition

We are delighted to announce that juror Judy Tedford Deaton has selected 40 images for Backyard. A complete list of the exhibiting artists and the Juror's Remarks are below. Heartfelt congratulations to the selected artists and warmest thanks to everyone who generously shared their work for consideration. We hope you can join us for the closing reception at the Center for Contemporary Art, in Abilene, Texas on March 28, 2026 from 3-5pm.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR BACKYARD ARTISTS! (Award winners and honorable mentions in bold.)

View Online Gallery here

Catalog Available here

JURORS STATEMENT

This year’s entries made my job as juror very difficult. Trimming 430 photographs down to 40 was a reminder of the many different and expressive ways photographers create images. The notion that "everyone is a photographer" today because of cell phones is definitely not supported by the active and creative artists involved with the Texas Photographic Society.

The theme of backyard is a broad category as is the public consensus of the definition of photography and professional photographers working today. The outcome of competitions such as this depends on the number and quality of the entrants and of course the juror. The outcome would be different if another juror were chosen. So for those not selected, it is a proverbial roll of the dice every time.

As Chief Curator at The Grace Museum, I have curated many exhibitions featuring historic and contemporary photographers and expanded the museum's photography collection in the process over the past 20 years. Because I typically curate exhibitions around a theme, artist or idea, I took the Backyard idea as a unifying aspect of what a viewer would expect and experience. I hope you will agree that we do not all have the same concept of backyard and of what exactly photography is or was or can be; obviously it is a continuing conversation well worth exploring.

Respectfully submitted,

Judy Tedford Deaton

February 2026

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Texas Photographic Society is honored to announce the call for entries for Backyard a themed, juried exhibition of places shaped by use, memory, and proximity, which will be juried by Judy Tedford Deaton, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Grace Museum in Abilene, TX. Entries due 1/26.

Backyard will be exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene, Texas. Artists working in all media are encouraged to submit work that examines the backyard as a constructed environment — shaped by human intention and natural forces — or as a psychological or symbolic space informed by memory and experience. The exhibition welcomes literal, abstract, documentary, and experimental approaches. Backyard will open at the Center for Contemporary Art in Abilene, Texas, on February 20th, 2026 and will continue through March 28th, 2026. A closing reception with the juror will be on March 28, 2026, 3-5PM.
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Jan 6th, 2026 - Call for Entries opens
Jan 26th, 2026 - Deadline for Entry (11:59 p.m. Central Time)
Feb 2nd, 2026 - Selections Announced
Feb 16th, 2026 - Work Due at the Center for Contemporary Arts
Feb 20th, 2026 - Exhibition Opening
March 6th, 2026 - Special Reception 5-7pm
March 28th, 2026 - Exhibition Closes / Closing Reception 3-5PM / Optional work pick up after
March 29th, 2026 - Work is Shipped Back

AWARDS

First Place = $400 
Second Place = $250 
Third Place = $150
Up to 5 Honorable Mentions may be awarded

ENTRY FEE and TPS MEMBERSHIP

All entries are processed through the CaFE submission site. The entry fee for current TPS Members is $30 for 5 images, plus $5 for each additional image. The Non-Member entry fee is $40 for 5 images, plus $5 for each additional image. You do not have to be a member of TPS to enter. However, if you enter the competition and join TPS or renew as a member at the same time, you can pay the reduced current TPS Member entry fee of $35.

You may enter up to 12 images.

TPS Member Benefits include member feature opportunities via our Members' Gallery, Member Spotlight, Blog, Members' News, Members' Instagram Takeover, social media accounts and E-Zine, discounted entry fees to most TPS competitions, and discounts to programs and services offered through our partnerships.

If you are not sure of your TPS member status, please contact TPS at cpireland@gmail.com. All entry and membership fees are non-refundable.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The backyard is a familiar yet complex space — a place shaped by use, memory, and proximity. It can be a site of play, labor, retreat, control, or neglect. Often considered ordinary, the backyard quietly reflects how we relate to land, to home, and to one another.

This exhibition invites artists to interpret the concept of backyard broadly. Submissions may engage with backyards as physical spaces or as metaphors: sites of personal history, social boundaries, ecological systems, cultural identity, or contested ground. From cultivated lawns and improvised gardens to overlooked edges and informal structures, the backyard offers a lens through which to explore questions of ownership, care, belonging, and transformation.

Artists working in all photographic media are encouraged to submit work that examines the backyard as a constructed environment — shaped by human intention and natural forces — or as a psychological or symbolic space informed by memory and experience. The exhibition welcomes literal, abstract, documentary, and experimental approaches.

By focusing attention on spaces often taken for granted, this exhibition seeks to reveal the depth and complexity embedded in what lies just beyond the back door. The backyard, modest in scale yet rich in implication, becomes a starting point for broader conversations about place, identity, and our relationship to the environments we inhabit.

ELIGIBILITY

Backyard is open to artists internationally, of all levels, who are at least 18 years old at time of entry. Works exhibited previously in a TPS show are not eligible. Current members of the TPS Board of Directors are permitted to enter but are not eligible for awards.

