The 2017 FlashPoint Boston Portfolio Review and Portfolio Walk
October 21, 2017
Reviewer Bios
Elizabeth Avedon, Writer and Curator
Elizabeth Avedon is an independent curator and writer, photography book and exhibition designer. She is a sought after consultant for photographers; editing, sequencing, and advising towards their exhibition, book, and portfolio projects. She is the former Director of Photo-Eye Gallery, Santa Fe; Creative Director for The Gere Foundation; and received numerous awards and recognition for her exhibition design and publishing projects, including the fashion retrospective book and exhibition, “Avedon: 1949–1979” for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, among others; and “Richard Avedon: In the American West” for the Amon Carter Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago; and exhibition designs for the Estate of Diane Arbus, the Menil Collection,Texas and the Leica Gallery, New York. In conjunction with Random House, she co-published the series “Elizabeth Alvedon Editions/Vintage Contemporary Artists”, working with distinguished art critics such as Donald Kuspit and Peter Schjeldahl, and contemporary artists Francesco Clemente, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Rauschenberg and others.
Erin Becker, Curator and Director of CAA
Erin Becker is the Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Cambridge Art Association. Since 2012, Erin has increased the visibility of the Association by expanding on the longtime exhibition and program schedules of the Kathryn Schultz Gallery, including: establishing a youth outreach program in collaboration with Cambridge Creativity Commons and Cambridge Youth Programs/Gately Youth Center; and fostering collaborative relationships with local organizations, including Maud Morgan Arts, Cambridge Community Television, Lesley University College of Art and Design and the Griffin Museum of Photography. In addition to her work at CAA, Erin serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Square Business Association; the Advisory Board for Cambridge Open Studios; and is a co-founder of the Art Centers Alliance, a group of roughly 25 community arts leaders. She is also a past reviewer for the Cambridge Arts Council’s LLC Grant Program, and past Gala Committee Member at the Guidance Center. Erin holds a BA in Art History from Boston University, and a Certificate from Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management Leadership Core Program at Questrom Business School.
Emily Belz, Educator and Photographer
Emily Belz is a photographer and educator based in Cambridge, MA. Belz has exhibited her photographs in exhibitions at the Center for Fine Art Photography; Danforth Museum; the Griffin Museum of Photography; the Photographic Resource Center; Panopticon Gallery, and the Vermont Center for Photography. She was the recipient of a 2014 artist grant from the Cambridge Arts Council, and a 2015 Critical Mass Finalist. Belz holds a BA in photography and art history from Hampshire College (1997); an MA in art and design education from the Rhode Island School of Design (2009); and an MFA from the New Hampshire Institute of Art (2017).
Meg Birnbaum, Photographer, Educator, and Griffin Museum of Photography Director of Communications
Meg Birnbaum is a fine art photographer, designer and educator. She has had solo exhibitions in Kobe, Japan, the Davis Orton Gallery, NY, Panopticon Gallery, Boston, Corden Potts Gallery, San Francisco, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Lishui China, International Photography Festival, and at the Museum of Art Pompeo Boggio, Buenos Aires during the biennial Encuentros Abiertos-Festival de la Luz. Her work has been juried into many national and international photography competitions. Birnbaum was an invited exhibitor at Flash Forward Festival 2011 in Boston and was nominated for the 2009 Santa Fe Prize for Photography. Meg is also a graphic designer specializing in publication design. She is the Director of Communications for the Griffin Museum of Photography and produces the exhibition catalogs associated with the museum’s exhibitions. She is a member of the Griffin Museum’s exhibition committee. Birnbaum taught illustration at Montserrat College of Art and is teacher of the Photography Atelier and Atelier 2.0 classes at the Griffin Museum of Photography. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the Meditech Corporation, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the Lishui Museum of Photography in China and many private collections.
Edie Bresler, Photographer and Educator
Edie Bresler examines American values with a recent focus on Main Street through the lens of state lotteries. She was a 2015 Critical Mass finalist and her projects have been featured in Photo District News, Lenscratch, Slate, Feature Shoot, Business Insider, Esquire Russia, and on the PBS show Greater Boston. Solo exhibitions include the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson NY, the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography in California, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, the Boston Center for the Arts, Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester and numerous group exhibitions. Edie gratefully acknowledges funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Somerville Arts Council, Simmons College Faculty Fund for Research, and the Berkshire Taconic Artist Resource Trust. She writes regularly for Photograph Magazine and is head of the photography program at Simmons College in Boston.
Tynan Byrne, Photographer and Curator
Tynan Byrne is a photographer, videographer, and sound artist currently living in Medford Massachusetts after graduating from the Art Institute of Boston in May of 2015. He grew up on the coast of Downeast Maine, a place he often references and draws inspiration from for much of his work, which often deals in themes of phenomenology, natural order, and color fields. He is currently an associate curator at Lesley University for exhibitions.
