Students, try one of these exercises inspired by the visual series The Take. What can you learn about the world by looking at it through a particular lens?
How often do you look — really look — at the world around you? Below, we offer five photography assignments that challenge students to do just that, all inspired by The New York Times visual series The Take.
In this series, The Times asks photographers to explore different cultural themes through images — for example, to document what they see when they look up, to capture the sounds they hear in New York City or to find dance in everyday movements.
What can you learn about the world by looking at it through a particular lens? Choose one (or more) of the five assignments below to try out. For each, we’ll guide you through a warm-up activity, a reading of the Take article that inspired the exercise and your own photo shoot. When you’re done, you can create your own visual article by putting together a gallery of your images and writing a short commentary on what they mean to you.
These exercises are meant to be accessible to anyone with a camera or smartphone, whether you’re an experienced photographer or you’re just looking for a fun visual challenge. If you’d like to experiment with some composition and editing techniques, see our related photography lesson plan.
And if none of these projects inspires you, look through The Take’s archives for more ideas.
Assignment No. 1
Most of us spend our days looking down: at our phones, computers, homework, meals. What would you see if you looked up instead? For this assignment, we invite you to photograph what you see when you turn your gaze to the sky.
Warm-up: Wherever you are right now, look up. What do you see?
Spend some time studying the images, shapes, patterns, colors, lines, light, shadows, angles or movements above you. What catches your attention? What have you never noticed before? How is this angle different from looking at something straight on, straight down or from the side? Is there anything you see that strikes you as artistic, that might make for an interesting photograph?
How often do you look up? What does this quick exercise tell you about what might happen when you do?
Read “When 4 Photographers Looked Up, This Is What They Saw.”
For this assignment, The Take simply asked photographers to look up. View the photos they made and their commentary on them. Then choose one that stands out to you. What did the photographer want to capture in it? Was the photo successful in your opinion? What does the image say to you? What does it show us about looking up?
Your turn: Photograph what you see when you look up.
You might approach this assignment in two ways: 1) You can carry your camera around with you for a day or several days and photograph anything interesting you see when you look up, as the photographer Ali Cherkis did venturing around New York City. 2) Or you might start with a specific place and idea in mind that you want to photograph, as Stella Blackmon did when she wanted to capture the “sense of wonder” she felt from seeing children climbing in the trees at her great-aunt’s home in Ozark, Mo.
Assignment No. 2
Photography might seem like it’s all about sight, but it can evoke other senses, too. The Take challenged four photographers to try to capture the sounds of New York City in images. How can you show what the place you live sounds like?
Warm-up: What sounds can you hear in this photograph?
Study the photograph above closely. What might you hear if you were in the scene? Which elements of the image help convey those sounds? What senses or emotions does the photograph evoke in you? What story does it tell about New York City?
Read “Sounds of the City.”
For this assignment, The Take sent four photographers to capture New York’s soundscape in images. Spend some time with the photos and the photographers’ commentary on them. Which images most strongly and clearly imply sound to you? Which ones surprise you or perhaps challenge an assumption you have about life in New York City? Choose one of these photos and repeat the exercise you did in the warm-up.
Your turn: Photograph the sounds of a place.
For this assignment, you might travel around your city or town and photograph the sounds you find. Or you might focus on a more contained space, such as your school, the skate park, your neighborhood or any other place where you spend time. You might try to capture many disparate sounds — quiet ones, loud ones, harsh ones, pleasant ones — as Daniel Arnold did in his photos of various corners of New York City. Or you can try to capture a particular type of sound, as Ike Edeani did in his photos of the subway stations’ “mini concerts.”
Assignment No. 3
Four photographers went in search of candid moments and images that struck them — impressionistically, conceptually or naturally — as art. Where can you spot art in the world around you?
Warm-up: What does art look like?
How do you know when you see something that is art? What elements make it so? What does it do to you, the viewer?
Look around the space you are in right now. Is there anything that strikes you as art? Perhaps it’s the way your jacket is draped over a chair, how light is coming in through a window, the interesting pattens created by a shadow on your desk or the shape someone’s face makes when they smile or frown. What about this thing makes it seem artistic to you?
