A reception for a recently opened photography exhibit of New Orleans' Ogden Museum of Southern Art, "One Place: Paul Kwilecki and Four Decades of Photographs from Decatur County, Georgia," will be held in connection with Whitney White Linen Night on Saturday, Aug. 2.

The reception for the exhibit, which opened July 24, is set for 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday.

An Ogden gallery talk with Tom Rankin, the photographer and Duke University art professor who served as the editor of a recently-published book of the same name as the exhibit, is to follow on Sunday, Aug. 3 from 2 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 3.

Kwilecki spent more than four decades photographing his native Decatur County, in Southwest Georgia. He also owned a hardware store in Bainbridge, the county seat. His photography and the compilation of the "One Place" book, edited by Rankin, were the subject of a feature at the New York Times website's "LENS" blog in August 2013.

Rankin, currently director of Duke's MFA program in experimental and documentary arts, will share insights into the work of the man, who he counted as a friend, on Sunday. After the talk, the photographer and professor will sign copies the "One Place" book, published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Rankin's books include "Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta" (1993), which received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Photography, and he served as the editor for books including, "Deaf Maggie Lee Sayre': Photographs of a River Life" (1995).

Photolucida, an arts nonprofit based in Portland, Ore., is accepting entries now through noon Pacific Time on Wednesday, July 16 for its annual Critical Mass, an online portfolio competition.

Artists submitting work to Critical Mass are asked to submit a 10-image portfolio, for a $75 fee (or $90 for international submissions). All submitted portfolios are then screened by a committee of about 20 jurors, which selects 200 finalists. In turn, the finalists pay an additional $200 fee to have their work sent to a panel of 200 jurors.

Among the awards to be given in the competition are the following:

• Monograph Award: A hardbound book of the winner of this award will be published, distributed internationally, and shipped to all jurors and all entrants in Critical Mass 2014.
• Artist Residency Award: One photographer will be chosen for a four-week, 2015 residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s Captiva Island estate in Florida.
• Solo Show Award: One photographer will be chosen for an exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland during Portland Photo Month in April 2015.

To learn more about Critical Mass--and submit work, or see a list of jurors--please see the event page at the Photolucida website.

Diffusion magazine, a reader-supporter, independent annual that seeks to celebrate unconventional photographic processes and photo-related art, is seeking entries by July 15 for its 2014 competition, with the theme of, "The Matter of Light."

All photo-based artists may submit work. Artists who work with alternative processes and forms of presentation-- including, but not limited to, assemblage, historic processes, installation, mixed media, hand crafted processes--are especially encouraged to apply.

Serving as jurors for the competition are Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, N.M. and Blue Mitchell, the founding editor of Diffusion and an independent publisher, curator, educator, and photographer from Portland, Ore.

Awards will include several that entail an invitation to Diffusion's next annual group exhibit, among them those for Best in Show, a Spotlight Award, First Place and Second Place awards and Exhibition Awards for select artists. Other awards will include Third Place, Honorable Mentions and Purchase Awards.

The fee for entry is $20 for up to 10 images. No more than three portfolios may be submitted.

For more information, please see the call for entry page at the Diffusion magazine website.