Erin Carey, Photographer, Educator, Writer, and Curator
Erin Carey is a photographer, writer, educator and curator based in Boston, Massachusetts. She currently runs the color photography program at the New England School of Photography and is also the Director & Curator of the Garner Center of Photography. Erin’s photographic work centers mainly on man’s relationship to the landscape, seeking out transitions and transgressions that are often overlooked by its inhabitants. She works with traditional analog materials and over the last 10 years has been exhibited in Boston and New York. An alumnus of Sarah Lawrence College, Erin earned a B.A. in art history & photography and was mentored by photographer Joel Sternfeld. She received her M.F.A. in photography from Tufts University & The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Christine Collins, Photographer, Chair and Assistant Professor of Photography, Lesley University
Christine Collins received her BA from Skidmore College and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art + Design. In addition to the courses she teaches at Lesley University, Christine also teaches photography workshops at Maine Media Workshops and Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Her editorial clients include The New York Times Magazine and Bloomberg Business. She is Chair and Assistant Professor of Photography at Lesley University and her areas of academic focus and expertise are photography and the history of photography.
David Carol, Photographer and Publisher
David J. Carol is a photographer, writer, curator, editor, teacher, lecturer and publisher. He attended the School of Visual Arts and The New School for Social Research where he studied under Lisette Model. He was the first assignment photographer for The Image Bank photo agency (now part of Getty Images) at the age of 26. He recently retired after 25+ years as the Director of Photography at Outfront Media (formerly CBS Outdoor) to become the Editor-in-Chief of Peanut Press Books. He loves giving photographers a platform to share and discuss their work with the photographic community. He is able to do this as a contributing writer to Rangefinder Magazine and PDN as well as doing portfolio reviews at such varied venues as The Palm Springs Photo Festival, PhotoPlus Expo in NYC, ASMP Fine Art, APA, Filter Photo Festival in Chicago, Slow Exposures Festival in Georgia, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado and The Savannah College of Art and Design. David is the author of four monographs, 40 Miles of Bad Road…, ALL MY LIES ARE TRUE…, “THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS!” and his latest book, NO PLAN B. He also completed a trilogy of books, “Where’s the Monkey?”, “Here’s the Deal!” and “All My Pictures Look the Same.” with Cafe Royal Books, London.
David’s other work experiences include editing and sequencing photo books, curating photo shows, and being a Judge for contests at multiple magazines and universities, including the prestigious PDN Photo Annual since 2003. He has also given lectures/workshops on his own work and photography in general at SCAD, SVA, ASMP, photo-eye gallery, The Center for Alternative Photography: Penumbra Foundation, Out of Chicago Festival, PhotoPlus Expo, Filter Photo Festival, SlowExposure Festival and The Center for Fine Art Photography to mention a few.
David’s photographs and/or books are in the permanent collections of over 50 libraries and museums including: Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, The Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, The International Center of Photography, New York, NY, Tate Gallery Special Collection, London, UK, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, Art Institute, Minneapolis, MN, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, Block Museum, Chicago, IL, Fogg Art Museum, Boston MA, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, Reader’s Digest Collection, Pleasantville, NY, British Library, London, UK, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
Grayson Dantzic, Photographer and Board Member, The American Photography Archives Group
Grayson is an archivist, curator, documentary videographer, photographer and musician. He is a graduate of The Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University, with an M.L.S. plus a B.A. from Brandeis University. In 1999, he established the Jerry Dantzic Archives with his mother, Cynthia Dantzic which is dedicated to the rediscovery and preservation of the photographic legacy of his father, Jerry Dantzic [1925-2006] a two-time Guggenheim Fellow. He is also project archivist for the Paul Seligman Collection/Metropolitan Opera Archives and others.
Grayson has curated photographic exhibitions and presented at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA, The Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Australia, The Shanghai Art Museum, China, The National Arts Club, NY and the Archive As Project Conference (on behalf of APAG), Warsaw, Poland. He edited and wrote text for Jerry Dantzic’s New York: The Fifties in Focus (Edition Stemmle, 2002) and Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill (Thames & Hudson, 2017). He is a co-founder of the American Photography Archives Group (APAG) with Mary Engel, APAG President & Director of the Orkin/Engel Film & Photo Archive where he has served as Executive Vice President since its formation in 2000.
David DeMelim, Managing Director of the Providence Center for Photographic Arts and Photographer
David DeMelim is a Rhode Island based photographer exploring the intersection of art and technology. After studying photography with Bart Parker, a career in print production and prepress afforded early access to computer imaging systems. David is an active member of numerous local arts organizations including the Art League of RI, Newport Photo Guild and 19 on Paper. Studio practice specializes in photographing artwork for reproduction and book production. An active exhibition schedule includes Newport Art Museum, Mystic Museum of Art and Fitchburg Art Museum featuring work pushing the boundries of photography. Current work explores how we process visual information and record memories.
Steven Duede, Photographer
An artist, transitioning from painting and mixed media in the late 2000’s to working exclusively in photography Steven Duede brings a sense of painting to his use of the camera. The influence of painting in much of the photographic work cannot be understated. Originally from the midwestern USA Steven has been living and working in the Boston Massachusetts area since 2001. With a work history in museum operations, academic office administration as well as consulting and design for museums, galleries and arts non profits he carries his attachment to the creative process to all work. Currently Steven serves as a corporator to the board of directors with the Griffin Museum of Photography. In February 2016 he founded and works as principal of Aspect Initiative, an online gallery showcasing Fine Art Photography in New England. Visit: AspectInitiative.com. Having studied painting, printmaking and photography at the Kansas City Art Institute, then becoming an entrepreneur, for a time owning and operating a small music shop & gallery, Steven has devoted much of life to making art and working in creative environments. Work has been exhibited regularly in the Boston area and around the nation.
