Symbiosis: Ruben Tomas

Since the mid-19th century, photography has served as a powerful tool for examining concepts of gender, sexuality, and self-expression. The immediacy and accessibility of the medium has played a transformative role in the gradual proliferation of homosocial, homoerotic, and homosexual imagery. Despite periods of severe homophobia, when many photographs depicting queer life were suppressed or destroyed, this exhibition brings together a variety of evidence to explore the medium’s profound role in shaping and affirming the vibrant tapestry of the LGBTQ+ community. In the Queer Lens exhibition, we openly acknowledge the complex history of the word “queer” in our wall text and talk about its reclamation by the LGBTQ+ community. In this context, it is not derogatory, but a word of inclusivity and empowerment. Additionally, “Queer” is gender neutral and includes those who are left out of LGBT identifiers (such as intersex). We use the word with intentionality, awareness, and respect. Image: Gay Activists at First Gay Pride Parade, Christopher Street, New York, 1970; printed 2021, Arthur Tress. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum. Gift of David Knaus. © Arthur Tress Archive LLC

Alchemy After the ballots were counted in 2024, winter set in with its diminishing light. Chris Walker turned to his studio and the wet plate collodion process to coax something luminous from the dark. Walker’s botanical studies move beyond the decorative, conjuring resilience from the dormant and the damaged. His subjects emerge from the margins: bare branches, browned leaves, and rejects from the farmer's market — a discarded holiday tree. In these overlooked fragments, Walker finds escape from the gathering noise through the transformative miracle of analog photography. About the process: Wet plate collodion is a 19th Century process combining silver nitrate and collodion for a moist, light sensitive surface that enabled positive images on metal sheets. As the U.S. Civil War approached, the process was perfected. More affordable than daguerreotypes, “tintypes” were sent home by soldiers from both sides of the divided nation. Their archival nature has proven remarkable—the images outlasting by more than 150 years the lives of those whose faces they preserve. A World Undone Paula Shur’s A World Undone illustrates how our world is being de-constructed and evolving into something new. Shur’s semi-abstract images provide a straight on look at this fragmentation. We see how the familiar is being splintered and rearranged intosomething uncomfortable yet inviting to explore. They are quiet meditations on a world pulling apart. Shur’s images are digital composites created by using portions of her work or pieces from family photos to construct something uniquely new. Her compositions are metaphors that speak to the idea that our world as we know it is fractured and turning into something unsettling but familiar. Image: Tree Fire 2 © Chris Walker