Read “Art Is Everywhere. Just Look to the Streets.”
The Take invited four photographers to look for art in the streets of New York. Spend some time looking at all of the photographs and reading the commentary. Then, focus on one photographer’s images. How does this photographer conceptualize art? How does that idea come through in one of his or her photos? What do you think makes this photo artistic — impressionistically, conceptually or naturally?
Your turn: Photograph candid moments and images that look like art to you.
Where can you find art in the world around you? You might take your camera out for a day and start shooting anything that strikes you as art. Or you might shoot with a particular vision in mind, such as Sabrina Santiago who was “interested in what people are saying from the back,” or Trevor Wisecup who looked for “abnormalities in our day-to-day life, glitches in the matrix if you will.” Challenge yourself to capture candid moments, rather than trying to stage images.
Assignment No. 4
The Take asked four photographers to find dance in our everyday gestures, whether reaching for a jug of milk, hugging a loved one or scaling a rock wall. How can you find beauty in how we physically navigate the world?
Warm-up: Can you see beauty in the ways that people move, even when there is no music?
Can you find dance in people’s everyday rituals and routines? To answer this question you might go somewhere crowded — your school’s hallway, a park, a basketball game — and spend a few minutes just observing people. Do any gestures look like dance to you? What is it about these movements that resemble those that dancers might make?
Read “There’s Dance All Over, No Matter Where You Look.”
During the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, The Take asked photographers to show how people were physically navigating a world in which awareness of our bodies — how much space we took up, whether we were six feet from our neighbor — had become the norm. What they found was a kind of dance in these everyday movements.
Spend some time with the images and photographers’ commentary. Then choose one photograph to look at more closely. Why does this image speak to you? How does it represent dance? What emotion, experience or idea do you think the photographer wanted to capture in it?
Your turn: Photograph how people move through the world.
For this assignment, you can take your camera around with you for a day or two and snap a photo anytime you see a movement, posture or gesture that looks like dance to you. Or, you can go to a specific place. For example, the photographer Camilo Fuentealba went to Costco to document “the daily rituals we must partake in just to survive,” while Noah Sahady went to the San Bernardino National Forest to capture “the harmony of rock climbers and nature.” You might play with taking both candid and staged shots, or, like Jillian Freyer, shooting the “fragments in between.”
Assignment No. 5
Three artists photographed the many forms fun can take. An end-of-day ice cream ritual. Caring for rescued chickens. A bubble bath for an inanimate friend. What does a good time look like to you?
Warm-up: What do you do for fun?
Brainstorm a big list of everything you’re doing for fun these days. Do you play video games? Hang out with friends? Play sports? Make things? Write down everything you can think of, whether it’s an everyday ritual or a special event.
Then go through your list. Which of these activities feels most compelling or unique to you and your friends? Which might make interesting photographs?
Read “Making Your Own Fun.”
The Take asked three photographers to document how they were having fun during the lockdown period of the coronavirus pandemic. Spend a few minutes looking at the photos and reading the commentary. Then choose one photographer’s images to focus on. What do you notice about their artistic choices — about their composition, the photographic style, how they were made? What do you wonder? What can we learn about fun from these photos?
Your turn: Photograph your fun.
Return to the list you made in the warm-up and choose one or several things from it to photograph. You might consider how you can get creative with your photographic style and composition, as the photographers in the article did. You can stage photos, as Sheida Soleimani did, or you can try to capture more candid moments.
Going Further
Put together your photos with a written reflection to create your own The Take-inspired piece.
Once you have completed one of the exercises above, choose three to six photos from your shoot and create a gallery of images that speaks to the theme of the assignment. Then, write a short commentary reflecting on the assignment and what you learned from it, just as the photographers and Times editors do in The Take.
Here are some questions that can help guide your reflection:
Who or what inspired you? Did you stage your photos or seek out candid moments? What composition and editing techniques did you use, and why?