Selected Museums and Galleries include the Danforth Museum of Art, Griffin Museum of Photography, DeCordova Museum, Photo Center North West in Seattle WA. Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Sohn Fine Art, Site: Brooklyn, Kiernan Gallery. Public Art Projects with United Photo Industries (The FENCE) as well as King Co. PCNW (City Panorama) in Seattle. Works in private collections in Boston MA, Cambridge MA. Kansas City MO, St. Louis MO. Burlington VT, Namur Belgium EU. Permanent collections: Danforth Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Boston Properties.
Yorgos Efthymiadis, Photographer and Founder of The Curated Fridge
Yorgos Efthymiadis is a fine art and architectural photographer from Greece who resides in Somerville, MA. He has exhibited in various locations, including the Danforth Art Museum, where he was presented with the 2015 Emerging Artist Award, the Griffin Museum of Photography and the PRC in Boston. In addition, his work has been included in New York Photo Festival “PhotoWorld 2014” and The Fence at Photoville as part of the Flash Forward Festival 2014. Finally, his projects were featured in Photographer’s Forum, Lensculture, Lenscratch and PDN. Lately, he decided to create a gallery in his own kitchen, titled The Curated Fridge. The idea behind this project is to celebrate fine art photography and connect photographers around the world. There is a guest curator for every show which run on a bimonthly basis. Yorgos is represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston.
Mary Engel, Archivist founder APAG
Mary Engel is the founder and president of The American Photography Archives Group (APAG), a resource organization for individuals who own or manage a privately held photography archive. Collectively, the group has dealt with everything from archival supplies and copyright infringement to working with photo dealers. APAG began when Mary assumed responsibility for the archive of her mother, photographer and filmmaker Ruth Orkin. It was a difficult task, with much to learn about intellectual property rights, conservation and preservation, promotion, and the world of photography galleries and dealers. Mary has gained a wealth of knowledge and know-how, and when her father, photojournalist and filmmaker Morris Engel, passed away in 2005, she inherited his archive as well. Over the years, Mary reached out to others who were in a similar situation and became an informal consultant. As her network of fledgling archive managers grew, so did the demands on her time. She realized that everyone could benefit from each other’s experience, so she started organizing meetings. At first the group was small enough to meet over dinner in a restaurant. Soon, however, more people joined, and a larger, quieter meeting space was needed. Mary arranged for the group to meet at ICP, and the organization has become more structured, holding meetings three or four times a year.
Joshua Farr, Gallery Director, Vermont Center for Photography
Joshua Farr (b. 1988) grew up in Oxford, Maine. In the fall of 2008, he moved to Manchester, N.H. where he took up study towards his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the New Hampshire Institute of Art where he graduated from in the spring of 2011. Moving to Brattleboro in the fall of 2011, he currently works as the Gallery Director for VCP, works for Good Bear Productions doing web-design, is part time event staff at the Brattleboro Museum, and continues producing his own work during his free time.
Jim Fitts, Fine arts photography teacher, lecturer, curator, and photographer
Jim Fitts has been a curator, creative director, teacher, lecturer, and fine arts photography collector for over 30 years. Jim is currently a professor at Mount Ida College School of Design. Previously, Jim was a teacher at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University. He has also held the position of Executive Director of the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University. Recently, Jim launched photoweenie.com, a website that offers exhibition and photography book reviews as well as presenting new work by emerging and established photographers. Photoweenie.com has quickly become one of the most visited photography blogs. Over the last year the website has received in excess of 500,000 hits. Jim is one half of Fitts&Wolinsky, a partnership with master photographer Cary Wolinsky, providing photography portfolio reviews and business consulting.
Jim has curated photography exhibitions for the PRC/MIT Gallery and the Panopticon Gallery in Boston. He has served as a reviewer for the Photolucida portfolio reviews and the FotoFest portfolio reviews. He has also served as a portfolio reviewer for the New England Portfolio Reviews, Savannah College of Art and Design, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Jim Fitts has had an award-winning career in advertising, design and corporate identity. Jim held the position of Creative Director at Euro RSCG in Boston. Prior to that, Jim was Creative Director for Monster.com. Jim has held the position of Interim President of the Boston Ad Club – the largest communications trade association of its kind in the country. He has served as Vice President, Creative Director for iXL/Scient, one of the world’s largest e-business solutions providers. Jim was also a partner and Creative Director at Clarke Goward Fitts.
Bill Franson, Educator and Photographer
Bill Franson is a Boston area Fine Art/Documentary photographer and educator, currently teaching at the New England School of Photography and Gordon College. Bill studied photography at the Art Institute of Boston with a concentration in Documentary work and earned a BA in Philosophy at Calvin College. His principal focus as an artist and educator is the appropriate utilization of various formats and materials to successfully fulfill one’s conceptual vision. Bill is presently working on a photographic project exploring the region adjacent to the Mason-Dixon Line, an original line of separation, delineating property and ownership rights and values on the American continent, concepts that continue to enflame the American populace. Bill has extensive national exhibition experience with work in collections both public and private. He is currently represented by Rafius-Fane Gallery in Boston.
