Last week and this week, Lenscratch will be celebrating the 2014 CENTER Award Winners. We are thrilled to align with such a wonderful organization that honors, supports, and provides opportunities to gifted and committed photographers. For 20 years, CENTER has launched careers, provided incredible exposure and inspired photographers to create work that excites and challenges the photographic dialogue.

Today we celebrate Mateusz Sarello‘s Editor’s Choice 3rd Place Award starting with juror, Cheryl Newman’s, statement.

EDITOR’S CHOICE: Juror’s Statement

JUROR CHERYL NEWMAN, Photography Director, Telegraph Magazine & ST Titles, England

I’d like to thank the all the photographers who entered the 2014 CENTER Choice Awards and for making the judging such an exciting and profoundly thought provoking experience. The passionate photography made the process both a pleasure and pain as great images disappeared or progressed to the next round. The artists whose work I had the pleasure to shortlist are committed to their chosen projects, using empathy and imagination to explore the world though their individual photographic language.

For the past few days I have looked at the work on my short list chosen from hundreds of entries after days of deliberation. I have slept on it, which didn’t help, pondered and reflected the different stories, styles and genres. Truth is the work of all of the finalists is very strong and I now have an attachment to all of it.

 I had to rush online and buy a copy of Mateusz Sarello’s awesome book ‘Swell’ as soon as I saw his work.— Cheryl Newman, Photography Director, Telegraph Magazine & ST Titles, England

Mateusz Sarello Project Statement: Swell

Road.
Winter.
Void.
Void of everything that is important. I am trying to think about the “road.” I cannot. I am completely exhausted. All in all, I am going only because of the weather. The prospect of wind, snow, and my flashes on the beach did not let me sleep. Besides, I am afraid of the few days of thinking only about Her, and this way I will have the Baltic Sea. My Baltic Sea. Instead of.

“Swell” is a story of a break-up and of unaccepted loneliness. About memories that we can’t forget. At first it was supposed to be a documentary project about the Baltic Sea. A plan was drawn up and the places to be visited were marked on the map. During the trips to the Baltic I was accompanied by my girlfriend, until the moment of our parting. The parting changed me and I was no longer able to continue the project according to previously designed plan. I started going back to the places where we were together. Here the project ends, and a personal story begins.

My story “Swell” has been published as a book by the Instytut Kultury Wizualnej in Warsaw.

Mateusz Sarello was born in 1978 in Warsaw. A Graduate from the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. Member of the Napo Images agency (Napo Mentor Program). He is the author of the book “Swell”, which was chosen as a finalist in the Best Photography Book Award at Pictures of the Year International in 2014, won 3rd prize at the International Photography Awards in 2013 and was chosen for “Best Books of 2013″ list by Photo-Eye. His awards and distinctions include the Center Santa Fe Awards, the Lucie Foundation Scholarship, the FotoVisura Grant, the PDN Photo Annual, the FotoWeekDC International Awards, the Prix de la Photographie Paris, the International Photography Awards and the International Photography Festival Organ Vida Prize. A finalist of the Lens Culture Exposure Awards. Publication credits include GUP Magazine, Lens Culture, Foto8, PDN – Photo District News, Blow Magazine, Archivo Magazine, Der Greif Magazine, F-Stop Magazine and Prism Magazine.