Is there a thread — some theme, emotion or experience — that connects your images? Was it something you set out to capture? Or something you discovered during the shoot or after seeing your finished photos? Taken together, what do your photos reveal about the subject of the assignment?
What is something new you discovered or learned through this exercise? How, if at all, did it make you look at the world or the people around you differently?
How challenging did you find this assignment? Why?
You can put your images and commentary together using a digital program like Google Slides or Canva. Teachers might invite students to share their work via a gallery walk, whether in the classroom or online.
Arnold Newman started his career as a photographer during the 1940s. The artist quickly established himself as a leader in the industry. He became known for his ability to thoughtfully capture the personalities of his subjects through their expressions and surroundings. Because of his use of deep focus in order to create a sense of context around his subjects, Newman became known as an environmental portraitist in his career. Continue reading to explore his photographic style and see some of his most iconic works.
Arnold Newman was a pioneering portrait photographer. He is remembered for his innovative, enlightening, and expressive images that show some of the most famous figures of the 20th century. Born in New York City in 1918, the portraitist began his career as a photographer in the 1940s. He studied under the influential artist Berenice Abbott, who was known for her incredible portraits and photographs of architecture and urban design in New York City. Newman worked as a commercial photographer for various publications over the following years, including the New Yorker, Life, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, and New York Times Magazine.
Over the course of his long career, Newman became known for his distinctive approach to portraiture photography, which often involved placing his subjects within a particular context that would show their job or their surroundings. He didn’t just ask for his subjects to simply pose for him in a generic studio setting. With his masterful use of the background which was supposed to help tell an insightful story, Newman came to be known as an environmental portraitist. This was a tribute to the fact that the environment served as such an important part of his photographic works. However, the portraitist did not quite agree with the nickname he was given. He didn’t care for this title, so he never adopted it himself. The artist simply did what felt natural to him, showing his subjects in their natural setting. With his continuous exploration of the art of portrait photography, Newman truly became a pioneer in this field.
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One of the key characteristics of Newman’s photography was his use of the environment in his portraits. By resisting the limitations of traditional photography studios and conventional lighting, Newman was able to capture the essence of his subjects and their achievements, giving the resulting images a depth and richness that was often lacking in more traditional portraits. The composition was key in all of Newman’s portraits.
Despite working with his subjects in their natural habitat in a way that seems effortless and candid the artist was known for masterfully conceptualizing his projects in detail, designing floor plans, equipment, schedules, and possible poses before the actual shoot even took place. For many of his projects, the artist took the time to set up the composition well before the subject was placed in it. This highlights just how much he valued the importance of photographic interaction between the subject and the background in an image.
Newman had the chance to photograph some of the most famous figures of the 20th century. He portrayed artists, intellectuals, political figures, and celebrities. All of his photographs of these various individuals capture the unique qualities that made each of them so important in their respective fields. Some of the famous figures he portrayed include John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Elvis Presley. Let’s take a look at some examples of these works.
During his time as an artist, Arnold Newman made several incredible portraits of Pablo Picasso, the Spanish painter, and sculptor regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. In 1954 Newman however strayed from his usual use of background and focused directly on Picasso himself. Specifically, he focused on the details of Picasso’s face and his expression. In this portrait, Picasso looks directly at the camera with a hand resting on his forehead, looking more serious than in many other photographs of him.
In another instance in 1956, Newman captured Picasso in his studio where he was surrounded by paintings and sculptures. The photograph conveys a sense of the intensity, passion, and obsession that drove Picasso to create his body of work. The image also serves as an incredible testament to Newman’s ability to capture the essence of his subjects through the objects that surround them.
In the shot, Picasso is shown seated on a chair in a large room filled with both finished and unfinished artworks. The artist is dressed in casual attire. He seems to have his house slippers on while sitting backward on the chair in an informal way. The photograph shows us the ordinary Pablo Picasso. The portrait of Picasso in his studio is an example of Newman’s signature style. The photograph captures Picasso as an artistic genius in his natural environment. Newman’s portrait of Picasso is a memorable image that has become an iconic representation of the artist and his legacy.