Bill Gaskins, Educator and Photographer
From a professional base in photography and arts writing, an academic foundation in fine art, the history of photography, American Studies and the perspective of a citizen of the United States, the work of Bill Gaskins explores questions about photography and the portrait in the 21st century. A critical entry point for the viewer is his fascination with the myths of photography and American culture and representations of African American people. His approach to photography as both producer and critical spectator has garnered attention through commissions, artist residencies, grants, public lectures, solo and group exhibitions, exhibition catalogs and books. As a professor of art, Bill Gaskins has taught at The Ohio State University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Missouri, the College of Art, Media & Technology and the College of Art and Design Theory and History at Parsons School of Design, and the graduate program in Media Studies in The New School for Public Engagement. Presently he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art with a faculty appointment in the American Studies Program at Cornell University.
Karen Haas, Lane Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts
Karen Haas has been the Lane Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since 2001, where she is responsible for a large collection of photographs by American modernists, Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Imogen Cunningham. The Lane Collection, numbers more than 6,000 prints. Haas received her MA from Boston University and held various curatorial positions in museums and private collections, including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the BU Art Gallery, and the Addison Gallery of American Art. Her recent exhibitions include, Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott, Edward Weston: Leaves of Grass, and Bruce Davidson: East 100th Street. Publications include, An Enduring Vision: Photographs from the Lane Collection, Common Wealth: Art by African Americans in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ansel Adams, and The Photography of Charles Sheeler: American Modernist.
Barbara Hitchcock, Curator
Barbara Hitchcock, former Cultural Affairs director, joined Polaroid Corporation in the 1970s in a research and development capacity. In 1978 Hitchcock joined Polaroid’s international division publicity department, where she coordinated all the photographic requirements of the subsidiary publicity departments. Appearing as a Polaroid spokesperson on national and international television and radio broadcasts, she promoted new Polaroid films and hardware. Since 1982, Hitchcock was made responsible for the strategic marketing communications and program planning, development and execution of Polaroid’s cultural activities. She acquired fine art photographs for Polaroid, managed its multi-million dollar art collections and its traveling exhibitions. She has been the curator of several exhibitions, including The Big Picture; Olivia Parker: Objects and Implications; Sightseeing: A Space Panorama, a collaboration with NASA; In Grand Perspective; Polaroid 50: Art and Technology; It’s a Dog’s Life: Photography by William Wegman; Fins, Wings and Other Such Things: Photographs from the Polaroid Collections; Ansel Adams & Edwin Land: Art, Science & Invention – Photographs from the Polaroid Collections; and Sanctuary: Anna Tomczak Photography. During the late 1980s and 1990s, she oversaw Polaroid’s 20×24-studio program, expanding both its artist support and commercial growth.
Frances Jakubek, Curator and Photographer
Frances Jakubek is the Exhibition Manager at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City. She is the past Associate Director and Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts and works independently with artists to edit and market their photography. For her personal work, recent exhibitions include The Southern Contemporary Art Gallery in Charleston, SC; Camera Commons in Dover, NH; The Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, MA; Plates to Pixels Online Gallery; and the Dorchester Art Project, MA. She has been a guest writer for Don’t Take Pictures, Diffusion Magazine and for artist publications. Jakubek was a recent panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for The Photo Brigade and juror for exhibitions throughout the US.
Lou Jones, Photographer
Lou Jones’s eclectic career has evolved from commercial to the personal. It has spanned every format, film type, artistic movement and technological change. Lou maintains a studio in East Boston, Massachusetts and has photographed for Fortune 500 corporations, including Federal Express, Nike and the Barr Foundation; completed assignments for magazines and publishers all over the world such as Time/Life, National Geographic and Paris Match; initiated long term projects on the civil wars in Central America, death row, Olympic Games, Africa, pregnancy, The Downtown Crossing project; and published multiple books including Final Exposure: Portraits from Death Row, Travel & Photography: Off the Charts and the recently released second edition of Speedlights & Speedlites: Creative Flash Photography at Lightspeed. His most recent project is his panAFRICAproject. Jones has served on the boards of directors of numerous photographic associations, societies and museums, such as the American Society of Media Photographers, Photographic Resource Center and the Griffin Museum of Photography. Nikon has honored him as a “Legend Behind the Lens” and Lowepro named him one of their “Champions”. Jones’s work is included in collections at the Smithsonian Institution, DeCordova Museum, Fogg Museum, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Wellesley College and the University of Texas. Jones’s work has remained relevant, progressive and current throughout. He has mentored dozens of aspiring artists and documentary photographers. He has been an advocate for artist’s business, legal and historical rights, and visual literacy in all corners of our daily lives.
Arlette Kayafas, Founder and Director, Gallery Kayafas
Arlette Kayafas is the founder and director of Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End. Gallery Kayafas was established in 1992 and has been fundamental in Boston’s photographic scene with a growing list of represented contemporary artists. Arlette came to the gallery business as a collector as she and her husband, Gus Kayafas, have been collecting photography for 45 years. Kayafas is an overseer at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum as well as at the Danforth Museum of Art.
