The museum will be closed May 29th – 31st to install our upcoming exhibitions, featuring the work of  Rolls & Tubes Collective, Fern Nesson and Photosynthesis opening to the public Thursday June 1st!  Join us in celebrating these artists at our Reception Friday June 2nd from 6 to 8pm

Griffin Museum of Photography

The Griffin Museum@WinCAM

THE POWER OF THREE | Arno Rafael Minkkinen Master Class Exhibition

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THE POWER OF THREE


Make it different. Keep it the same. It just takes three pictures to start and confirm a pathway.  There are
no winners: no bronze, silver, or gold medals. They’re all equal and yet all different. With a pathway the
next pictures are always a surprise. Sameness provides consistency; difference the accumulation that
creates chronology. The power of three can also operate with projects over time. It’s the way the
audiences we never meet get to know our work, reaching them with something new in every picture and
every new project while still being the same photographer. It’s the way we see the world that becomes
the unifier, the pathway marker. In this exhibition, seven pathways are presented with seven texts by me.
– Arno Rafael Minkkinen

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We look forward to seeing you on Thursday May 25th for a celebration with the artists at Griffin @ WinCam

The Griffin @ WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

Learn more about the artists included in the Power of Three

Leah Abrahams –

 

LEAH ABRAHAMS – THE MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
Like a long-lost missing piece of a puzzle that suddenly pops up from under a carpet, the photographs of Leah Abrahams defy classification. Subject matter entails everything from everywhere all at once, as this year’s Oscar winner would have it. Or they could be like treasures—an isolated spoon, a teacup with the wrong sauce—from a hide-away thrift shop in Leesburg, Florida, a town filled with eclectic images around every corner, just about any random town where  everything is brand new will do. Pathway? You bet. If consistency is the goal, eclecticism meets it head on because every picture will always be different and never the same. The consistency of difference becomes the Power of Three to create the pathway. If you’re always late, you’re on time kind of thing. Predictability is the formula. Repetition without repetition. Same but different. Only for that to be of interest, every image needs to grab us with its own power, be it beauty, ugliness, point of view, or whatever attribute it strikes us with. It takes a certain amount of daring and risk taking to create such islands and stand by them, trust them as Leah Abrahams does with confidence and grace.

For eclecticism to take place, discovery, and invention both play a part. The Pacific Ocean was always there; it just needed to be discovered. Invention reassembles what is known and uses it to create the new. The eclectic work of
Abrahams sits on the fulcrum of that constantly oscillating invention-discovery see-saw (see=invent; saw= discover). It assumes the past, the present, and the future are but part of life’s drive-through. And then there is that puzzle piece, so impossible to know what extends from it. Where it fits in? Where do I fit in? So, what better way to organize a response to the existential nature of one’s
universe than creating a body of work that celebrates it all?
© Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 2023

 

… [Read More]

Stephanie Shih | Open Flowers Bear Fruit

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The Eurocentric tradition of still life has a long history of appropriating elements from cultures that it considered “exotic” while maintaining  authoritative artistic dominance on the practice. In response, Open Flowers Bear Fruit (Asian American Still Life) is an on-going project that claims space in this venerated tradition for Asian American cultural experiences, directly from an Asian American perspective. The project creates an overdue dialogue between the symbology of Eurocentric still life with that of Asian diaspora traditions.

On a personal level, the series features home comfort foods from my upbringing as a Taiwanese-Chinese American—foods that are derided as “strange” in the U.S. but hold quotidian significance in Chinese culture. At the same time, the series questions the ideals of the nostalgic “All-American” experience as a daughter of immigrants, asking to what extent immigrant experiences can dovetail with notions of Americanness. On a community level, I partner with Asian American small business owners throughout the series, foregrounding their food practices that make up the now multicultural culinary landscape that pervades California. These partnerships have allowed me to present perspectives and lived experiences from the numerous cultures that feed the otherwise monolithic label of “Asian American.”

About Stephanie Shih –

Stephanie Shih is a visual still life artist, known for her painterly use of shadow applied to playful perspectives on food. Shih started making photographs with her dad’s half-frame camera on childhood road trips, but only took up photography seriously later in life while in graduate school. At the time, she moonlighted as a caterer, and translating the experience of food to the visual image has been a driving through line of her work ever since.

