Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes

Overfishing in South East Asia, an Ecological & Human Crisis, on view from March 20 through April 26, 2026 at the Bronx Documentary Center, presents an in-depth photographic investigation by photojournalist Nicole Tung. Developed through a nine-month reporting project supported by the Fondation Carmignac, the exhibition sheds light on a critical yet often overlooked environmental crisis unfolding across the waters of Southeast Asia. The region produces more than half of the world’s fish, yet the immense pressure placed on marine ecosystems has pushed many fisheries to the brink of collapse. Tung’s work traces the complex web of industrial fishing operations that stretch across the seas surrounding Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia. Through photographs taken in coastal communities, fishing ports, and processing centers, she documents the often-hidden realities behind global seafood supply chains. The images reveal both the ecological consequences of depleted waters and the human toll experienced by workers and small-scale fishers whose livelihoods depend on increasingly fragile marine resources. Migrant laborers working at sea, frequently under difficult conditions, appear as central figures within this complex system. Alongside these stark observations, the exhibition also highlights efforts aimed at protecting threatened ecosystems. Photographs and reporting examine emerging strategies such as marine protected areas and community-led economic initiatives designed to reduce pressure on fish stocks while sustaining local economies. These responses reflect attempts by governments, activists, and coastal residents to restore balance to environments that have long been treated as inexhaustible resources. Nicole Tung, a member of the international photo collective VII Photo Agency, is widely recognized for her reporting on conflict and humanitarian issues. While much of her career focuses on war zones and political upheaval, this project turns attention toward an environmental story whose consequences extend far beyond regional waters. By following the journey of seafood from local harbors to global markets, Overfishing in South East Asia reveals the fragile connections linking oceans, communities, and consumers around the world. Image: © Nicole Tung

The boundaries of traditional photography dissolve in Echoes of the Luminous, a multidisciplinary exhibition by Florida-based artist Beth Belaschky running through April 26, 2026. Belaschky, a recent recipient of the Arts Impact Fund grant through Creative Pinellas, shifts the medium away from mere documentation toward a physicalized state of being. Her work occupies a liminal zone where the mechanics of light meet the density of sculpture, utilizing a diverse array of materials including holograms, cold wax, gold leaf, and lightboxes. By treating the photographic image as a base for material excavation, she transforms the viewing experience into a tactile encounter with the subconscious, exploring the persistent resonance of memory and the feminine spirit. The technical execution of the series relies on a process of accumulation and removal, mirroring the biological and psychological acts of remembering. Belaschky employs layering and carving techniques to unearth hidden textures, a method that aligns with her background in intuitive artistic practice. Her use of cold wax and gold leaf adds a luminous, ancient quality to the frames, suggesting that the subjects are not merely captured in time but are part of a continuous archetypal narrative. These works do not simply show a subject; they radiate subtle energies, inviting the observer to look beneath the visible surface for traces of emotion that linger long after the initial exposure. This approach has earned her significant recognition within the photographic community, including the Silver Scholarship at the Palm Beach Photographic Center. Journalistic interest in Belaschky’s practice often focuses on her ability to manipulate light as a sculptural element. In her lightboxes and holographic works, the image changes based on the viewer’s perspective, creating a fluid dialogue between the art and the environment. This instability of the image serves as a metaphor for the fragility of the spirit and the "quiet pull" of the metaphysical. By extending photography into three-dimensional space, Belaschky challenges the static nature of the print, offering instead a series of fragments that feel deeply intimate yet universally resonant. The exhibition stands as a testament to the evolving nature of the medium in the hands of a dedicated multidisciplinary artist, proving that the most profound images are those that refuse to stay flat on the page. Image: Beth Belaschky, The Space Between, 2025, courtesy of the artist