ICP is excited to host this exhibition sponsored and presented by Nikkei and the Financial Times as part of their 10-year celebrations, underscoring a shared commitment to the arts and cross-cultural exchange, and photography’s unique ability to shape how we see the world. Michael Kenna’s journey with Japan spans nearly 40 years—a story of dedication, devotion, and wonder. His photographs are quiet meditations, capturing not just a place, but a feeling, a presence. Michael has taught me so much—his passion, his humility, and the way he shares his vision so generously. His images invite us to see the world differently, to slow down, to feel. That is what great photography does—it connects us across time, cultures, and emotions. What I’ve always admired is the way Michael creates space—for the landscape to speak, and for us to listen. He’s not trying to impress; he’s trying to understand. And in doing so, he helps us do the same. His photographs carry a sense of stillness, of care, of deep respect for the land and the people connected to it. There’s a quiet poetry to it all—rooted in tradition but always reaching toward something universal. This exhibition, made possible through the generosity of Nikkei and the Financial Times, brings that spirit to life. Thanks to their support, Michael’s work has reached thousands. People have described the experience as moving, uplifting—something close to visual poetry. The response has been heartfelt. The Japan Society put it best: “Simply beautiful and inspiring—please go and see it with your own eyes.” I couldn’t agree more. —Peter Fetterman “On my first visit to Japan, I was blown away by the aesthetics, the spiritual and religious aspects, the curiosity of the people, their friendliness and generosity. Later, I went up to Northern Hokkaido in the middle of winter, and it looked to me like a stark sumi-e ink painting, a white canvas with Kanji characters marked on it. I’ve been in love with the place ever since.” —Michael Kenna About The Artist Michael Kenna’s photographic journey spans over five decades, rooted in a philosophy of patience, reverence, and poetic simplicity. Born into a working-class Irish Catholic family in northern England, Kenna’s early life shaped his enduring sense of humility and devotion. Initially drawn to the priesthood, he ultimately found his spiritual path in photography — a vocation that has taken him across the globe, and most intimately, across the landscapes of Japan. Kenna speaks of photography as a passionate calling, not a profession. Whether waiting for the perfect light at dawn or dusk, or quietly observing the rhythm of a shoreline, Kenna sees each photograph as a gift discovered, not made. He considers himself a messenger — someone who gathers and delivers moments of stillness and beauty. His images are composed with care and quietude. Often made using long exposures and traditional analog methods, they reflect an embrace of the unknown. “Doubt is central to faith,” he notes — a perspective that aligns his artistic process with the mystery of the natural world. He values unpredictability — not knowing exactly how the light and time will shape each image — and finds in that uncertainty a wellspring of creativity. Kenna’s work is deeply influenced by the Shinto philosophy of Japan, where he has returned regularly for almost forty years. In this tradition, nature is sacred — alive with presence and memory. His photographs of torii gates, trees, and temples evoke a serene stillness and deep respect for the landscape. “Photography is about honoring and respecting the world around us,” he says. His practice is as much a form of meditation as it is image-making. He often returns to the same locations — not to replicate, but to re-engage, to experience the place anew. “Nothing is ever the same twice. Everything is always gone forever,” he reflects. Each visit, each frame, becomes a moment held in the balance between presence and impermanence. Kenna’s darkroom is an extension of this meditative process. He prints each image by hand, embracing subtle variations that echo the uniqueness of each encounter. His silver gelatin prints are intentionally small — inviting close, intimate engagement. He resists spectacle in favor of nuance, drawing viewers into quiet acts of contemplation. With his current touring exhibition, Japan: A Love Story, Kenna shares one hundred images spanning nearly four decades. They are not just landscapes — they are visual poems, distilled emotions, and meditations on time, light, and memory. These works gently encourage us to pause, to reflect, and to reconnect with the deeper rhythms of the world around us. Through his photography, Kenna captures the visual essence of the land — the deep time of its making, a capacity to feel its significance. His images do not impose — they offer. And in their stillness, they remind us of something essential: our enduring need for beauty, quiet, and connection. Over a fifty-year career, Kenna has presented nearly a thousand solo exhibitions worldwide. His work is held in more than one hundred permanent collections, among them the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Shanghai Art Museum; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Born in Widnes, Lancashire, England in 1953, Kenna lives with his family in Seattle, Washington, and continues to photograph throughout the world. Image: Sanuki Fuji, Kagawa, Shikoku, Japan 2022 © Michael Kenna Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery

$3 Bill celebrates the contributions of LGBTQ+ artists in the last century. From pioneers who explored sexual and gender identity in the first half of the 20th century, through the liberation movements and the horrors of the HIV/AIDS epidemics, to today’s more inclusive and expansive understanding of gender, $3 Bill presents a journey of resilience, pride, and beauty. In the Queer Lens exhibition, we openly acknowledge the complex history of the word “queer” in our wall text and talk about its reclamation by the LGBTQ+ community. In this context, it is not derogatory, but a word of inclusivity and empowerment. Additionally, “Queer” is gender neutral and includes those who are left out of LGBT identifiers (such as intersex). In this exhibition, we openly acknowledge the complex history of the word “queer” in our wall text and talk about its reclamation by the LGBTQ+ community. In this context, it is not derogatory, but a word of inclusivity and empowerment. Additionally, “Queer” is gender neutral and includes those who are left out of LGBT identifiers (such as intersex). We use the word with intentionality, awareness, and respect. This exhibition is presented in English and Spanish. Esta exhibición se presenta en inglés y en español. Image: Eddie McClennon, Bobbie Laney (1st place winner for Best Costume), and Toni Evans at the Funmakers Ball, Rockland Palace, Harlem, New York, 1954. G. Marshall Wilson (American, 1905–1998) Digitized gelatin silver print Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Made possible by the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution, 2023.M.24. © J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is proud to present Panjereh, an exhibition by Iranian-American artist Sheida Soleimani. Panjereh—which means ‘window’ or ‘passageway’ in Farsi—builds on Soleimani’s ongoing Ghostwriter series, in which she explores her parents’ experiences of political exile and migration as a lens to examine broader systems of geopolitics. Known for her intricate, studio-based compositions that combine photographs, props, live animals and even her own parents in surreal, magical realist scenes, Soleimani expands her practice in Panjereh with the debut of a new body of work featuring injured birds. These images draw from her work as a wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Congress of the Birds, a federally licensed wild bird rehabilitation center in Rhode Island. The exhibition will also include a new site-specific wall drawing created specifically for ICP’s galleries. Curated by Elisabeth Sherman, Guest Curator, the exhibition will bring together more than forty photographs, the vast majority of which have never before been shown in New York. Sherman states, “In her work, Soleimani uniquely braids together the complex particularities of her family’s history, deep research into geopolitics and her inherited passion for care work into a visual language completely her own. The magically inventive spaces she creates allow for complexity in telling these stories, honoring their richness and continually unfolding nature. It is truly an honor to be presenting her first solo exhibition in New York, specifically at an institution historically dedicated to photography that engages with the politics of our time.” The Ghostwriter series takes Soleimani’s family history—specifically that of her parents' flight from Iran as political refugees following the 1979 revolution—as an overarching conceptual framework that informs her creative process, from the significance of the objects and family ephemera she uses to the compositions of the photographs themselves. The series carries out a form of ‘ghostwriting’ in the way it both narrates and reconstructs the lives of Soleimani’s parents without utilizing their voices directly. The works focus on their lives in Iran as pro-democracy activists before then being forced to flee the country, enduring both physical and psychological hardship on their way to eventual resettlement in the United States. Soleimani’s mother was forced to give up being a practicing nurse, leading her to begin caring for wild birds, a skill which she would eventually pass along to her daughter. With their personal emphasis, the Ghostwriter works present a distinct expression of Soleimani’s longstanding interest in Iranian history and the contemporary geopolitics between the West and the Middle East. Rather than address this history using a strictly documentary approach, Soleimani instead examines storytelling and memory as the primary means through which these stories are transmitted; the construction of her pictures captures the way that detail and meaning are often obscured, transformed or difficult to fully grasp. This process is expressed by the degree of visual compression and accumulation of detail that Soleimani’s photographs contain, as specific passages, details or textures—wildlife and plants, architecture and landscape—regularly function as stand-ins and metaphors rather than straightforward description. Soleimani situates artifacts from her parents’ journey against backgrounds made up of imagery pulled from a variety of archival family photographs, resulting in works that are layered composites of multiple stories, documenting factual traces of history within newly imagined spaces. A new development within the Ghostwriter series are the Flyways photographs, which draw attention to the plight of migratory birds, many of whom are wounded on their long journeys through populated areas. Soleimani’s work as a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator grew out of a care practice that she learned from her mother and forms part of a larger cultural inheritance that has been passed down to her. Assuming the position of primary characters, the birds that Soleimani photographs and places within her tableaux provide a metaphor for the many social, political and environmental obstructions met by people forced into flights of their own. This new group of analog photographs that Soleimani made of rehabilitated birds presents a unique kind of maximalism despite their small scale while also forgoing the complex layering of reference and imagery typical of the Ghostwriter series. Shot in extreme close-up, these works render the bodies of birds as intensely detailed and complex worlds unto themselves, where feathers, talons and eyes are as richly described as Soleimani’s family history is explored. The acts of care contained within these images highlights the relationship between care and political resistance that has unfolded not only with Soleimani’s own family, but which remains critically important for our present moment. Image: Edward Burtynsky, Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community - Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, 2011

The Great Acceleration, the first solo institutional exhibition of world renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work in New York City in over twenty years, reveals the depth of Burtynsky's investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes around the world, showing their present fragility and enduring beauty in equal measure. Curated by David Campany, Creative Director at ICP, this retrospective exhibition will present over seventy photographs, including many of Burtynsky’s landmark images, some of which have never previously been shown, along with three ultra high-resolution murals. The exhibition will also include a visual and narrative timeline of Burtynsky’s creative life. Intentionally scheduled to extend through Climate Week NYC in September 2025, The Great Acceleration will serve not only as an urgent call for action, but will also give visitors the opportunity to appreciate the sublimity that remains in the landscape, while also deepening our understanding of the challenges that confront us today. In this way, The Great Acceleration upholds ICP’s long-standing and core commitment to present concerned photography that can inspire new audiences. "The Great Acceleration" is an established term used to describe the rapid rise of human impact on our planet according to a range of measures, among them population growth, water usage, transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, resource extraction and food production, each of which Burtynsky has photographed the outward signs of at length and in great detail over the past forty years. From open pit mines across North America to oil derricks in Azerbaijan, from rice terraces in China to oil bunkering in Nigeria, Burtynsky has travelled across the world and back again as part of his restless and seemingly inexhaustible drive to discover the ways, both old and new, that organized human activity has transformed the natural world. Though already unified by both the precision and formal beauty that Burtynsky deploys to create each photograph, The Great Acceleration further underscores that, like their respective subjects, each project remains fundamentally interconnected. Image: Edward Burtynsky, Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community - Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, 2011