As a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American, Shih explores themes of cultural dynamics—belonging,alienation, appropriation, celebration—through her still life photographs. Shih’s photography has been featured in print outlets including Elle Girl Korea, 7×7, and Gastronomica, and online on Gourmet Live,, Saveur, Fine Cooking, and Buzzfeed.

Shih is from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Los Angeles. When not in the studio or kitchen creating, she is a professor at University of Southern California.

The Griffin @ WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

Lisa Ryan | Becoming Light

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I like to explore the world at night. Night lighting with its mix of sources and colors, makes the commonplace magical. There is often a peace and serenity in the dark: An opportunity to see and experience things differently.
I add lighting to my images. Sometimes I add flourishes of light or draw in elements. Sometimes the subjects are so dark that I need to light them, for the camera to capture them. Sometimes the light itself becomes the subject.
These images are from a project titled “Becoming Light”. They show transformation from stillness to motion, from dark to light, from body to energy.
Light painting has a performance element to it; in that respect it is like dance. Gesture and awareness of body in space are important. My movements and my lighting bring different elements to life, painting the picture.

About the Artist –

Lisa Ryan is a night photographer and light painter.  The influence of her fine arts education can be seen in her use of light to draw and paint. Working with various light tools she incorporates gestures and movement. In addition to lighting landscapes at night, she creates scenes, including clothing the figure and creating night gardens from light.

Ryan’s photographs have been exhibited in shows presented by the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA, the Center for Photographic Art, Carmel CA and in many juried exhibits throughout the US.  She has curated group exhibits of night photography at the Front Street Gallery, Scituate MA and at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA.

Her images have been featured in print and digital publications including NASA’s APOD, “RechargeTheArts”, a juried group exhibition on Instagram, Fraction Magazine, and The Literate Image.

Ryan has been co-organizer of the Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup since 2014.

Bonnie Newman | First Light

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First Light

 I have always found solace and a spiritual connection in nature.

Twelve years ago, as I was entering retirement, I had the good fortune to buy a small cottage on Cape Cod with large windows overlooking a simple pond.   About that same time, I discovered photography, and have probably recorded several thousand photos just of this pond alone. 

I usually rise with the light and greet the pond.  The morning sky and the view continually change, and I take photos from my window, my dock, or my kayak.

As I began to “live more in this landscape”, I looked deeper in order to share the connection I felt.  I began to reimagine the landscape–moving from taking one photo to blending multiple exposures, and seeing the landscape as transparent, fragile— and magical.   

These photos are a celebration of my pond in the morning light.

Bonnie Newman is a photographer, outdoor enthusiast and avid traveler. With her camera, she experiences and captures the splendor of nature, compelling moments, and new environments. 

Newman finds inspiration in nature, whether an expansive landscape or a detail that catches her eye. She sees abstraction everywhere and is attracted to shapes, transparency, distortion and fragmentation. Her recent landscape work utilizes the techniques of transparency and reflection, double exposure, and intentional camera movement to reveal her singular vision of a scene. The resulting images vacillate between serene and edgy, offering a flight from reality combined with a hint of mystery.

Newman’s photographs have been exhibited in a solo show at the Cary Public Library in Lexington MA.  She has also exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography and juried in to group exhibitions at the Cambridge Art Association, Arlington Center for the Arts, Plymouth Center for the Arts, and Gallery Twist in Lexington.  

She photographs for the Brewster Conservation Trust and the Town of Lexington Conservation Department, and her photos are on display at Brewster (MA) Town Hall, and the Lexington (MA) Visitor’s Center and in private collections.

Newman has taken photography courses with Emily Belz at the Arlington Center for the Arts, Griffin Museum of Photography, and the DeCordova Museum. (2015-2020).  She participated in the Atelier 33 at the Griffin, has taken online workshops with Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery, and  workshops on Cape Cod with Steven Koppel and Julia Cumes .

Newman lives in Lexington and Brewster MA.