At the heart of the exhibition As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic lies a deep belief in community, connection, and shared legacy. Drawn from the celebrated Wedge Collection, founded in 1997 by Dr. Kenneth Montague, this exhibition reflects Canada’s most significant privately held collection dedicated to championing Black artists. Its title, inspired by a phrase often spoken by Montague’s father—“lifting as we rise”—embodies an ethic of collective advancement. It calls for individual success to serve as a foundation for broader empowerment, extending generosity and pride beyond family to an ever-expanding circle of kinship and belonging. In this spirit, As We Rise celebrates both the intimate and the communal. The photographs within are acts of representation and recognition—images in which Black subjects, seen through the eyes of Black photographers, appear on their own terms. Their gazes meet the viewer’s not as subjects of study, but as collaborators in the act of seeing. This mutuality of vision—honest, elegant, and unforced—infuses the works with warmth and immediacy. Each frame becomes part of a collective portrait, a living archive of experience and emotion. The results are as diverse and unexpected as the communities from which they emerge, echoing the vibrant multiplicity of the Black Atlantic. Themes of identity, heritage, and empowerment intertwine throughout, not as isolated concerns but as natural expressions of life’s complexity. These images carry within them the textures of joy and resistance, beauty and endurance. As curator Liz Ikiriko notes, they “foreground the experience of Black life, in all its myriad forms”—a testament to resilience and connection that transcends geography. Together, they form a declaration of presence, a visual affirmation of home across the global diaspora. Image: James Barnor, Drum Cover Girl Erlin Ibreck, Kilburn, London, 1966, from As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic (Aperture, 2021). Courtesy Autograph ABP © James Barnor

Landscape ReEnvisioned brings together six artists whose experimental approaches invite visitors to rediscover the enduring power of the natural world. Presented at the Monterey Museum of Art from January 29 to April 26, 2026, the exhibition reflects a shared commitment to expanding landscape photography beyond convention, blending beauty, reflection, and environmental awareness. Each artist contributes a distinct sensibility, offering perspectives that honor both the majesty and the vulnerability of the environments that shape our lives. Debra Achen, raised in western Pennsylvania and now rooted on California’s central coast, draws inspiration from the textures and rhythms of the natural world. Her background in studio arts and traditional darkroom practice informs a body of work that balances craft and quiet observation. Recognized with the 2024 Artist Grant for Landscape Photography from the Center for Photographic Art, Achen continues to explore themes of transformation through series such as Folding and Mending, while her publications and exhibitions reflect a sustained dedication to visual storytelling. Tony Bellaver brings decades of experimentation to the exhibition, shaped in part by formative years working in the darkroom at the Ansel Adams workshops. His commitment to alternative processes has guided a practice that merges photography with mixed media, resulting in work that feels both tactile and exploratory. Exhibited widely across California and beyond, Bellaver’s vision remains anchored in curiosity and craft. Adrienne Defendi approaches landscape through the lens of memory and impermanence. Her work often weaves together analog methods, printmaking, and sculptural elements to explore cycles of change. Her exhibitions and curatorial projects reflect an ongoing engagement with themes of loss, renewal, and the passage of time. Charlotte Schmid-Maybach expands the photographic form by incorporating textile traditions into her practice. Influenced by years of documentary work and international field photography, her pieces marry materiality with narrative, creating layered works that echo personal and cultural histories. A longtime educator and advocate for photographic arts, Brian Taylor contributes images shaped by historic processes and inventive material combinations. His works, held in major international collections, stand as reminders of photography’s enduring capacity for reinvention. Vincent James Waring completes the group with works rooted in the ecology of California’s diverse landscapes. Blending traditional and experimental approaches, he reveals the subtle relationships between natural systems and human experience, offering reflections that are both intimate and expansive. Image: Debra Achen - Wings of Resilience, 2025 Archival pigment print collage, 28 x 34 in. Collection Monterey Museum of Art. © Debra Achen

On view at the Monroe Gallery of Photography from February 6 to April 25, 2026, this exhibition celebrates the extraordinary legacy of Margaret Bourke-White, one of the most influential figures in the history of American photography. As a trailblazer in both photojournalism and visual storytelling, Bourke-White reshaped how the world understood news, conflict, industry, and humanity itself. Her work remains strikingly contemporary, not only for its aesthetic power but for its unwavering commitment to bearing witness. A founding member of LIFE magazine and the photographer behind its very first cover, Margaret Bourke-White quickly became synonymous with a new kind of journalism—one driven by images capable of shaping public consciousness. At a time when the field was overwhelmingly dominated by men, she moved confidently through steel mills, factories, flood zones, and war fronts, carving out space through sheer determination and unmatched skill. Her presence behind the camera was as radical as the images she produced. Bourke-White’s photographs reflect a rare balance of formal rigor and emotional clarity. Whether documenting the grandeur of American industry, the devastation of global conflict, or the quiet dignity of individuals caught in history’s upheavals, she approached every subject with intellectual curiosity and deep empathy. Her pioneering use of the photographic essay expanded the role of photography beyond illustration, establishing it as a narrative force capable of conveying complexity, contradiction, and moral urgency. Nicknamed “Maggie the Indestructible” by her colleagues, Bourke-White was known for her physical courage and relentless work ethic. Yet her strength extended far beyond endurance. She believed fiercely in the social responsibility of the artist, using her camera to confront injustice and humanize suffering. Her images do not merely record events; they challenge viewers to reflect on power, resilience, and the cost of progress. This exhibition offers an opportunity to revisit the work of a photographer who helped define the visual language of the twentieth century. Bourke-White’s images continue to resonate, reminding us that photography can be both an instrument of truth and a catalyst for change—and that vision, conviction, and bravery know no boundaries. Image: Margaret Bourke-White Welding tire rims, International Harvester, Chicago, IL, 1933 © Margaret Bourke-White, Courtesy of the Monroe Gallery of Photography