Ansel Adams stood at the pinnacle of his career—revered, celebrated, and firmly entrenched as America’s preeminent landscape photographer. But as the 1960s unfolded, everything around him—and within photography itself—began to shift. The civil rights movement, counterculture rebellion, free love, psychedelics, political assassinations, and the Vietnam War protests reshaped the nation. Meanwhile, a younger generation of photographers rejected the grandeur of nature and the meticulous precision of Adams' Zone System, instead embracing raw, unsettling, and often provocative imagery. As photo historian Jonathan Green put it: “The obsessions of sixties photography were ruthless: alienation, deformity, sterility, insanity, sexuality, bestial and mechanical violence, and obscenity.” Against this backdrop, Adams embarked on Fiat Lux, the most extensive photographic commission of his life. Between 1963 and 1968, he captured over 7,500 images for the University of California, documenting the institution’s vast and evolving landscape. But beneath the surface, Fiat Lux reveals something more: an artist struggling to find his place in a rapidly transforming world. His once unwavering photographic vision seemed untethered, his artistic compass unsettled. Lost in the Wilderness exposes this tension, showcasing Adams not as the master of the natural world, but as a photographer navigating the shifting tides of change. Image: Image: Ansel Adams, Untitled, n.d. Scan from original negative. Collection of the California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTS, 1987.0027.6.UCB.63.3.

As a photographer I have had a lifelong desire to record the daily life around me. This has principally been in Boston and Cambridge. Like the Boston painter Allan Rohan Crite, I have thought of myself as an artist-reporter, motivated to clearly detail what life looked like in this place at this particular time. I have been drawn to the everyday, to ordinary people going about their lives. To me there is wonder in small things . I’ve often wished that photography had existed in distant times – say, in colonial Boston or medieval Europe or ancient Greece – to have a record of everyday life in those eras. Looking at the archive of Arthur Griffin was a real pleasure because it spoke to this interest of mine in the recorded past – even if only decades before my own life. In fact, what made researching his work particularly interesting to me was that the city he captured was at once both so similar and so different from the city I have photographed. (Almost every photograph I chose from the Griffin archive was made in Boston). I found that we often photographed people doing the same things, such as looking at books for sale on a sidewalk, hovering over a car engine, waiting on benches in a train station. And often our subjects were photographed in the same location – North Station, the L Street Bathhouse, the Bunker Hill Memorial – even, at times, framed from almost the exact same spot, decades apart. This caused me to reflect on the evolution of a city; what continues, carries on over the years, and what changes, what is new. There are physical and social aspects of Boston in Griffin’s pictures that are remarkably the same as in mine. But there are also differences – in what has changed in the built environment, in the mix of people who make up the city, and in the city’s changing culture. To continue observing and to continue challenging yourself to make a well-framed image of an expressive human moment in this evolving world – like Arthur Griffin did so successfully – is forever satisfying. About Tony Loreti Tony Loreti is a Boston-based photographer and photography educator. Born in Beverly, MA, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Filmmaking from Boston University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Tony recently retired after teaching photography for twenty-five years at the Cambridge School of Weston. His personal photography has been selected for many juried exhibitions and is in both private and public collections. A significant portfolio of his street photography work has been purchased for the collection of the Print Department of the Boston Public Library, and the Cambridge Public Library has also acquired a large number of prints. Tony continues to work with film and traditional printing in his personal photography. He is deeply committed to the older form of the medium, particularly because of its tangible nature and the look and feel of gelatin silver prints.

We are pleased to present the solo exhibition of Griffin artist member Francisco Gonzalez Camacho. Selected for an exhibition prize during our 30th Annual Juried Members Exhibition by Director Crista Dix, Camacho’s works are visual, emotional moments, finding calm among the landscape. We are pleased to showcase his series of works during our celebration of our creative community this summer. Reverting – Reverting reflects upon the profound material connection between the landscape and image-making, exploring environmental issues and the objectification of nature in Iceland. Developed in Reykjavík with the SIM artist-in-residence program, this project merges photography and printmaking through material experimentation, seeking alternative ways to engage with the landscape. Issues like gentrification, waste, and environmental degradation, largely driven by tourism, challenge the idealized image of Iceland’s natural beauty. During my stay, I photographed highly visited natural locations, which I reinterpreted in combination with the creation of my own handmade recycled paper from waste. This exploration mirrors the transformative process of manifesting something from the void —a form of alchemy of waste— with the delicate equilibrium of our environment, and the perpetual cycle it follows. About Francisco Gonzalez Camacho – Francisco Gonzalez Camacho (b. 1990) is a Spanish visual artist based in Finland. Gonzalez Camacho’s work presents a process-based approach interweaving photography and graphic printing methods. His practice is a result of intuitive exploration centered around themes such as materiality, immigration and the connectedness between landscape and self.

