Looking in from the outside at the work of artists from places I do not know, I always ask myself if the artists’ “sense” of that place, or connection to it, makes a difference in their work. Do they tell me something new about that place? How do their feelings about it inform their vision?

Looking at so many pictures from so many different places is a little bit like looking through a magnifying glass at small square of ground in your own backyard. You have no idea what’s there until you look closely at the individual blades of grass, the sprouting seeds, pools, bugs, weeds, and dirt, all beautifully together as like a magnificent Technicolor close-up.

I thought about these questions when selecting images for the 2003 Bethesda International Photography Competition exhibition. I wanted to examine what artists express about the place they live and how they have chosen to say it. This says something about who they are as artists. Therefore, this is not an exhibition about what a place looks like or about the technical side of art making. It is more about the feelings and dreams of people, and about the expression of ideas that connects artists who live and work in many different places.

It surprised me that so many different forms of expression were so connected. It shows we live in a connected age. What can we learn from the diverse information and aesthetic content found in the 2003 Bethesda International Photography Competition exhibition? We get some evidence of what photographers saw, felt, or experienced when their work was made. Their views are quite subjective, as is my selection of the photographs.

These pictures don’t always tell the truth. Some are like made up stories, others pure document. For me it is the tension created in this awkward balance of truth and fiction that helps create art from a place, a narrative, or a situation.

The more we understand about the context in which a work of art is made, the more information we will have to decode its meaning. To find meaning in this mirror of truth and fiction held up by these photographers, we need to consider many different languages: history, memory, place, and art. Each one provides a piece of a puzzle and, when put together, a bigger picture emerges to help us understand such diverse works. Consider that the same artistic intentions might be true for a family photograph, an image from the news, a beautiful landscape, or a studio construction—all of which appear in this exhibition. This helps us understand the relationships. Each, in its own way, provides a theatrical experience for the viewer and each is a document of that experience.