Dana Stirling: Why Am I Sad

Foto Futures 1 marks an important moment for Houston Center for Photography, opening its galleries to a new generation of image-makers whose voices are only beginning to take shape. Presented from December 18, 2025 to January 4, 2026, the exhibition brings together work produced during an intensive twelve-week program that mirrors the rigor of college-level photographic study. Through sustained studio practice, thoughtful critique, and close guidance from professional artists, students were encouraged to slow down, observe carefully, and develop a disciplined relationship with the medium. The resulting images reveal not only technical progress, but also a growing confidence in visual storytelling. The projects on view move freely between experimentation and observation. Some works test alternative processes and unconventional approaches to printing, while others embrace documentary traditions rooted in personal history, family ties, and neighborhood life. For many of these young artists, this exhibition represents a first public milestone: seeing their photographs professionally printed, framed, and presented within a respected cultural institution. Such experiences echo long-standing traditions in photographic education, where learning is reinforced by the act of exhibition and by placing work into dialogue with an audience. Founded as a cornerstone for photographic education and exhibition in Texas, Houston Center for Photography has long championed access, mentorship, and community engagement. Its programs have helped demystify the photographic arts while maintaining high standards rooted in the history of the medium. Foto Futures extends this mission by reaching students at a formative stage, offering scholarships, equipment access, and sustained mentorship that might otherwise remain out of reach. The exhibition reflects how structure, patience, and encouragement can transform curiosity into craft. Looking ahead, Foto Futures is set to expand with new tracks focused on Commercial and Editorial practices as well as Creative Careers, reinforcing the idea that photography can be both an expressive art and a viable profession. The participating artists—Agustín Alcalá, Dhara Agrawal, Crespin de la Cerda, Hiro Chang, Vance Dees, Hannah Estrada, Abdulnayeem Iqbal, Jamie Lopez, Chisom Ndubuisi, and Lavanya Shringarpure—stand at the threshold of that future, grounded in tradition yet ready to define their own paths. Image: © Agustín Alcalá

This exhibition brings renewed attention to the remarkable portraits created by Cameroonian studio photographer Michel Kameni, whose work at Studio KM in Yaoundé captured a young nation in the midst of defining itself. The fifty-five photographs on view were made during the 1960s and 1970s, a period when Cameroon, newly independent, witnessed an energetic reshaping of cultural identity, social mobility, and personal expression. Within this setting, Kameni’s studio became both a meeting point and a stage—a place where individuals could present themselves as they wished to be seen. Founded in 1963, Studio KM quickly drew visitors from across social backgrounds. Kameni possessed a rare ability to read the desires and personalities of the people who stepped before his camera. Each portrait was a collaboration, resulting in what were often called nyanga photographs: images carefully crafted to convey pride, confidence, and aspiration. People came to mark life’s milestones, to share pictures with loved ones, or simply to show the world who they were becoming in a time of change. Kameni’s portraits highlight what mattered most to his sitters—family bonds, personal achievements, professional identities, and cultural belonging. Clothing, props, posture, and expression all play a part, revealing a vibrant mix of tradition, modernity, and imagination. In these images, national pride coexists with individual flair, and the studio itself becomes a space where self-representation flourishes. Viewed together, the photographs form an intimate record of everyday life in post-Independence Cameroon. They speak to ambition and resilience, to the joy of self-presentation, and to the dignity found in being seen. Kameni’s legacy endures not only in the beauty of the prints but in the trust he established with those who stood before his lens—people who shaped, through their presence, an enduring visual archive of a country in transformation. Image: Untitled (three women, hand dresses) 1970s Michel Kameni Cameroon (c.1935–2020). Vintage gelatin silver print © Estate of Michel Kameni. Courtesy the Solander Collection