Kat Kiernan, Curator, Publisher and Photographer
Kat Kiernan is the Editor-in-Chief of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures, as well as the Director of Panopticon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications, most recently in the book The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life (Intellect Books, 2017). Kat received the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Rising Star Award in 2015 for her contributions to the photographic community. Her photographs have been exhibited across the United States, and Photoboite Agency named her one of 2012’s 30 women photographers under the age of 30 to watch. Kat divides her time between Brooklyn, New York and Boston. She holds a BFA in photography from Lesley University College of Art and Design. Her stock photography is represented by Glasshouse Images.
Rania Matar, Photographer
Rania Matar was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University, she studied photography at the New England School of Photography and the Maine Photographic Workshops. Matar started teaching photography in 2009 and offered summer photography workshops to teenage girls in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps with the assistance of non-governmental organizations. She now teaches Personal Documentary Photography, and Portrait and Identity at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and regularly offers talks, class visits and lectures at museums, galleries, schools and colleges in the US and abroad. In the winter/spring of 2017, she was an artist-in-residence at the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, through a Mellon Foundation Grant.
Matar’s work focuses on girls and women. As a Lebanese-born American woman and mother, her cultural background, cross-cultural experience, and personal narrative informs her photography. She has dedicated her work to exploring both sides of this identity: addressing issues of personal and collective identity, through photographs mining female adolescence and womanhood – both in the United States where she lives and the Middle East where she is from. Her work has won several awards, has been featured in numerous publications, and exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally. Her images are in the permanent collections of several museums worldwide. Matar has published three books: L’Enfant-Femme, 2016, with an introduction by Her Majesty Queen Noor, and essays by Lois Lowry and Kristen Gresh. Selected best photo book of 2016 by PDN Magazine and Foto Infinitum, and Staff Pick by the Christian Science Monitor. A Girl and Her Room, 2012, essays by Anne Tucker and Susan Minot. Selected best photo book of 2012 by PDN, Photo-Eye, British Journal of Photography, Feature Shoot and L’Oeil de la Photographie. Ordinary Lives, 2009, essay by Anthony Shadid. Selected a best photo book of 2009 by Photo-Eye
Gregory S. Marinovich, Lecturer on Journalism in the College of Communication, Boston University
Greg Marinovich is co-author of The Bang-Bang Club, a nonfiction book on South Africa’s transition to democracy that has been translated into six languages. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and documentary filmmaker. He spent 25 years covering conflict around the globe, with his writing and photographs appearing in magazines and newspapers worldwide. His 2012 award winning investigations into the Marikana massacre of miners by police was called the most important South African journalism post Apartheid, and a book “Murder at Small Koppie” was published early in 2016. Marinovich was Editor-In-Chief of the Twenty Ten project, tutoring and managing over 100 African journalists’ work in all forms of media. He gives lectures and workshops on human rights, justice photography and storytelling. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2013/14 and is a Visiting Associate Professor at Boston University’s Journalism school, and teaches photojournalism at Harvard.
Bruce Myren, Photographic Resource Center Board Member, Educator and Photographer
Bruce Myren is an artist and photographer based in Cambridge, MA. He holds a BFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and earned his MFA in studio art from the University of Connecticut, Storrs in 2009.Shown nationally and published internationally, Myren’s work has been featured in Fraction Magazine, afterimage, and View Camera Magazine as well as group exhibitions at the Phoenix Art Museum, RISD Museum’s Chace Center, Houston Center of Photography, and the William Benton Museum of Art, among others. His numerous solo exhibitions include showings at the University of the Arts, Danforth Museum of Art, and Gallery Kayafas in Boston, where he is represented. In 2012, he launched a successful Kickstarter fundraiser to complete his project “The Fortieth Parallel” and it has since been highlighted in the Huffington Post, Petapixel, Slate, Slate France, and the Discovery Channel online. Myren has presented on panels at the national conferences of the College Art Association and the Society for Photographic Education, spoken at colleges across the country as a visiting artist, and served as a juror for exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography and Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward Festival. He is a recipient of a 2014 Cambridge Arts Council Grant.
Currently, Myren works at the Boston Public Library’s Digital Lab and Palm Press and teaches at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Northeastern University. Recently, he was a Visiting Lecturer at Amherst College and a Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the Chair of the Northeast Region of the Society for Photographic Education and on the board of directors of the Photographic Resource Center. In his work, Myren investigates issues of place and space, often via the exploration and employment of locative systems, either literal or metaphoric. Myren’s recent series include an investigation of the Fortieth Parallel of latitude; a new project on the legendary Washington Elm and its scions; a piece that documents the view from every place he has lived to where he lives now; and a study of the poet Robert Francis’s one-person house in the woods of Amherst, MA.