Where Are We Now? American People and Places, 1955–2025, presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, arrives at a pivotal cultural moment. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the exhibition reflects on seven decades of photographs that have attempted to describe, question, and sometimes challenge the nation’s sense of itself. Bringing together landscapes and street photography from across the country, the installation traces a restless visual conversation about belonging, division, and shared ground. The exhibition opens with the work of Robert Frank, whose landmark 1958 book The Americans reshaped the language of documentary photography. Traveling across the United States in the mid-1950s, Frank produced images that were unsentimental and piercing. His photographs revealed racial injustice, social isolation, and the quiet contradictions embedded in everyday life. Though initially met with resistance, The Americans has come to be regarded as a defining portrait of postwar America—at once critical and deeply affectionate. From that starting point, the exhibition unfolds across generations. Photographers from diverse backgrounds extend and complicate Frank’s inquiry, turning their lenses toward highways and housing developments, parades and protests, deserts and downtown corners. The American landscape appears alternately expansive and constrained, marked by migration, industry, inequality, and reinvention. Faces emerge from crowds; solitary figures linger beneath vast skies. Each image contributes a fragment to a broader meditation on national identity. Rather than offering conclusions, Where Are We Now? poses a question that resonates beyond the gallery walls. The works suggest that the country’s story is not singular but layered, composed of overlapping experiences and unresolved tensions. Yet within these photographs—amid their candor and critique—there remains a persistent search for connection. In looking closely at one another and at the spaces we inhabit, the exhibition asks what it might mean, despite profound differences, to imagine a shared future and to hold together a complex, unfinished whole. Image: 1955 (negative); 1969 (print) Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey © Robert Frank

Virtuosos: Ansel Adams and Paul Caponigro brings together two towering figures of twentieth-century photography in a rare dialogue that celebrates mastery, vision, and devotion to craft. Presented by Obscura Gallery, the exhibition highlights the shared commitment of Adams and Caponigro to black-and-white photography, where light, tone, and form are shaped with the precision of a musical composition. Though their paths crossed through teaching and influence, their approaches reveal distinct philosophies united by a reverence for the expressive potential of the photographic print. Ansel Adams remains synonymous with technical excellence and photographic control. His development of the zone system transformed photographic practice, offering generations of photographers a method to translate perception into finely calibrated tonal values. Adams approached the medium analytically, using chemistry and exposure as tools to achieve clarity and balance. Paul Caponigro absorbed these lessons early in his career, yet ultimately pursued a more intuitive path, allowing emotion, rhythm, and inner response to guide his images. Where Adams measured, Caponigro listened—trusting instinct as much as method in the creation of his prints. Caponigro’s photographs reveal a lifelong pursuit of the transcendent within the visible world. From ancient stone circles in the British Isles to the sacred gardens of Japan, from New England forests to the deserts of the American Southwest, his subjects are rendered with luminous subtlety. Tireless darkroom work resulted in gelatin silver prints of remarkable depth and presence, images that invite contemplation rather than declaration. His influence extended beyond his own work through teaching, publishing, and collaboration, securing his place as both artist and mentor within the photographic canon. Both Adams and Caponigro were accomplished pianists, and each acknowledged music as a formative influence on their visual thinking. The tonal range of a photograph, like a musical scale, unfolds through harmony and contrast. This exhibition, the first to honor Caponigro’s work since his passing in 2024, stands as a fitting tribute to two virtuosos whose photographs continue to resonate—timeless, disciplined, and deeply felt. Image: Paul Caponigro. Reflecting Stream, Redding, CT, 1968 © Paul Caponigro