The exhibition Arnold Newman Prize 2025 at The Griffin Museum brings together a compelling selection of photographers who redefine contemporary portraiture through bold vision and intimate storytelling. At the center of the show is C. Rose Smith, the 2025 Prize winner, whose series Scenes of Self: Redressing Patriarchy reclaims historical space — exploring the architecture of the American South and the legacy of power, identity, and visibility for Black communities. Her work challenges traditional gaze and offers a powerful re-imagining of Black identity through a lens of agency and authority. Smith’s photographs draw upon archive materials and new portraits to examine how power and perspective intertwine. Through careful framing and thoughtful staging, she reveals the lingering social hierarchies embedded in place and memory. Her images demand attention — not only to what is visible, but to what has been invisible for generations. In doing so, she pushes portraiture into a new direction, one conscious of history, identity, and reclamation. Alongside Smith’s work, the exhibition features three finalists whose practices bring fresh voices and urgent perspectives to photographic portraiture. Debmalya Choudhuri uses a deeply personal, diaristic approach. Through their portraits, texts, and performance-inflected images, they confront grief, trauma, and mental health — transforming pain into visual testimony. Their work emphasizes vulnerability and resilience, inviting empathy and introspection from viewers. Nzingah Oyo explores identity, heritage, and family through a long-term portrait series that traces her large Brooklyn family over decades. Working in classic format, she captures generational shifts, cultural convergence, and the complexities of community. Her images offer a quiet power — a celebration of Black life, pride, and continuity. Jahbella Demavlys, recognized with the inaugural Richards Family Prize, brings a global sensibility rooted in her international background and documentary approach. Her photography bridges fashion, portraiture, and documentary work to highlight the dignity and diversity of her subjects, offering international vision and human stories. Together, the four artists showcased in Arnold Newman Prize 2025 expand the boundaries of what portraiture can be — from historical reclamation to personal grief, from family narratives to global identity. Their works remind us that portraiture is not just representation, but reflection: of power, memory, resilience, and the stories that shape who we are. Image: C. Rose Smith, Scenes of Self: Redressing Patriarchy. 2025 Prize winner © C. Rose Smith

The 2025 International Juried Exhibition returns with an inspiring showcase that reflects the remarkable breadth and vitality of contemporary photography. Presented from December 6, 2025 through January 4, 2026, the exhibition highlights works selected by celebrated artist and writer Cig Harvey, whose eye for evocative imagery shaped this year’s exceptional lineup. From more than 2400 submissions worldwide, she chose 50 photographs for the gallery presentation, creating a compelling survey of creative voices from many backgrounds and artistic traditions. An additional 52 works appear in a dedicated online gallery, also displayed on a large monitor within the Carmel space. This dual-format presentation expands the viewing experience and ensures all selected artists are represented. Each of the 102 images is featured in a catalog available both on-site and through the institution’s website, offering visitors a lasting record of the exhibition’s outstanding quality. More than $6000 in juror awards celebrate achievements across the field, with top honors recognizing powerful and deeply resonant photographic narratives. The First Place award goes to Margo Cooper for Cora and Ralph with Their Son and John, 1993, followed by Quintavius Oliver’s Madonna And Child, 2024, and Ian McFarlane’s Quarry Solider, 2025. Additional distinctions, including the Salon Jane Award for Women in Photography and several honorable mentions, underscore the richness of this year’s entries. Visitors are also invited to take part in the tradition of selecting the People’s Choice Award, an in-person vote that brings the community into the heart of the celebration. The winning artist receives a cash prize and special CPA merchandise. Cig Harvey’s role as juror brings a distinct sensibility to the exhibition. Known for her vivid color photography and poetic approach to everyday experience, she has built an international career grounded in emotional resonance and a deep connection to the natural world. Her extensive publications, museum presence, and acclaimed exhibitions speak to a lifelong exploration of what it means to truly feel. With this edition of the International Juried Exhibition, her curatorial vision invites audiences to discover new perspectives and to honor the enduring power of photographic expression. Image: Margo Cooper, Cora and Ralph with Their Son and John, 1993 l-r, Friend, Ralph, Cora and Aaron, August, 1993. © Margo Cooper