Susan Nalband, Director, 555 Gallery
Susan Nalband’s is the founder and director of 555 Gallery in Boston. Her personal admiration for the work of the many talented photographers she has come to know, led her to the creation of the gallery dedicated to fine art photography. Nalband has over thirty years of experience as a photographer, an entrepreneur, and art consultant. 555 Gallery produces 10 – 12 exhibits and events per year, including one to three person shows, group shows, and portfolio walks and manages a presence on Artsy.net. 555 Gallery specializes in bringing the work of a growing number of emerging and established fine art photographers to collectors and buyers in Boston and internationally. Deep research, thorough portfolio reviews, reviews of photography by appointment at the gallery, studio visits and membership in professional photography circles gives Nalband the opportunity to curate work for the gallery. Her interests are broad and include all genres of photography and an expanding interest in video art.
Recently Nalband has reviewed portfolios at New England Portfolio Reviews, Photolucida, RISD graduates and MFA candidates, and Critical Mass, and curated the Take 5 exhibition. She will soon review at Filter Photo Fest in Chicago and New England Portfolio Reviews, and jury the Danforth Museum Biennale. Nalband is a member of the Board of Directors of Medicine Wheel Productions, and formerly the Board of Directors of the South Boston Association of Non-profits. She participates in a monthly photography print group, a film review group as well as a member of Friends of Photography at the MFA in Boston. Twice a year 555 Gallery participates in South Boston Open Studios.
Toni Pepe, Lecturer in Art, Photography, Boston University
Toni Pepe is a Boston-based artist currently teaching photography at Boston University. Her photographs and installation work address the construction of identity and the performativity of narrative, gender, and memory. Toni is most interested in utilizing photography as a forum for interdisciplinary exploration — she often employs literature, neuroscience, and cinema as source materials for her work. She has exhibited her images throughout the United States and abroad. Toni’s work has been displayed in solo exhibitions at the University of Notre Dame and the Center for Photography Woodstock. In addition, Toni was named a 2011 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Program finalist and is currently in the Danforth Museum’s collection as well as many private collections.
Sean Perry, Photographer and Educator
Sean Perry is a fine-art photographer based in Austin, Texas and New York City. His photographs and books center on architecture, space and light – the ambiance felt within built and temporary environments. Perry currently serves as Associate Professor of Photography at Austin Community College where he founded a mentoring program and lecture series titled, The Picture Review.
Neal Rantoul, Photographer and Educator
Neal Rantoul is a career artist and educator. Retired in 2012 from 30 years as head of the Photo Program at Northeastern University in Boston he is devoting his efforts full time to making new pictures and bringing earlier work to a national and international audience. With over 60 one-person exhibitions over the length of his career, Rantoul’s most recent shows were in 2014 at 555 Gallery in Boston. In 2013 he had a large show of the Wheat Field Aerials at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA and showed aerial photographs of Martha’s Vineyard at Panopticon Gallery in Boston.
Rantoul’s work is extensively collected and is included in numerous prestigious collections such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Biblioteque’ Nationale in Paris, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, The Princeton University Museum, The RI School of Design Museum of Art, The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, The Boston Atheneum, etc. His work is also in the corporate collections of the JP Morgan Guaranty Trust, Fidelity Investments, as well as numerous private collections. He is the recipient of many awards, grants and residencies including a Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation grant, Lightwork and Hambidge Center for the Arts residencies, Visiting Artist at ICP’s Lake Como Workshop in Italy, among others. Mr. Rantoul is the author of several books of his photographs, among those are: “American Series” published in 2006, “Cabela’s” published in 2009, “A Year” published in 2010, “Wheat” published in 2011, “Collections” published in 2011 and his most recent “Rock Sand Water”, published in 2012. Mr. Rantoul is continuing with an active teaching, residency and lecture schedule which includes a workshop for the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, classes on the Creative Process, Word/Image and a master class in architectural photography for the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. In 2013 he had residencies at the Baer Art Center in Hofsos, Iceland and the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. Mr. Rantoul is on the Board of Corporators of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA and serves on the Exhibition Committee.
Suzanne Revy, Arts Writer, Photographer and Educator
Suzanne Révy earned a BFA in photography from the Pratt Institute where she was immersed in making and printing black and white photographs. She studied with Phil Perkis, Bill Gedney, Ann Mandlebaum, Christine Osinski, and Judy Linn among others. Following art school she worked as a photography editor for U.S.News & World Report magazine in Washington, DC and later as acting picture editor for Yankee magazine in Dublin, NH. With the arrival of two sons, she left the world of publishing and began to make pictures of her children, their cousins, and friends rekindling her interest in making and printing black and white pictures in a traditional wet darkroom. The resulting monochrome series, Time Let Me Play is an exploration of the nature and culture of childhood and childhood play. A second series, made using a plastic lo-fi camera with color film, To Venerate the Simple Days, is an emotional response to time spent during the summers with her pre-teen aged children during that brief moment between childhood and adulthood when they still enjoyed her company. She continues to work with color film in her most recent ongoing series, which was begun during a course of study for her MFA in photography from the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Tentatively titled, I Could Not Prove the Years Had Feet, it attempts to picture her family’s interior spaces, messes, and technology as her sons grow into their adulthoods.
As she pursued her MFA, she was mentored by photographers a Cheryle St. Onge, a former professor Christine Osinski, Edie Bresler, Stephen Dirado, Jonathan Gitelson, gallerist Jason Landry and independent curator Francine Weiss. Anticipating the empty nest, she has also turned her camera to the the densely-wooded landscape around her home in New England, exploring the nature of trees as a metaphor for human gesture and expression.
