OH SNAP! Shutterbugs, break out your cameras and become the UM museum’s hottest new artists

This summer, the University of Maine Museum of Art in downtown Bangor will feature the work of a very important artist: You.

You don’t need to submit slides or a portfolio. Nor do you need any formal training. What you need is a photograph – or 20 – of anything that suits your fancy. In “Millions Taken Daily: Photographs from Everyone and Everywhere,” anything goes. Well, anything that isn’t offensive. You can even submit someone else’s photographs.

Deadline for submissions is June 25, and the exhibit will open July 13.

“We want pictures from everybody,” Gina Platt, the museum’s education coordinator, said. “We don’t care how old [the photographers are] or what kind of training they have. … It’s pretty wide-open.”

Museum director Wally Mason has been planning “Millions Taken Daily” for quite some time. He was inspired by William Eggleston’s book “The Democratic Forest” – and democratization is the order of the day. Though there have been similar unjuried photo exhibitions, including the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art’s “Snap to Grid,” this may be the first in which no entry fee is required.

Anyone who submits a photograph can include the exhibit on his resume or curriculum vitae, but the museum won’t accept signed images, and the photographs won’t be returned.

“It does push the borders of the definition of what art is,” said Platt, who along with Mason is a practicing fine-art photographer. “We’re not giving credit to the individual, we’re giving credit to everyone who participates. … It’s not about the individual. It’s about everyone who takes pictures.”

Images will be pinned to the wall informally, and Platt hopes the gallery will be wallpapered in photographs.

“It’s about the whole vision collectively,” Platt said. “This is the vision of hopefully thousands of people all in one space.”

That vision – walls upon walls of photographs – is akin to the constant stream of imagery we process every day. Through “Millions Taken Daily,” it is Platt’s hope that people will not only visit the museum to search for their photographs, but that the search will foster a dialogue about the images themselves.

“The idea is to be a little more critical about the images we’re fed on a daily basis,” Platt said. “Visual imagery is now an everyday part of our lives. It behooves us as a museum to push these boundaries and force people to look at images in a new way.”

“Millions Taken Daily”

Anyone may submit up to 20 photographs. There is no jury process, though offensive material will not be included.

To contribute, send unmatted, unframed, unsigned photographs to University of Maine Museum of Art, MTD Exhibition, 40 Harlow St., Bangor, ME 04401.

A collection box has been set up at the museum, and Gina Platt has sent collection boxes to area schools. For a full list of submission guidelines, visit http://www.umma.umaine.edu/exhibition/millionstaken.html.