During the 1930s and early 1940s, George Hurrell (1904–1992) reigned as Hollywood’s preeminent portrait photographer. Hired by the Publicity Department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) when he was only twenty-five, Hurrell advanced rapidly to become the studio’s principal portraitist. With a keen eye for artful posing, innovative lighting effects, and skillful retouching, he produced timeless portraits that burnished the luster of many of the “Golden Age’s” greatest stars. “They were truly glamorous people,” he recalled, “and that was the image I wanted to portray.” In 1933, Hurrell left MGM to open a photography studio on Sunset Boulevard. There, he created some of his most iconic portraits of MGM stars as well as memorable images of leading actors from the other major studios. After closing his Sunset studio in 1938, Hurrell worked briefly for Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures before serving with a military film production unit during World War II. Following the war, candid photographs, made with portable, small-format cameras, rose to replace the meticulously crafted, large-format studio portraits that epitomized Hurrell’s style. For George Hurrell, Hollywood’s “Golden Age” had come to an end. “When we stopped using those 8 x 10 cameras,” he declared, “the glamour was gone.” This exhibition has been made possible in part through the generous support of Mark and Cindy Aron. Image: Clark Gable and Joan Crawford by George Hurrell / 1936, Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired in part through the generosity of an anonymous donor

The museum’s photography collection originated in 1972, when Duke University Museum of Art purchased a portrait of artist Barbara S. Thompson by noted North Carolina photographer and educator John Menapace. Twenty years later, Duke University purchased its second photograph: Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #140, depicting a human-pig hybrid creature and part of the celebrated artist’s portrayal of female characters in classic fairy tales. The opening of the Nasher Museum in 2005 initiated a more focused approach to collecting photography building upon these two earlier acquisitions. Within its first decade, the museum acquired significant groups of works by Andy Warhol, Barkley L. Hendricks, and Mike Disfarmer, among many others, as it built a robust collection of national, international, and regional photography. More recently the Nasher has added over 2,000 photographs to its collection that allow us, for the first time, to chronicle a broad historical sweep of the medium from its dawn in the 1830s and 40s to more recent innovative, experimental approaches. A five-year donation of over 1,500 photographs by Linda and Charles Googe (A.B. ’84) has more than doubled the museum’s photography holdings and included works by the best-known practitioners from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Edouard Baldus, Ilse Bing, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Arthur Rothstein, Nadar, and Edward Weston. Coming into Focus: A Snapshot of Photography at the Nasher celebrates these gifts and other acquisitions, highlighting a sampling of gems and illuminating a bright future of continued collecting and presenting of photography in innovative and ambitious ways. Coming into Focus: A Snapshot of Photography at the Nasher was organized by Ellen C. Raimond, Associate Curator of Academic Initiatives and Marshall N. Price, Chief Curator and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art., with assistance from Nasher interns, Charles Blocksidge, III (’25) and Jordan Moyd (Robertson Scholar ’26, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), and Ghita Basurto-Covarrubias (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, ‘26). This exhibition is made possible by The Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; the Frank Edward Hanscom Endowment; the Janine and J. Tomilson Hill Family; the Neely Family Fund; the E.T. Rollins Jr. and Frances P. Rollins Fund; the J. Horst and Ruth Mary Meyer Fund; and the K. Brantley and Maxine E. Watson Endowment Fund. Image: Genevieve Gaignard, The Quietest Room in the House, 2018. © Genevieve Gaignard. Image courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles.

The Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium, Xcel Energy Gallery, and Starion Bank Gallery Fifty Years of Photography and Design is a retrospective exhibition celebrating Murray Lemley’s artistic career. The exhibit features a wide range of imagery, including extensive black-and-white analogue street photography from Europe in the 1970s and 80s, documentary portrait studies of people from his hometown of Hope, powerful portraits of Native Americans on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and a radical transition in later years to creating modern Polaroid images he calls “STREET COLLAGE GRAFFITI.” With this more recent work, he has, in one sense, returned to the streets he haunted in Europe in the 1970s, but in vivid color and with a new point of view and style. After leaving his home on the family farm near Hope, Lemley studied architecture at North Dakota State University, but after disagreements with his design professor, he shifted his focus to photography, journalism, graphic design, and anti-establishment activism. This journey inspired him to launch three independent magazines, work in radio, and edit the controversial yearbook The Last Picture Book, which famously omitted the name of the university from its cover and led to a temporary discontinuation of yearbooks at NDSU. Despite amassing double the required credits for a degree, his political activism resulted in the administration, in an act of petty revenge, from granting him a degree. Lemley’s photography career took off after two pivotal experiences in the early 70s: photographing for the Concordia College May Seminars Abroad and attending the Apeiron Photo Workshops in New York, which deepened his creative vision and marked a shift from photojournalism to more artistic photography. His design career flourished as well, working at Atomic Press in Seattle and later in Amsterdam, where he designed books for artists and photographers. After the years in Seattle and San Francisco Lemley moved to Amsterdam in the early 90s and has lived primarily in Europe ever since. During his early years there, Lemley worked at many things from construction to graphic design and art. He managed an art gallery for a prolific painter and designed eight books for artists and photographers, many of which are featured in this retrospective exhibition at Plains Art Museum. Lemley has had several exhibitions of this photography at the Plains as well at Suzanne Biederberg Gallery, Ververs Gallery and the Zamen Art Gallery.