Another one of Newman’s famous portraits is that of Alfried Krupp, a German industrialist and head of the Krupp family business. This photo is especially striking and noteworthy given that the Krupp business supplied Nazi Germany with warfare for years, many of which were manufactured using slave labor. Newman was a Jewish man himself, so this unsettling photo of Krupp becomes one of Newman’s most striking portraits on which he later commented by saying: It was my impression of a Nazi who managed to survive yet killed millions of people.
The portrait was taken in 1963 and shows Krupp seated at his desk in the Krupp family factory in Essen, Germany. The man is shown with a serious expression on his face, his hands folded in front of him while he gazes directly at the camera. The photograph is notable for its use of chiaroscuro lighting, with parts of Krupp’s face and hands well-lit while the rest of his face, along with the eerie factory in the back, is in the shadows. The image shows him in an evil-looking light as a reminder of the monstrosities created by the Nazis. Needless to say, Krupp, who was hesitant to have his photo taken by a Jewish man in the first place, was not happy with his portrait. Newman, on the other hand, commented that taking such a portrait was his own little moment of revenge.
Arnold Newman’s most iconic works show his various portraits of the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy. Newman’s intimate and insightful photographs of Kennedy are considered some of the most striking and memorable images of the President. Newman’s photographs showed him in various locations, the White House included.
Taken both shortly before and after Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, the photos capture the youthful energy and charismatic personality that Kennedy was known for. Newman’s ability to capture the essence of his subject through his candid expressions and surroundings, combined with his skillful use of the camera, makes his portraits of Kennedy some of the most iconic and enduring images of the 20th century.
Newman also took photos of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most celebrated actresses of all time. Newman’s photograph of Monroe and Carl Sandburg is a famous image taken in 1951. The photograph shows Monroe sitting on a couch with her head tilted to the side, facing Sandburg, a renowned poet and novelist.
The photograph was taken in Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock, North Carolina, where Monroe came to gather information for a magazine article she was writing about the poet. The photograph is notable for its composition, showing an intimate glance between the two subjects. The piece also shows the contrast between Monroe’s glamorous public persona and Sandburg’s more serious and scholarly image.
Throughout his career, Newman came to photograph many other influential public figures like Igor Stravinsky, Max Ernst, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jean Cocteau. Although he passed away in 2006, his legacy, along with the legacies of those he photographed, lives on through his incredible portraits. Admirers of Newman’s work may see his photographs in revolving exhibitions around the world and participate in various photography competitions in his honor, including one that is annually run by The Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation which was established in 2007.
Baker: ‘I love the immediacy of unposed, spontaneous photographs and the ability of the camera to capture the serious, the funny, the sublime and the ridiculous. Despite the many wonderful pictures of the great and famous, I feel that less formal, quotidian images can often convey more of the life and spirit of the time’
A man who loved beautiful things
Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith, by Paul Martineau (Getty Publications, 248 pp; $65)
by Bondo Wyszpolski
This is as much a luxury item as it is a volume of elegant, bewitching photographs, and it complements similarly-related books that Getty curator of photographs Paul Martineau has written for the institution’s publishing arm, in particular “Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography” and “Herb Ritts: L.A. Style,” the latter also being catalogs in tandem with major exhibitions.
“Wessel Looking Over the Balcony, Paris, France” (2007); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
These days, Rodney Smith (1947-2016) may be most recognizable thanks to his photograph, “Wessel Looking over the Balcony, Paris, France” (2007), which was reproduced as the cover for “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the best-selling novel by Amor Towles. That image alone conveys plenty about Smith’s aesthetic. As Rebecca A. Senf notes in one of the book’s essays, “For Smith, the print was everything. He was a man who loved beautiful things.”
Smith may be described or summarized as an American fashion photographer, but he was also one with an occasional playful touch. The humor, though, is restrained, held in check; he’s not fishing for the belly laugh. Graydon Carter (formerly an editor of Vanity Fair for 25 years) describes the look of a Smith photograph in these words, or rather this equation: “Wes Anderson + René Magritte ÷ Federico Fellini – Irving Penn = Rodney Smith.” He also adds that “A Rodney Smith (image) can be whimsical but solemn, composed but candid, still but full of movement, mysterious but revealing, desperate but funny.”