Karen Knorr: Scavi is on view at Danziger Gallery from February 26 through April 17, 2026. This ongoing series takes its title from the Italian word for “excavations,” signaling a sustained meditation on what lies beneath the surface of history. Karen Knorr began the project after extended visits to the archaeological sites surrounding Naples, where layers of ash and time preserved entire cities in suspended animation. The exhibition brings these encounters into the photographic realm, weaving antiquity into the present through a language that is at once meticulous and imaginative. In 79 AD, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius engulfed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving frescoed walls, domestic objects, and even the contours of human and animal bodies beneath volcanic debris. Today these sites hold designation as UNESCO World Heritage landmarks, their painted surfaces revealing scenes of daily life alongside episodes drawn from Greek mythology. Banquets, gardens, and household rituals share space with tales such as Leda and the Swan or the flight of Frisso and Elle. Knorr engages directly with these visual narratives, reanimating them through carefully constructed photographic tableaux. Animals occupy a central position in Scavi, as they have throughout Knorr’s career. In the ancient world, exotic creatures signaled wealth and imperial reach; monkeys, parrots, leopards, and lions inhabited villas as emblems of status. Archaeological casts also attest to their vulnerability, uncovered alongside their human counterparts. Knorr inserts animals into her compositions with deliberate poise, positioning them within frescoed interiors as both witnesses and protagonists. Their presence collapses temporal distance, suggesting continuity between mythic past and contemporary consciousness. Through digital precision and art historical reference, Knorr constructs images that feel excavated rather than merely staged. Scavi reflects on fragility, spectacle, and endurance, reminding viewers that civilizations rise, flourish, and vanish, yet stories persist—etched into walls, carried by animals, and reimagined through the lens. Image: Karen Knorr. Bacchus in Attendance, House of Neptune and Amphitrite, Herculaneum, 2024 © Karen Knorr.

Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell’s Pictures for Charis and Double Life, on view at Elmhurst Art Museum from January 25 to April 27, 2026, offers a profound exploration of human relationships, identity, and the landscapes we inhabit. Connell’s work bridges the personal and the historical, placing contemporary dialogues of queerness, intimacy, and ecological awareness alongside the groundbreaking photography of Edward Weston. In the main galleries, Connell’s Pictures for Charis revisits the sites of Weston’s celebrated black-and-white landscapes and portraits of Charis Wilson in California and the West from 1934–1945. With 45 images of her longtime partner Betsy Odom, Connell engages in a visual conversation spanning eighty years of ecological and social change. Paired with 48 original Weston prints and excerpts from Wilson’s writing, the series underscores connections between intimacy, environment, and the feminist gaze, illuminating how both nature and human relationships evolve over time. The McCormick House gallery presents Connell’s ongoing Double Life series, begun in 2002, which explores the fluidity of self within intimate relationships. Featuring two personas both played by collaborator Kiba Jacobson, these digital images interrogate sexuality, gender, family, and lifestyle choices. For Elmhurst, Connell engages with the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s modernist house, integrating its geometric rigor with poetic inspiration from Isabella Gardner, creating a dialogue between space, self, and narrative. The resulting works extend the Double Life exploration, highlighting how identity is continually shaped by context, relationships, and imagination. Across both exhibitions, Connell demonstrates an acute sensitivity to time, place, and human experience. Her photographs navigate intimacy and distance, historic continuity and contemporary reflection, inviting viewers to witness both the quiet gestures of personal connection and the broader currents of cultural and environmental change. Living with Modernism celebrates the enduring power of photography to illuminate relationships, identity, and the subtle interplay between people and the world they inhabit. Image: Kelli Connell, Betsy, Doug Short’s Home, 2015, 40x50 inches © Kelli Connell

First Look 2026, on view at Panopticon Gallery from February 12 through April 27, 2026, marks the gallery’s seventh annual juried portfolio exhibition and offers a focused snapshot of contemporary photographic practice. Bringing together five photographers working in distinct conceptual directions, the exhibition emphasizes the power of the portfolio as a narrative form. Here, meaning unfolds across sequences of images, where repetition, pacing, and visual echoes invite viewers to linger and to read photographs as evolving conversations rather than isolated statements. Running concurrently is First Look: A Second Glance, presented on The Wall Gallery inside Panopticon. This complementary exhibition features singular images selected from the wider submission pool, creating a dialogue between the sustained storytelling of portfolios and the immediacy of individual works. Together, the two presentations highlight how photographs shift in resonance depending on context—how a single image can stand alone with force, or gain new depth when placed within a carefully constructed series. The pairing reflects Panopticon Gallery’s commitment to supporting artists at varied stages of their practice while fostering accessibility for collectors and audiences alike. The selected portfolios span a wide emotional and thematic range. Josh Aronson’s Florida Boys examines masculinity, intimacy, and belonging through collaborative, staged portraits set within Florida’s charged landscapes. Donna Garcia’s Indian Land For Sale confronts historical erasure, using photography to imagine an archive that was systematically destroyed. Anastasia Sierra’s The Witching Hour navigates the blurred boundaries between dreams, fear, and caregiving, rendering motherhood as an unsettled psychological terrain shaped by love and vulnerability. Works by Kevin Williamson and Laura Ritch further expand the exhibition’s scope. Williamson’s meditative large-format photographs of the Hudson Valley explore the uneasy balance between beauty, decay, and human presence, while Ritch’s images trace an intimate search for light within domestic and natural spaces shaped by motherhood. Collectively, First Look 2026 presents portfolios that are thoughtful, cohesive, and emotionally resonant, offering a layered experience in which personal histories, landscapes, and inner lives intersect to reflect the complexity of contemporary photographic storytelling. Image: © Josh Aronson