The View From Here: Women Photographers of the American Landscape brings together a remarkable range of artists who have shaped, challenged, and redefined the way we see the natural world. The exhibition includes works by internationally recognized figures such as Laura Gilpin and Lilian De Cocke Morgan, alongside regional voices like Stephanie Dinkins and Suzanne Camp Crosby. For photographers Marion Post Wolcott and Berenice Abbott—celebrated for their depictions of urban life—these images reveal another side of their artistry, showcasing their skill in capturing the subtleties of landscape and light. Imogen Cunningham and Ellen Land-Weber expand the very notion of what a landscape can be, merging poetic composition with surreal or experimental techniques. In contrast, contemporary artists like Dionne Lee and Sally Mann turn their gaze inward, using the landscape as a means of reflection on identity, ancestry, and belonging. Their images situate personal histories within larger terrains, allowing nature to serve as both witness and participant in the shaping of human experience. The year 2025 marks the fortieth anniversary of Deborah Bright’s groundbreaking essay “Of Mother Nature and Marlboro Men: An Inquiry in the Cultural Meanings of Photography.” Bright called for a deeper understanding of photography—one that considers the historical and cultural context of every image while highlighting the crucial yet often overlooked role of women photographers in defining the landscape tradition. Presented in this spirit, The View From Here invites viewers to look closely and think broadly about the American landscape, not just as a physical place but as a space of memory, imagination, and cultural meaning. Drawn entirely from NOMA’s collection, these photographs chart more than a century of artistic vision, revealing how women have continually reimagined the view from here. Image: Advertisement Near Black Mountain North Carolina 1939, printed later Marion Post Wolcott (American, 1910-1990) Gelatin silver print Museum purchase, General Acquisition Fund

Spanning nearly the entire history of the medium, Funny Business: Photography and Humor offers a compelling view into the ways artists have utilized visual humor not only to provoke laughter and delight, but also as a means of resistance, an antidote to the heaviness of the world, and a way to interrogate and subvert norms and hierarchies. Drawn primarily from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the exhibition presents 70 photographs that showcase the mechanics of photographic humor, while examining the reasons for which artists throughout time have employed it as a strategy in their work. Featured artists include Liz Cohen, Steffi Faircloth, Jeff Mermelstein, Bucky Miller, Reynier Leyva Novo, among others. Funny Business is arranged in four thematic sections. All the World’s a Stage highlights slapstick and observational comedy through a constellation of early 20th-century gelatin silver prints and snapshots displayed in conversation with examples of canonical mid-20th century street photography. Inside Jokes charts the medium’s evolution in the 1970s, when art institutions began accepting and exhibiting photography as a legitimate art form. Featured works highlight photographers’ adoption of a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward their predecessors and the conventions and aesthetics of the medium itself. Context is Everything explores how subjects and photographic images can become absurd, ironic, and nonsensical when shown outside of their original contexts or in unexpected juxtaposition with one another. Comic Relief features the work of contemporary artists who use humor in a critical or subversive manner to explore issues of identity and belonging, politics, and general dimensions of contemporary life. Humor operates in their work as a means of resistance, a coping mechanism, a refusal to become cynical, or a way to subvert power structures and challenge stereotypes. Image: Jo Ann Callis, Parrot and Sailboat, 1980, 1980. Dye transfer print. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Purchase, 86.16.5. © Jo Ann Callis