ABOUT THE JUROR - Judy Tedford Deaton, Chief Curator, Director of Exhibitions and Collections of the Grace Museum, Abilene, TX

Judy Tedford Deaton, Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections, has been curating exhibitions and overseeing the art and history collections at The Grace Museum since 2006. She is responsible for concept development, installation and interpretation of twelve art exhibitions annually. Before joining The Grace staff, Deaton was an associate professor of art history and gallery director at McMurry University (1995-2006). She earned a BA from the University of Texas Austin and an MFA in art history from Southern Methodist University where she was a recipient of the SMU Meadows Artistic Scholarship Graduate Award in Art History.

She is an author, art historian, frequent guest speaker, art consultant, art juror and panelist at museums and conferences including the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Texas Association of Museums (TAM), Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas (CADD), Mountain Plains Museum Association (MPMA), and the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA). Deaton is currently a member for the CASETA board of directors and served on the 2015 Arts Create Grant Panel for the Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) and was recently featured in the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities publication article on the exhibition Spanish Texas, Legend & Legacy curated in 2016. She is also the recipient of CASETA awards for outstanding publications and exhibitions in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and the MPMA 2009 award for art exhibition publications. Monographs and solo exhibitions on Seymour Fogel, Loren Mozley, Kelly Fearing, Janet Turner and Michael Frary are among recent early Texas art projects.

Backyard is made possible through funding from the support of our TPS Members

IMAGE REQUIREMENTS

Please submit digital JPG files only, minimum of 1200 pixels on the longest side and 5 MB maximum. Please remove watermarks from images. For each image, you will need to provide the image title and the process (medium) used to make the image/print (Archival Digital Print, Silver Gelatin Print, Platinum/Palladium Print, Wet Plate Collodian, etc.) To clarify, you will submit a digital file of your image for the contest application; if your work is selected for the show you will print your image, frame it, and ship it to the exhibition venue.

Please note: TPS calls are conducted through CaFÉ. Applicants will need to create a free account with a portfolio of images, and then apply to each specific call with images from your portfolio. All images you intend to use for each application must be uploaded to your portfolio before you begin your application. Later additions to your application cannot be accommodated.

Need help resizing images? You can resize via a Mac or PC computer, or use a number of third-party applications, many of which offer free trials or solutions. Please go here for suggestions.

SALES

TPS encourages the sale of exhibited work and will collect a 30% commission from all prints sold during the exhibition. Please indicate the sales price of your print, including frame/finishing. If your finished piece is not for sale, simply note NFS. If your work is accepted and you do not indicate a sales price, the artwork will be listed as NFS.

IF YOUR WORK IS ACCEPTED

PLEASE NOTE: Update for this exhibition, the framed (finished piece) must not exceed the size of 30" in the longest dimension.

1. Artwork must be ready-to-hang using wire stretched between D-rings on the back. The finished piece must not exceed 30" in the longest dimension (including the frame, due to space concerns). Sawtooth hangers are NOT permitted. Please use white mats and/or white or black frames that are gallery quality and complement your work (color mats are NOT desired). Plexiglass must be used with the frame, NO GLASS ALLOWED. Photographs printed on metal are allowed, but must be framed, with the photograph safely recessed from the front of the frame, and packed appropriately. Clearly label the back of your work with your full name, address, telephone number, email address, image title, medium, dimensions and sales price or NFS. TPS reserves the right to exclude works from the exhibition that are not gallery-ready and professional in presentation.

2. Clearly label the back of your work with your full name, image title, email address, medium, and sales price or NFS.

3. A prepaid return UPS or FedEX shipping label MUST be provided with your work for prints to be returned to you when the exhibition concludes. Work WITHOUT return shipping will NOT be included in the exhibition and will NOT be returned. Please keep a copy of the prepaid return shipping label and your receipt.

4. Please ship photographs in a sturdy, flat box (do not use moving boxes) with your last name clearly written on the box (not just on the shipper's label). Packing “peanuts" are NOT permitted. Artwork will be return-shipped in the container in which they were received. If shipping and packing materials are insufficient for safe return, the artist may be charged an extra fee for packing materials provided by TPS or the venue. If additional exhibition venues are added, artists will be notified with location, dates, and other pertinent details, and work will be return-shipped from the final venue.

5. Framed prints with a prepaid return shipping label must arrive at Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene no later than February 16, 2026.

6. TPS and the Center for Contemporary Arts will exercise all due care in handling your artwork. However, TPS is not liable for loss, theft, damage or replacement of artwork, nor is TPS liable for damage during shipping. The Center for Contemporary Arts does not insure artists' work. Please consider insuring your work.

TPS TERMS AND AGREEMENT

You retain all rights to your images. If your image is selected for the exhibition, you grant Texas Photographic Society (TPS) the right, in perpetuity, to use and display your image, image title and process, your name, city, state and country of residence for TPS publicity and promotion. Permissible use includes the display, reproduction and distribution of said information on the TPS website, in TPS exhibitions, presentations, program promotions, artist features, fundraising initiatives and publications, and on social media networks, without further contact from TPS. Please note that we may have to crop images to meet space/proportion requirements for promotional platforms.

TPS will not be held responsible for loss, theft, damage or replacement, whether caused by the negligence of its officers, members or others. TPS is not liable for damage during shipping. All entry and membership fees are non-refundable. Submission entry and payment signifies understanding and agreement to all of the above terms and conditions.

QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions, please contact Chris Ireland at cpireland@texasphoto.org.