“Self-Portrait with Leslie, Siena, Italy” (1990); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
That pretty much clears the bases, but this monograph covers Smith’s entire working life, which got underway in the early- and mid-1970s. He initially shot entirely in black and white, the images sharp and yet with a soft undertone. A few remind me of early 20th century Pictorialism, dialed up a notch. His 1990 photograph, “Self-Portrait with Leslie, Sienna, Italy,” might be an example of this, focused and soft at the same time.
Many of Smith’s later images have Gatsby-like young men and women in them, as if he was drawn to the New England jet set and edging closer to becoming something of a John Singer Sargent or William Merrit Chase of the fading millennium.
His earlier work, however, shows what he picked up from Walker Evans, who was one of his teachers, and, for example, a trip to Israel in 1976 — which yielded several timeless images — no doubt enhanced his eye and sharpened his sensibility. Tone, focus, visual texture, we see it in these pictures and also in those which he took in the American South, the United Kingdom, Haiti and France. Later, the poor people and the elderly would vanish from his work, but because they were there at the start they remain part of his artistic foundation.
“Edythe and Andrew Kissing on Top of Taxis, New York, New York” (2008); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Those earlier images or portraits also had a seriousness to them as well as a subject matter that wasn’t conducive to the whimsy or slight playfulness that emerged later. Senf also writes that, “For Smith, making pictures was the most joyous, freeing experience. It was what he lived for. Being on location was the epitome of being lost in the moment; he could shed the ordinary pressures of his daily life and be out and interacting with the world.”
As the above indicates, there were stressful times in Smith’s life, as there are in all sensitive people when the world at large places demands on them and has high expectations. But in photography Smith found his raison d’être, which was to create striking images.
To do this, though, a certain sensibility is required, and Smith appears to have had an intuitive sense of composition, the ability to take in all at once the shadows, shapes, colors or tones, and how they conspire with one another in some kind of harmonious fashion. And one has to be quick about this. There’s no time to hesitate. One sees, and must seize the moment.
“Don Jumping Over Hay Roll No. 1, Monkton, Maryland” (1999); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
That said, everything doesn’t always fall into place just because we want it to. For example, there’s an image titled “Don Jumping over Hay Roll No. 1, Monkton, Maryland,” that Smith took in 1999. This wasn’t the result of just one snap and let’s go home, for later we are shown a contact sheet with 12 images of Don in midflight. A few of the others might have sufficed, but Smith zeroed in on the one he thought was best, and it’s hard to disagree.
It probably wasn’t difficult for Smith to slide into fashion photography because he’d done all the legwork, so to speak. He’d excelled in depicting quiet, serene, thought-inducing work, and so the sublime shifting into the elegant may perhaps have been a natural progression rather than, to reference the title of the book, making a leap of faith. Also, Smith apparently had a knack for getting people to relax and loosen up, which can pave the way into a successful photo shoot. One could say this is the first step, that of human interaction. Martineau talks about this in the book, when Smith was hired to make a series of corporate portraitures.
“Skyline, Hudson River, New York” (1995); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
Despite his earliest images, one might also conclude that Smith was at his best as a portrait photographer. He avoided flashy crowd scenes and there are no images of soccer matches, volleyball games on the beach, or people pressing forward to board a subway. There is one picture taken in a stadium — “Shirley Seated in Grandstand, Long Island, New York” (1995) — and although Shirley has a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck she is the only person in the photo, surrounded by rows of empty seats.
Not surprisingly, then, Smith focused on classic fashion. He avoided or perhaps turned down shooting the Halloween costume styles that we often see on fashion runways, worn by anemic models, and one doubts that he would have been tempted by the celebrity peahens and peacocks of the annual Met Gala. Also, too, there are no titillating images in Smith’s fashion photography. One could contrast his work with Tim Walker’s, currently on view at the Getty Center. Both men mastered their craft, but their work is light years apart.