Lower East Side Yearbook: A Living Archive celebrates the vibrant histories and enduring spirit of New York City’s public housing residents through the lens of photographer Destiny Mata. What began as Mata’s personal effort to document her community has evolved into a collective act of memory, drawing from the photographs and personal archives of residents including Camille Napoleon, Promise Jimenez, Cheryl Kirwan, Aicha Cherif, and TC Rosario. Together, their contributions form a visual tapestry that captures the resilience, creativity, and intergenerational bonds that define the Lower East Side. Curated by Ali Rosa-Salas, Vice President of Visual and Performing Arts at Abrons Arts Center, with exhibition design by Anzia Anderson, the project situates photography as both testimony and tribute. Each image reflects not only the changing face of a neighborhood but also the deeper story of belonging—a story carried in gestures, gatherings, and the walls that have sheltered countless families. The archive lives and breathes, expanding as new voices join in the act of remembering. Destiny Mata, a Mexican American photographer and filmmaker born and raised in New York City, continues a familial legacy of image-making. With roots in wedding, fashion, and family photography, she inherited an understanding of photography as a means of connection. Mata’s lens focuses on the everyday beauty of her surroundings, exploring themes of gentrification, housing rights, and cultural survival. From documenting NYC’s punks of color to her ongoing commitment to the Lower East Side, her work honors the unseen and the overlooked. Through Lower East Side Yearbook: A Living Archive, Mata invites viewers to look closely and remember deeply. The exhibition stands as a living document of a community’s shared past and a declaration that its stories, like its people, remain very much alive. Image: © Destiny Mata

Since 2002, Kelli Connell has been developing Double Life, a photographic series that examines the intimate dialogue we maintain with ourselves. At first glance, the images appear to depict two women in moments of shared affection, tension, or reflection. Yet each scene is a carefully composed illusion—every figure portrayed by a single model, Kiba Jacobson, who embodies both characters through Connell’s digital manipulation. This merging of identities transforms Double Life into a quiet study of the human psyche, revealing the contradictions that shape selfhood: desire and restraint, doubt and acceptance, solitude and connection. Connell’s work transcends portraiture, probing the emotional negotiations that define how we live with ourselves and, by extension, how we relate to others. In this mirror of the self, empathy becomes both subject and method. Her images evoke the private gestures of care, forgiveness, and conflict that form the architecture of emotional growth. Each photograph invites viewers to reflect on their own dualities and on the continuous dialogue between inner and outer worlds. In 2024, Connell was commissioned by The Progressive Corporation to extend her Double Life series around the theme of “Empathy” for the company’s annual report. These new works, presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland from June 28, 2025, through January 4, 2026, join Progressive’s distinguished contemporary art collection. Through these pieces, Connell expands her exploration of self and other, using photography to visualize emotional intelligence and mutual understanding. Connell’s photographs are held in major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A professor at Columbia College Chicago, she continues to shape the dialogue between identity, representation, and the unseen emotional labor of being human. Image: Kelli Connell, Negotiation, 2025 © Kelli Connell

New Vision: Photography and Modern Seeing explores the radical and transformative approaches to photography that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, a period that redefined how artists and audiences perceived the world. Rooted in the avant-garde experimentation of the era, the New Vision movement rejected conventional photographic norms, embracing innovation, unusual perspectives, and technical inventiveness. As László Moholy-Nagy, the influential Bauhaus artist and teacher, asserted in 1928, “The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.” This philosophy underscored the belief that photography was not merely a tool for documentation, but a language for seeing and thinking anew. The exhibition spans Europe, America, and beyond, highlighting the far-reaching influence of New Vision photographers. Through photograms, photomontages, abstract light studies, and extreme angles, these artists challenged traditional approaches, often capturing the ordinary in extraordinary ways. Their work reflects a desire to explore alternate perspectives, uncover hidden details, and reinterpret the visual environment in the wake of the upheavals of World War I. Movements such as Surrealism intersected with New Vision approaches, further expanding the possibilities of photographic expression and perception. Featuring over one hundred works drawn from the High’s photography collection, the exhibition traces the movement’s evolution from its interwar origins to its enduring impact on contemporary photography. Visitors are invited to consider how New Vision’s experimental spirit continues to influence modern photographic practice, inspiring generations of artists to push boundaries, question assumptions, and reimagine the act of seeing. By situating early twentieth-century innovation alongside its ongoing legacy, the exhibition illuminates the persistent vitality and relevance of a movement that reshaped both the medium and the ways in which we engage with the world around us. Image: Walker Evans American, 1903–1975 The Bridge, 1929 Gelatin silver print Gift of Arnold H. Crane, 73.72 F © Walker Evans