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

Lyn Swett Miller | Compost in Community

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When I dump compost into the bin behind our garage, avocado peels, orange rinds and eggshells mix and mingle, creating textured and colorful tapestries. How can food waste be so beautiful? I am in awe of the kaleidoscope of nitrogen and carbon rich materials that nourish the soil and the soul.
While a single bucket of compost can feel inconsequential, when I keep showing up, this weekly ‘chore’ impacts not just the waste stream and my inner climate activist, but also my sense of personal equilibrium in uncertain times. The images are square, like the bin itself. There are no hierarchies. Each one reveals a necessary reciprocity and balance between the diverse materials as well as between
me and the natural world.
Over the course of twelve years, I’ve processed three tons of my family’s food waste, one bucket-full at a time as well as ten tons from a local cafe. In the process, compost became my muse and metaphor, inspiring me to explore the detritus of our lives. Objects, like a vintage Shakespeare and my mother-in-law’s thesaurus found new meaning when mixed with food scraps, inspiring questions about not just food waste and consumption, but also about privilege and the power of narrative.
I live in Hanover, NH where I have spent the past fifteen years trying to figure out what it takes for a suburban family of four to live sustainably. In response to profound climate grief, practical actions like composting gave me a sense of purpose. I am a founding member of the Sustainable Hanover Committee and have found a voice for my activism through photography.
As the climate reaches a tipping point, composting enriches the soil and these images educate, inspire and provide meditations on the power of regeneration, transformation and renewal.

About Lyn Swett Miller

I am an emerging climate photographer happiest mucking around with the detritus of life. While investigating compost, landfills and other aspects of our material world, I create visual meditations on the power of regeneration, transformation and renewal.

For the past two decades, I have been exploring what it takes for a suburban family of four to live sustainably. While my early work focused on documenting the beauty and power of all those actions on climate ‘to do’ lists, I now explore the dynamic relationship between myself and the material world. “Subjects” are no longer “taken,” but are instead collaborators with whom I learn to cultivate kinship

Compost is my muse and metaphor and is where I go to make sense of the world. Photography enables me to share the beauty I see in our waste and the possibilities for joy embodied in the apparent mess. My work offers deeply personal narratives that inspire conversation about consumption and our relationships to people, place and possessions.

My hope is that this work inspires you to reframe how you think about the climate crisis. Perhaps the images of compost on this site will make you smile and see that there is joy in re-imagining our relationships to just about everything.

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

First Generation: Raíces | Iaritza Menjivar

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“First Generation” is a long term series that documents the daily life of three generations of my immigrant family— my parents who arrived from Guatemala and El Salvador, and the generations that followed, born in the U.S. As “First Gens,” we have access to privileges that come with being born in the United States.  At the same time, we also navigate the particular pressures on our immigrant families, whose lives are marginalized by a society that limits access based on names, status and skin color.  The steps on our journey to move up in the world are colored by a goal to honor our family’s hard work and show them their sacrifices were worthy ones. 

The exhibition, First Generation: Raíces (Roots), is a branch from the First Generation series. In this body of work, photographs were taken at my mother’s childhood home in Mazatenango, Guatemala.  My mother left her home at age sixteen and has only returned once ever since. This is my grandmother’s home. My grandfather passed at fifty and my mother and aunt took on the role of caretakers for the family.  Their hard work in the United States has helped fix the infrastructure of this place, to name a few: adding electricity and lights, a floor, ceilings, working water and toilet, and an extra family room. My mother and aunt have fed my grandmother, aunts and cousins for more than 30 years. My mother jokes that their family’s back home will never know how much they break their backs to support them, but all joking aside, they do not wish to return to their casita in Mazate. 

In this cultural conversation, I show complexities that we experience with our own identities as members of an immigrant family: engagement, gratitude, devotion and self-determination.

About Iaritza –

Iaritza Menjivar is a documentary photographer whose long term projects aim to empower and represent her immigrant family and community. In 2016 through 2019, she was awarded the presidential scholarship for the “Advanced Mentorship Program in Documentary Projects” at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado . First Generation can be viewed in the New York Times publication, Honoring a Debt to Immigrant Parents and in the recently premiered documentary film, We Are Here Too. Iaritza is an active freelance photographer; her clients include the Washington Post, Maine Media Workshops + College, and LISC among others. 