“Three Men with Shears No. 1, Reims, France” (1997); © 2023 Rodney Smith Ltd., courtesy of the Estate of Rodney Smith
What I like about Rodney Smith is that whimsical touch, mentioned earlier, which can be found in “Three Men with Shears No. 1, Reims, France” (1997), but also a more solemn image like “Bernadette Leaning Against Wall, Brooklyn, New York” (2000), which could have been a painting — like one of Anselm Feuerbach’s images of Nana — from well over a century ago.
This book is a lovely homage to the memory of a brilliant and sensitive photographer, and Paul Martineau, you are to be commended for bringing him to our attention. ER
Your background in professional dance continues to be an inexhaustible source for your projects. Looking at these photos feels like standing next to performers in a contemporary piece or watching a still from a Bill Viola’s video. At the same time we find references to Avedon and Muybridge. What do you look at to find inspiration for your work? What interests you about the movement of the body?
Luis Alberto Rodriguez: I simply can’t divorce my history as a dancer from my experience as a photographer. Dance and theater have shaped me, I will forever find inspiration in the endless unlocking of possibilities in the human body. Photography however is a newer love; a second wind for me. While I document form, an immense interest in portraiture has sprung.
I think of our bodies as vessels of information and communication. Each composed of the experiences in our lives that are unique to us. These histories inform the way they move through the world and I am fascinated by this. I am not particularly interested in making dance photography as it is too familiar to me. But I use the knowledge of the body I have to get a bit closer to some kind of honesty.
I’ve been greatly inspired by many artists from both dance and photography; Martha Graham, Ohad Naharin, Jose Limon, George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Alvin Ailey, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Peter Hujar, Dana Lixenberg, August Sander, to name a few.
An intriguing aspect of the book is that it seems to have a great musicality, as if the pictures are crossed by a sound, sometimes weak, sometimes loud, that only the protagonists of the photos can hear. What role do silence and sound play in your images?
Luis Alberto Rodriguez: Sound is vital in the work. The title of the book stems from this question: What is the sound of these photos? If there was a sound the people in the book are making, what is that sound? What happens when we stop? How deep can we listen? ‘O’ is an open symbol for sound, continuity, it’s a gasp during a free fall, a collective wail.
Photographer Sebastian Weiss, like many of us, has a thing for the work of Ricardo Bofill. The legendary Spanish architect, who died in 2022, made his name with experimental pop-coloured facades, geometrically stacked or tiered residential buildings and Escher-like staircases that appear both postmodern and futuristic.
Hamburg-based Weiss has a particular interest in Bofill’s early apartment buildings. Following on from his acclaimed series exploring La Muralla Roja in Spain, Hamburg-based Weiss has now turned his lens on another of Bofill’s masterpieces, the 1975 apartment complex Walden 7, in Sant Just Desvern near Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain.
Here, Weiss offers us an exclusive photographic tour of the iconic building, which was built on the most quintessential of modernist ideals: to enhance the quality of life for those who inhabit it.
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
‘Walden 7 is far more than just a residential building, but is a community experiment with new forms of coexistence beyond the classic family. The building is visually delightfully absurd and heavenly [and] irrational. A huge red mountain that can be seen from a great distance. With a playful façade and an entrance reminiscent of a temple or ziggurat. In the foyer, I immediately thought of a cathedral, it looks so big and majestic inside. There are more than 400 apartments spread over 14 floors in the house and about 1,000 people live in it.’
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
‘The orientation is a bit complicated at first. Walden 7 appears as a vertical, turquoise-blue tiled labyrinth in which corridors intersect, bridges overlap and squares open up to dizzying heights. While the colossal structure appears to be well-fortified from the outside, it reveals its monumental beauty on the inside with fantastic views of the outside and sometimes surreal perspectives. It’s a walk-through work of art and a feast for the eyes, but it’s also a feast for all the senses.’
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
‘Walden 7 is known for its lively community and so you can hear many voices in the corridors, in the stairwell, in the bar on the ground floor or the clatter of table tennis players next to the elevators. When it’s hot and dusty outside, the inner courtyards remain pleasantly cool and there is a smell of laundry drying on the arcades and of plants that grow everywhere in the house and on large balconies.’