Jessica Roscio, Curator, Danforth Art
Since joining Danforth Art in 2011, Jessica Roscio has curated multiple exhibitions of contemporary photography, most recently, The Memory Palace: Domesticity, Objects, and the Interior and Beautiful Decay. Prior to joining Danforth Art, she held positions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has taught courses at Emerson College and Suffolk University, and is a regular contributor to Aspect Initiative, an online gallery focusing on contemporary photography in New England. Roscio has an MA in Art History from the University at Buffalo and a PhD in American Studies, with a focus on the History of Photography, from BostonUniversity.
André Ruesch, Photographer and Educator
André Ruesch was born in 1961 in Zürich, Switzerland and grew up in an alpine region known as the Saanenland. His mother’s gallery, which showcased photographers and painters, inspired him in his youth. Photographer Ellen Auerbach was also influential as a family friend. While working for a volunteer organization in Asia in the early eighties he started to pursue photography. Upon his return to Europe, he was accepted to Napier College in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he obtained a BA in Photography in 1988. After moving to Albuquerque, USA, for graduate studies in photography at the University of New Mexico, he obtained his MA in 1992 and his MFA in 1996. While there, his main mentors were Patrick Nagatani, Betty Hahn and Eugenia Parry. He is a Professor at the Lesley University College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and the College of Art & Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dana Salvo, Photographer, Owner and Director, Clark Gallery
Dana Salvo has been the recipient of two awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and has twice received the Fulbright Scholar Award. A nationally recognized photographer, his work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States. He has also received grants from the Lila Wallace Fund; the Asian Cultural Council; the Massachusetts Cultural Council; the Berkshire Taconic Foundation’s Artist Resource Trust; the LEF Foundation; and several other awards which assist artists in mid-career. His work is represented in numerous collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Art Museum, San Francisco MOMA, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Addison Gallery of American Art. Salvo is the author of Home Altars of Mexico. Published simultaneously by University of New Mexico Press in the United States as well as Thames and Hudson in Great Britain, the book is a result of his family’s experience examining how people evoke sacredness in their everyday environments in the creation of devotional altars and household arrangements which sanctify and personalize the places in which they live.
Glen Scheffer, Photographer and Educator
Glen Scheffer enjoys using photography to create images that play between realistic representation and the imagined. Scheffer uses large and medium format cameras to construct his interpretations and cultivate his vision. Scheffer’s work is finished through the darkroom, as large archival pigment prints, as well as handmade books. Scheffer has exhibited his work regularly in the Boston area and nationally. He received his BFA in photography from NHIA in 2002 and completed his MFA in 2016.
Beuford Smith, Photographer and Educator
Beuford Smith was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. A self-taught photographer, he began freelancing in the late 1970s. His clients include Black Star, AT&T, Emory University, Merrill Lynch, Avon, and GE. Smith is the founder of Cesaire Photo Agency and a founder and chief photo editor of the Black Photographers Annual (1973-1981). He has taught photography at Cooper Union, Hunter College, and the Brooklyn Museum. Smith served as staff photographer for Emmanuel Baptist Church from 1995-2007. Smith is a former President (1997-2003) and member (1965-2005) and now president emeritus of Kamoinge, Inc. Smith spearheaded the group’s effort to achieve 501(c)3 status and facilitated collecting photos for Kamoinge’s book, The Sweet Breath of Life edited by Frank Stewart. Smith served on the curatorial committee for the Committed to the Image exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 2001. He served on NYFA’s photography panel in 2002. He is also a former Advisory Board member of En Foco, Inc. (2005-2012). Smith received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 1990 and 2000, a LightWork Artist-in Residence Fellowship in 1999 and an Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship in 1998 among other awards.
Sybylla Smith, Curator and Educator
J. Sybylla Smith is a curator of fine art photography, an educator and consultant on concept development and the creative process. Her 25 years of experience in the photographic arts include styling, art and creative direction for over 75 fashion editorials and advertising campaigns. She initiated 17 solo and group exhibitions featuring the work of over 70 international photographers for the Griffin/DSI gallery. Smith holds a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University, a degree in fashion design from the Fashion Institute of Technology and studied at the Universite de Fribourg in Switzerland and F.I.T. Paris. Smith has been an adjunct professor at Emmanuel College and Hofstra University, and a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Wellesley College, The Griffin Museum of Photography, the Photographic Resource Center and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts on visual culture, fashion history and fashion photography. She is a thesis advisor at the School of Visual Arts and an avid portfolio reviewer.
Elin Spring, Photographer and Creator of “What Will You Remember?” Blog
Elin Spring is a Swampscott-based professional photographer, specializing in fine art and commercial portraiture for over fifteen years. She has studied with portrait photographers Joyce Tenneson, Andrea Modica, Kevin Lynch and Michael Grecco and was trained by master printer George Tice. Elin’s work is noted for combining an emotionally direct style with strong composition and fine printmaking. In addition to her portrait work, Elin conducts portfolio reviews, judges photography competitions and travels to photography shows at museums and galleries in the Boston region and throughout the country, writing popular analysis and review pieces. She was recognized with the Scribe Award at the 2014 Griffin Museum of Photography FOCUS Awards ceremony for her blog, “What Will You Remember?”, which features photography exhibit reviews, “Meet The Artist” and “Curator’s Viewpoint” interviews, and “Who Said It?” photography quote quizzes (www.Elin SpringPhotography.com/blog).