In her role as Events Coordinator at the Somerville Arts Council in Somerville, MA, Iaritza has shaped the focus of the Council’s work to create grant opportunities and event production support for local BIPOC artists. She coordinates festivals, assists with open calls, curation, and public art installations, and builds relationships with organizations and businesses in the local area. Iaritza is a member of the Arts and Cultural Plan Task Force focusing on creating a sustainable plan for equity and inclusion, space risk assessments and accessibility within the arts in the city. 

Before joining the Arts Council, Iaritza served as the Associate Director at the Griffin Museum of Photography from mid 2017 through 2020. Iaritza has also served as a panel judge for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography Fellowships, a guest curator for The Fence competition, and participated as a panelist on “Photographing Family: the Personal Becomes Political” at the AIPAD Talk series, “The Photography Show” in New York. 

Marcy Juran | Imagined Gardens

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Imagined Gardens

I spent a lot of time daydreaming in my childhood.

Lying on my back, I was enveloped by the grasses and wildflowers of the meadow behind my home. Time moved at a slower pace, stretching out in long afternoons for contemplating the natural treasures which surrounded me. I acquired a vocabulary of flowers, from simple daisies and violets to the complexities of jewel weed and Queen Anne’s lace. At that point in my life, I was unaware of the generations of writers, artists and photographers inspired by these fields. Only much later did I learn of the work of Thoreau, Singer Sargent, J Alden Weir, Mary Oliver, and Eliot Porter who had found poetry in similar landscapes.

Today, I can get lost in the intricacy of dandelion heads gone to seed, or light streaming through the petals of buttercups. My work explores the wild flora of my native New England as I wander the meadows and woodlands which surround me. Through a series of layered scans of flowers, seedpods, leaves and grasses, I create fantastical “imagined gardens”, in defiance of seasons and microclimates. I find these roadside natives to have an exuberant beauty and grace often lacking in their cultivated companions, and admire their visual fragility which masks a surprising hardiness. As the built environment encroaches upon open space, and climate change threatens the diversity of our native species, I find it compelling to look closely and bear witness to the glory and resilience of this native botany before it disappears under more pavement.

About Marcy Juran

Marcy Juran is a visual artist with a practice that includes photography, encaustic and handmade paper. Juran’s focus explores themes of memory, myth, and the passage of time, combining personal narratives with the natural environs of her native New England. Her images have been recognized both nationally and internationally, and exhibited widely in galleries including the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Soho Photo Gallery, the Amarillo Museum of Art, Sohn Fine Art, the Davis Orton Gallery, the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, the SE Center for Photography, and the A Smith Gallery, as well as many regional galleries in New England. Her work has been published in the publications Fraction, Lenscratch and Don’t Take Pictures. In 2021, her body of work Family History | Family Mystery was awarded an Honorable Mention in the exhibition 30 OVER 50|In Context at the Center for Fine Art Photography by juror Arnika Dawkins, as well as being awarded First Place in the 16th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Digital Manipulation & Collage. Her book, Saltmarsh Seasons, was selected for inclusion in the Eighth Annual Self-published Photobook Show (2017) at the Davis Orton Gallery and the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Juran holds an A.B. from Brown University, with a concentration in Studio Art, focused on printmaking, with additional studies in graphic design, printmaking, and photography at the Rhode Island School of Design, Cranbrook, and the Maine Media Workshops. She is an exhibiting member of the New Canaan Society for the Arts, the Rowayton Arts Center, and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, and works from her studio in Westport, Connecticut.

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

 

Infralucent Clouds

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Infralucent Clouds

The scientist in me gets very excited to discover something new, never seen before, and not easily explained, either.

What I found is that imaging the night sky with an infrared camera emphasizes some features. The most intriguing part are those very thin, light clouds in the atmosphere, which one cannot see with the naked eye or a regular camera.

These clouds are delicate waves of what is likely ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Transparent to visible light, but reflecting Earth’s infrared radiation, which only an infrared camera can see, and only at night.

With reference to noctilucent clouds (which we can only observe in particular locations at a specific time of night), I named these infralucent clouds, because they shine only in infrared light and at night. They add a wispy fabric to fill the otherwise empty night sky to create otherworldly views.

With this collection of images I want to share that ethereal sight and enable people to see infralucent clouds in their full beauty, creating awareness that there are many things we do not perceive, cannot easily explain, but that are real and ever present. -JL

About Jürgen Lobert

Jürgen Lobert is a Massachusetts-based fine art photographer and educator, born and raised in Germany. He received a Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry from Gutenberg University in Mainz before moving to the US in 1991.