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
(Image credit: Sebastian Weiss)
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This wide-ranging exhibition by the photographer Ralph Gibson (*1939) presents the development of his work from the 1960s to the present day based on selected series.The exhibition is being developed in a direct collaboration between the artist and the curator, Dr. Sabine Schnakenberg, and is composed of some 300 analogue and digital works in black and white and color from the artist’s private collection as well as works that the collector F.C. Gundlach acquired during his collaboration with Ralph Gibson in the early 1980s for his private photography collection, which is now on permanent loan to the House of Photography at the Deichtorhallen.
Ralph Gibson is one of the most interesting American photographers of our time. His international renown is based on his exceptional work, which is shown and collected by some of the world’s leading museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Creative Center for Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Biblio- thèque Nationale de France in Paris, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.
Gibson’s works, which he has created since the early 1960s, completely contradict the conventional purpose of the medium of photography: the meticulous depiction of so-called reality. Gibson is not interested in photographic documentation, and instead understands photography as an aesthetic endeavor. A leitmotif of his work comes from the original meaning of the word “photography”: drawing with light. Gibson needs light not only as a material prerequisite for creating each of his photographs; light itself becomes an object of investigation and a creative tool. Playing with its counterpart, shadow, is just as important. Gibson thus elevates light itself to become a theme of his oeuvre.
Ralph Gibson: Secret of Light
April 21 – August 20, 2023
Deichtorhallen Hamburg
Deichtorstraße 1
20095 Hamburg, Germany
https://www.deichtorhallen.de/
New publication 2023
Ralph Gibson: Secret of Light
Published by Kehrer Verlag
Edited by Sabine Schnakenberg, Haus der Photographie /
Deichtorhallen Hamburg
Texts by Matthias Harder, Viktor Hois, Dirk Luckow, Gilles Mora, Sabine Schnakenberg
Designed by Kehrer Design (Benjamin Wolbergs)
Hardcover, 24 x 32 cm
240 pages
120 b/w and 36 color ills.
English / German
ISBN 978-3-96900-104-2
Euro 49,90 / US$ 58.00
Help clean up Uvas Creek
The Uvas Creek Cleanup Day is scheduled for May 20 from 9am to noon.
Volunteers are asked to meet at Christmas Hill Park, Ranch Site softball field located at 7049 Miller Ave. All equipment will be provided, including water, garbage bags, gloves and litter pickers.
This event is open to all ages. Attendees are asked to sign and complete the liability waiver at the start of the event. Parents or guardians must sign the waivers for participants under the age of 18, and middle school age and under must be accompanied by an adult.
To register, visit bit.ly/3LveqFa.
Exhibit showcases alternative photographic processes
Gallery 1202, 7363 Monterey St., presents “Eterne,” an exhibition of work by Edward C. Alfano and Teresa K. Morrison, through June 10.
Alfano and Morrison use alternative photographic processes to explore the natural world.
The closing reception will be held on June 10 from 1-4pm, with a special artist talk at 2pm.
Gilroyans inducted into Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi
Two Gilroyans were recently initiated into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.
They are:
• Nicholas Cintas at Florida Institute of Technology
• Rudeianne Santos at San Jose State University
They are among approximately 25,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni to be initiated into Phi Kappa Phi each year.
Photo London returns to Somerset House today for its eighth edition, presenting 125 exhibitors from 56 cities from across the globe showing the best of the past, present and future of photography. Highlights of the 2023 edition include rare vintage gems and exciting contemporary works, all for sale in limited editions or as unique pieces.
Martin Parr, St Ives, Cornwall, England, 2017
Martin Parr / Magnum Photos
This 2023 edition of Photo London has chosen the “godfather of British photography” Martin Parr, as this year’s Master of Photography, with a special exhibition. He has been photographing ordinary people and their lives in Great Britain and Ireland for 50 years. Here he presents an exhibition of recent work, including the installation Beach Therapy.
