Not getting into Unbound! means nothing. Rejection from other competitions, exhibitions, grant proposals… those rejections mean nothing. Yes, getting into a competition is cool, over-the-moon excellent. And we hope that if you get into Unbound4! that you will see that as a genuine compliment. If you get in to this show, we are going to spend our time installing your work, looking at your work, promoting your work, trying to sell it off the walls, maybe end up buying it ourselves, and finally returning it if it isn’t sold. Getting in to this exhibition means we really like your work. Not getting in does not, however, mean the opposite. Not getting in means nothing. We reject a lot, A LOT, of quality work. Our gallery is only so large. We have invited several artists, as we do each year, and so some of the space is spoken for, which means of the 400+ submissions, there are 1,300 or 1,400 images to consider and we are looking for maybe 25-30 pieces. Sure, it is pretty easy getting down to the most serious contenders for the show. But we probably begin the real struggle once we have maybe a couple hundred images or so to consider.
Source: Open Letter to Photographers / Artists ‹ Candela Books + Gallery – Copyright 2012.