Jürgen is fortunate to have a daytime job, so he got to specialize mostly in night photography, but he also creates daytime long exposures, urban exploration and infrared imagery.

Jürgen’s work has appeared in numerous group shows and he has also organized, curated and exhibited in others. Among those exhibits are the Night Becomes Us at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA. His artwork is in the permanent collection of the Art Complex Museum, and in private collections.

Jürgen organizes over forty photo excursions and workshops each year. He is an international lecturer, instructor and competition judge. He has taught photography at the New England School of Photography (NESOP) and currently at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Jürgen is an executive member of the Boston Camera Club, member of Stony Brook Camera Club and the founder and organizer of the Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup group.

CV
Exhibitions
Solo & Featured Exhibits

  • Griffin Museum of Photography @ WinCAM, Winchester, MA, Infralucent Clouds, January 2022.
  • Hingham Library, MA. Ethereal Night Sky, 2014.
  • Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge, MA. Night Sight, a curated, digital presentation of four photographers 2012.

Exhibitions as Organizer, Curator & Exhibitor

  • Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA. Group exhibit Night Becomes Us, 2016- 2017.
    90 night photographs from 12 artists.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. Group exhibit Night Vision, Scituate, MA, 2018.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. Group exhibit Luminous City, Scituate, MA, 2015.
  • Mashpee Library, MA. Group exhibit The World at Night, 2015.

Juried Group Exhibitions

  • Duxbury Art Association, MA. Winter Juried Show, 2021.
  • Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. After Dark, 2020.
  • Duxbury Art Association, MA. Winter Juried Show, 2020.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2018.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2017.
  • Providence Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI. Unseen, 2017.
  • Darkroom Gallery, Burlington, VT. Optics Illusioned, 2016.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. Art of Show, 2016.
  • Plymouth Center for the Arts, MA. The Fine Art of Photography, 2014.
  • Visionspace Gallery, Lynn, MA. Night Light, 2013.
  • Front Street Gallery, Scituate, MA. New England Night Photographers, 2013.

Other Group Exhibitions

    • Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge, MA. Your Work Here, November 2021.
    • Boston Camera Club, Boston Seaport, MA. The Focused Eye – Our Unique Views, a public banner installation, 2021.
    • Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. Winter Solstice, 2019.
    • New England School of Photography, Waltham, MA, through the Boston Camera Club. Light & Shadow, 2018.
    • New England School of Photography, Waltham, MA. Staff Representation, 2017.
    • Boston Camera Club at the Wellesley Library, MA. Abstract, 2015.
    • Center for Arts, Natick, MA. Boston Camera Club, 2012.

Ongoing Bodies of Work

  • The World at Night, a diverse portfolio of night photography and its sub-genres.
  • Infralucent Clouds, a collection of stratospheric clouds invisible to the human eye.
  • Moody Architecture, a collection of daytime long exposures about serene views in busy cities.
  • Industrial Beauty, a collection to show the glamorous character of industrial installations at night.
  • The Orb Sphere, a collection of light drawings at night.
  • Trichroic Impressions, a colorful collection of long exposures to visualize motion.
  • Black Light, a collection of studio light drawings.
  • Down in the Dungeon, a collection of dark, abandoned, underground spaces.
  • Gravelscapes, a collection of otherworldly quarry scenes.
  • Moon Streaks, a collection of very long exposures to show moon rises and sets in one image.
  • Uplifting, a collection of night time photos featuring bucket lifts.

Collections

  • The collection of the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
  • Private collectors throughout the USA.

Publications

Bibliography

  • Full page photo and text spread, Country Gazette newspaper, Vol. 35, No. 33, p. B1, 10-April-2020.
  • Artist’s profile in fifty plus advocate, Eastern edition, Vol 46. No 5, p 4-6,  May 2020.
  • Page spread about Night Becomes Us exhibit, Duxbury Clipper newspaper, p. 12, March 22, 2017.
  • Featured photo Blood Moon over Point Judith, in: Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark by Lance Keimig, p. 93, 2nd edition, 2016.
  • Article about the artist and Night Becomes Us exhibit, South Shore Living Magazine, p. 24, October 2016.
  • Live presentation & published video, of Jürgen and the GBNight Meetup group, Common Cod Fiber Guild, Ignite Craft: Boston, January 2015.