From 30 January through 30 April 2026, Hans P. Kraus JR. Fine Photographs presents British Landscapes: Early Photographs, a focused survey of 19th-century masters who shaped the visual language of landscape at the dawn of photography. Opening in conjunction with Master Drawings New York, the exhibition traces a lineage from scientific experiment to poetic observation, revealing how early practitioners balanced precision with atmosphere in their attempts to fix nature in light. At its heart is a salt print by William Henry Fox Talbot depicting a monumental oak at Lacock Abbey, made soon after his invention of the calotype. Stark and architectural in winter silhouette, the tree rises against a pale sky, embodying Talbot’s rapid technical progress since his earlier frustrations with the camera lucida. Nearby, a delicate 1829 drawing of Worcester Cathedral by his friend John Herschel underscores photography’s deep roots in draftsmanship. Herschel’s facility with the camera lucida demonstrates how closely observation, measurement, and artistry were intertwined in this formative period. The exhibition also includes a luminous cloud study by Roger Fenton, printed from a collodion negative in 1856. Titled “Afternoon,” it channels the atmospheric ambitions of painters like Constable and Turner while asserting photography’s independent authority. Fenton, a leading advocate for the medium’s place among the fine arts and a founding figure of the Photographic Society in London, captured the mutable sky with a reverence that feels both empirical and transcendent. Scottish coastal views by Horatio Ross and rare Lake District scenes by John Payne Jennings extend the narrative. Ross’s bold albumen prints convey the rugged drama of the Highlands, while Jennings’s picturesque vistas echo the poetry of Wordsworth and the critical eye of Ruskin. Together, these works chart photography’s early ambition: to honor the land not merely as scenery, but as subject, memory, and enduring national inheritance. Image: Captain Horatio Ross (Scottish, 1801-1886) Lone tree, Scottish coast, circa 1858. Albumen print from a waxed paper negative 26.1 x 33.4 cm

Torrance York: Interstices unfolds at RWFA – Rick Wester Fine Art as an intimate continuation of a deeply personal photographic inquiry. Spanning works produced after the publication of her monograph Semaphore, the exhibition traces an evolving visual language shaped by the artist’s lived experience with Parkinson’s disease. York approaches photography not simply as documentation, but as a method of navigation—an instrument through which perception, instability, and resilience take form. Where Semaphore established a foundation rooted in autobiography, Interstices moves into more fragmented and experimental territory. The images inhabit spaces of transition—between control and imbalance, clarity and distortion. Torrance York often turns her lens toward her immediate surroundings, her body, and constructed arrangements that echo the unpredictability of movement. In works such as her self-portraits, gesture becomes both subject and process, with blur, tilt, and interruption shaping the final composition. These visual disruptions do not conceal meaning; they generate it. Color plays an increasingly significant role in this series, with soft yet vivid tones—lavender, pink, and muted gold—introducing a sense of atmosphere that contrasts with the physical challenges embedded in the work. Objects appear suspended or precariously balanced, suggesting a constant negotiation with gravity and control. The resulting images feel at once deliberate and unstable, reflecting a condition where precision coexists with unpredictability. York constructs these scenes carefully, yet allows chance and physical limitation to intervene, embracing a dialogue between intention and accident. At its core, Interstices speaks to a broader human experience. While rooted in the specificity of illness, the work extends into a meditation on adaptation, aging, and persistence. York’s photographs do not seek resolution; instead, they dwell within moments of uncertainty, where vulnerability becomes a source of strength. Through this ongoing process, she transforms constraint into a generative force, offering a body of work that resonates with quiet determination and a sustained commitment to seeing, despite everything. Image: Torrance York Untitled #3008, 2024 Interstices © Torrance York