Elin is a member of the Photographic Resource Center (Boston), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA) LightWorks (Syracuse, NY), Aperture Foundation (N.Y.C.) and Marblehead Arts Association (MA). In addition to serving as an appointee to the Swampscott Cultural Council for six years, she is an active supporter of the Marblehead Festival of Arts. Elin earned her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from University of Pennsylvania.
Cheryle St. Onge, Photographer and Educator
Ms. St. Onge was born in Worcester MA, She grew up on college campuses as the the only child of a Physics professor and a painter. She received an M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA. St. Onge’s work focus on the the cross over of art and science and photography’s abilty to distill our sense of time and curiosity. She makes pictures predominantly with an 8 x 10 view camera and considers her work a collaborative process. Her photographs have been widely exhibited, most notably at Princeton University, University of Rhode Island, Massachusetts College of Art, Rick Wester Fine Arts and an American Institute of Architects traveling exhibitions. She has received numerous awards and residences among them a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Critical Mass Finalist Exhibition Award, Polaroid Materials Artist Support Grant and MIT graduate Fellowship. Her photographs are in several private and public collections; the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Cassilhaus Collection and the Guggenheim Foundation. She been on the faculty at Clark University, Maine College of Art and The University of New Hampshire. Ms. St. Onge created and taught the University of New Hampshires’s Art and Art History Dept’s first online curriculum beginning in 2011. She divides her time between Durham, New Hampshire and coastal Maine.
Judith Thompson, Director of the Harold Feinstein Photography Trust
Judith Thompson is the Director of the Harold Feinstein Photography Trust. In that role she works to preserve and promote the legacy of her late husband, Harold Feinstein who was awarded the Living Legend Award by the Griffin Museum in 2011. Like others who have inherited the estate of a well-known artist, she has been on a steep learning curve and credits APAG and Mary Engel for providing crucial support and guidance. For nearly three decades prior to her current responsibilities she worked in the field of reconciliation and social healing running organizations and speaking worldwide. She has a Ph.D. in peace studies and was a former Peace Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard.
Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography
Paula Tognarelli is responsible for producing over 60 exhibitions a year at the Griffin and its surrounding satellite spaces. She holds an M.S. in Arts Administration from Boston University, BA from Regis College, is a graduate of the New England School of Photography and is a current candidate for her Masters in Education at Lesley University. She has juried and curated exhibitions internationally including American Photo’s Image of the Year, Photoville’s Fence, Flash Forward Festival, Deland Arts Festival, Center for Fine Art Photography, PDN’s Photo Annual, PDN’s Curator Awards, the Kontinent Awards, the Filter Festival in Chicago, San Francisco International Photography Exhibition , Your Daily Photograph for Duncan Miller Gallery, Peter Miller Fine Art Gallery, Yankee Magazine, Vermont Center for Photography and the Lishui International Photography Festival in Lishui, China. She is a regular participant in national and local portfolio reviews, has been a panelist and featured speaker at photography events and conferences including MacWorld. She has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography Fellowships and is a nominator for the Prix Pictet in Geneva, Switzerland, a nominator for the Heinz Prize in Pennsylvania, the Robert Gardner Fellowship at Harvard University, St. Botolph Club Foundation, MOPA Triennial, and the Rappaport Prize in Massachusetts. She is a past member of the Xerox Technical Advisory Board and Flash Forward Festival Boston. She is on the advisory board of the New England School of Photography.
Richard Wein, Art Collector
Richard Wein is an art collector. He describes himself and his work as follows: Father, husband, psychoanalyst and collector are but a few descriptors that define me. Museums were my salvation in my early teen years. I had a cultured and very loving aunt who regularly took me to Madison Avenue. It was the main gallery area in those years. I especially loved the work of Picasso. We often went to the gallery that handled his oils and to the gallery that handled his graphics. After visiting the graphics gallery three times in a row, I purchased my first piece of art, an etching of Jean Cocteau by Picasso. I used $75 of bar mitzvah gift money. I still find it compelling and actually love it more than ever. For the last thirty years I have been collecting photography. For me each purchase is like taking on a lover. I am not only compelled by the aesthetic pleasure but the wonderful feeling of understanding and forming a connection with the image. For me to purchase a photo, I need a visceral reaction. It must speak to me. I am a long-term kind of guy. I love meeting artists and watching them develop over time. Another criteria for me to purchase a photo is that there is a potential for an on-going relationship with the image.
Brian Wilson Assistant Professor of Photography and Photography Program Coordinator, Mt. Ida College
Brian Wilson has extensive, exciting real-world experience in photography. Throughout this career, he’s had the opportunity to work on movie sets, photograph Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and to document the first simultaneous heart and lung transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital. He’s also worked in all aspects of the photography profession, with experience as a freelance photographer, institutional photographer, photo editor, photographer’s assistant, digital tech, and printer.