Online bidding opens: September 11, 2025 Online bidding closes: September 30, 2025 (starting alphabetically at 6am Pacific Time, so set your alarms if you want that Debbie Achen print!) Our gallery will be filled with a wide-ranging selection of small framed works of art generously donated by our talented community of photographers. We will have works by over 140 established and emerging artists, both legendary photographers and rising stars, from California and beyond! Once again, our 8×10 Fundraiser will be an online auction, though we will have some special raffle prizes and photographs available for visitors to the gallery. There will always be an Ansel Adams' print waiting for you in the raffle! We would especially like to thank all the talented artists who generously donate their photographs to our annual fundraiser each year. Their enthusiastic support creates important funding toward our many programs and helps make our nonprofit a vibrant community resource. And we need the arts more than ever now! A very special thank you to the incredible team at iGavel for sponsoring our auction again this year. Discover the full list of incredible photographers on the website! Image: © Monica Denevan

SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Gannett Gallery proudly announces Deconstructed Self, a solo exhibition by acclaimed photographer Natalie Christensen (Santa Fe, New Mexico and Louisville, Kentucky). The show will run from August 20 through October 3, 2025, with an opening reception on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, featuring an artist talk at 2:00 PM, followed by a public reception from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. Christensen, whose work has been exhibited in prestigious venues internationally and featured in publications such as Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Observer, The British Journal of Photography and Creative Boom, worked as a psychotherapist for over 25 years and was significantly influenced by the theories of psychologist Carl Jung. This unique perspective informs her approach to color, shadow, and space—elements that become symbolic language in her abstracted suburban imagery. Her photos often convey a somber interpretation, evoking repressed desires, unexplained tension and looming disaster. Known for her minimalist compositions and exploration of psychological landscapes, Christensen brings her distinctive vision to central New York with a series that interrogates the interplay between interior experience and the constructed environment. Deconstructed Self features evocative images that strip away context, encouraging viewers to confront themes of identity, memory, and perception. “Natalie Christensen’s work asks us to slow down and see the emotional resonance in ordinary spaces,” said a Gannett Gallery spokesperson. “Her photographs challenge the viewer to consider what lies beneath the surface of what we think we know—about place, and about ourselves.” Christensen’s work is inspired by commonplace architecture and streetscapes. “I don’t have to go anywhere special to make my photography; instead, I find my images around shopping centers, apartment complexes and office parks.” Choosing to shoot in locations that might be seen as uninteresting or even visually off-putting, she finds it challenging to “see” something hidden in plain sight. She notes, “It is our nature to ignore what is unpleasant, but sometimes I get a glimpse of the sublime in these ordinary places. When I find it, it feels like I have discovered gold.” Closed and open doors, empty parking lots, and forgotten swimming pools draw her to a scene; her reactions elicit interpretation. Christensen continues, “The symbols and spaces in my images are an invitation to explore a rich world that is concealed from consciousness. And the scenes are an enticement to contemplate narratives that have no remarkable life or history yet tap into something deeply familiar to our experience; often disturbing, sometimes amusing…unquestionably present.” The artist will present an in-depth talk about her process and the themes of Deconstructed Self at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, offering visitors a personal glimpse into the psychology and artistry behind the work.

Narratives in Focus is a photography exhibition featuring a diverse range of artists from the Caribbean, United States Latin America, and Africa. This presentation delves into nuanced expressions of individual and collective identities, prompting viewers to critically engage with themes of race, gender, and culture. The works exhibited emphasize the power of photography as a medium to investigate personal histories, cultural identities, and social dynamics. Through diverse visual languages, the artists highlight issues of memory, migration, and the interplay between tradition and modernity. Themes of survival, resistance, and empowerment are prevalent, reflecting the artists’ commitment to addressing and redefining notions of home, land, and community. By presenting a variety of perspectives and experiences, Narratives in Focus encourages viewers to reconsider their perceptions and biases. It not only underscores the importance of representation, but also invites contemplation on the intricate connections between the past and present, the personal and collective, and the local and global. Through powerful imagery and thought-provoking content, this exhibition challenges and deepens our understanding of identity in today’s world. Presented artists are Widline Cadet, Sarah Charlesworth, River Claure, Camila Falquez, Anna Bella Geiger, Njaimeh Njie, Athi-Patra Ruga, and Mary Sibande. Image: Camila Falquez. Samantha Siagama, Trans – Indigenous Leader , 2023 . Digital chromogenic print with red silk spacers . 43 x 33 x 2 inches . Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) Acquisition Gift to PAMM 2023 . © Camila Falquez