Children playing on a street corner – Manchester, 1961 by Shirley Baker
Mary Evans Picture Library
Writing her own Script: Woman Photographers from the Hyman Collection, a group show celebrating many of the pioneering women photographers at work in the UK over the past 100 years. It ranges from the 1930s to the present to provide an overview of photography in Britain that focuses on two strands: a humanistic documentary tradition and a more personal, performative, practice. The exhibition takes its name from a large-scale photograph by Susan Hiller.
Trapping the Moon by Patricia Lagarde, 2022. A project for Maroma. A Belmond Hotel
Patricia Lagarde
Celebrating contemporary Mexican photography, Belmond hotel commissioned this exhibition featuring the work of four Mexican photographers: Patricia Lagarde, Javier Hinojosa, Ilán Rabchinskey and Margot Kalach. The artists were invited to the Riviera Maya, in the Yucatan Peninsula, where they were given two weeks to capture the bounty and beauty of the beguiling natural landscape using their own particular sensibility and artistic vision.
Léa Habourdin, Des mondes…ges-forêts, 2020-2022
Lea Habourdin
The winner of Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2023 just announced in the Nikon Gallery, Somerset House is Léa Habourdin, a French visual artist represented by Fisheye Gallery. Léa Habourdin’s series is a set of exquisite large-format works encapsulating the beauty of the primary French forest.
Lorenzo Vitturi, Painted Agbe, Italian Leather, Coral Beads and Horn, 2017, Archival Pigment Print
Flowers gallery
Intriguing mixed media works use fishing nets, yarns and Murano glass. Lorenzo Vitturi, a photographer and sculptor based in London is a former cinema set painter. He’s brought this experience into his photographic practice, which revolves around site-specific interventions at the intersection of photography, sculpture and performance. In Vitturi’s process, photography in conceived as a space of transformation, where different disciplines merge together to represent the complexities of changing urban environments.
CLAIRE AHO – Finlandia Sweets – The Coronation Box, 1952
CLAIRE AHO
Presented here are the unique works by Claire Aho (1925-2015), an innovative woman who made her mark in the history of color photography. A highlight is the photograph created in 1952, of the new “Finlandia Sweets” jelly box, created for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by Finnish confectionary company Fazer. Since the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, Fazer has gifted the Buckingham Palace with sweets, a tradition upheld even today, 121 years later. “Finlandia Sweets – The Coronation Box” and other works are available as either unique works or Limited Edition prints.
A man appears with looted army shirt and cap and tie from a garrison with other men in the late … [+]
Kaveh Kazemi
A fascinating and important contribution from Tehran-based O Gallery, a platform that supports and displays Iranian artists’ distinct visual experiences. The two street photographers here, Kaveh Kazemi (b. 1952) and Mohammadreza Mirzaei (b. 1986), are two of Iran’s most prominent photographers. Kazemi documented the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Mohammadreza Mirzaei is one of the new generation photographers, who, by studying in the West, has established a critical relationship with mainstream Western photography.
The Pilot House, 2014 at Koman Fine Art
Koman Fine Art
Inspired by the tidal reaches and atmospheric weather near his Deer Isle home and the summer homes on the Blue Hill Peninsula, Jeffery Becton creates provocative photo-based digital montages, often playing with the borders between dream and reality, interior and exterior, abstraction and representation. His montages often contain architectural elements and objects from these vintage New England houses, many of which are part of his personal history.
Adut, 2015 by Atong Atem
Messums
Award-winning Ethiopian-born, South Sudanese artist Atong Atem lives in Melbourne. She works primarily with photography and video to explore identity through portraiture and in particular the fluidity of migrant narratives and postcolonial practices in the African diaspora. Her work references the works of the great photographers Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keita, as well as science fiction writers such as Octavia Butler.
Jean Pierre Attal Passerelle, Galerie Olivier Waltman
Galerie Olivier Waltman
Jean-Pierre Attal’s work is focused on the representation of contemporary urban society. His photographs resemble a sociological investigation. First like an anthropologist, he collects primary data on the ground, and then using a concise visual language, he crystallizes a snapshot of the supercharged metropolis.