Related Experience

  • About 40 technical publications for atmospheric chemistry and contamination control, incl. Nature and Science magazines.
  • A 30-year record of public presentations on scientific and photography topics with audiences up to 250.

Teaching Experience

  • Griffin Museum of Photography, 2021 to present.
  • Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup, 2013 to -present.
  • New England School of Photography, 2017 to 2019.
  • International camera clubs and regional photography conferences, 2013 to present.
  • Registered speaker and photo judge at the New England Camera Club Council.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Chemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, 1990.
  • Masters in Nuclear Chemistry, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, 1985.
  • CAPA National Judging Course, Canadian Association for Photographic Art, Boston, MA, 2012.
  • Workshop “Introduction to Night Photography”, New England School of Photography,
    Boston, MA, 2011.

Languages

  • Fluent in written and spoken German (native language).
  • Fluent in written and spoken English.

Professional Affiliations

  • Owner, JM Lobert Photography LLC
  • Founder and organizer, Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup (2013-present).
  • Member, Boston Camera Club, Brookline, MA (2010-present).
  • Co-organizer of the New England Night Photographers Meetup (2012-2013).
  • Memberships
    • Professional Photographers of America (PPA; 2014-present).
    • Photographic Society of America (PSA; 2016-present).
    • Stony Brook Camera Club (2016-present). Griffin Museum of Photography (2017-present).
    • Photographic Resource Center, MA (PRC; 2011-12, 2021-present).

View Jürgen Lobert’s website. 

The Infinite Mirage of Rapture

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Statement
These works communicate the complex grief of growing up as a woman in a culture dedicated to stifling authentic emotion and communication. This is especially precarious for those of us who fear abandonment, as it is easy, in our search for love and connection, to get caught in a web of codependency without any means of emotional salvation.

I am interested in creating a space where people with similar trauma can feel witnessed by others as the first step to liberation from this cycle of silence, the facade of isolation. My pieces depict cut-off subjects struggling to escape liminal spaces. When they realize no one is coming to save them, they seek the strength to save themselves.

Bio
Jaina Cipriano is a Boston based artist communicating with the world through photography, film and installation. Her works explore the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment.

Jaina creates her photographs in built sets, forgoing digital manipulation because she believes creating something truly immersive starts with the smallest details. A self taught carpenter, she loves a challenge and her larger than life sets draw inspiration from the picture books and cartoons of her childhood.

Jaina writes and directs short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. In 2020 she released ‘You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon’, a surrealist horror film wrestling with the gravity of deep codepency. Her second short, ‘Trauma Bond’ is a dreamy coming of age thriller and is planned for a 2022 release.

Working with many local organizations to support and strengthen the community, Jaina was a judge for The Arlington International Film Festival, she dispersed funds for the inter-media portion of the Somerville Arts Council Grant Board, built sets for Arlington Friends of the Drama and served on the board of the New England Sculptors Association. Jaina is also the founder of Finding Bright, a design studio specializing in set building for music videos as well as hosting events that bring the Boston art scene together.

Jaina studied at The New England School of Photography and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions around New England.

See the interview with Jaina Cipriano for Optics.

View Jaina Cipriano’s website.

A Place I Never Knew

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Statement
For this series, I traveled to one of the last Muslim-ruled princely states in India, also my family’s ancestral home.

Rampur is a small city four hours north of Delhi that many Indians have never heard of.  The city has the highest Muslim population in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and poorest state. According to the 2011 census, just half Rampur’s 2.3 million residents can read.

The city has seen better times. It has also seen worse.  Rampur’s former rulers, called Nawabs, constructed palaces, mosques, and a fort. The Nawabs valued culture: They cultivated music, collected books, listened to poetry, developed cuisine. They also ruled with clenched fists, ready to punish those who dared defy them — and also those who did not. My grandfather, head physician to Nawab Raza Ali Khan, was sent to London to continue his medical studies. Later, he was told not return.

For this project, I returned to India to discover a city, culture, and country that I never knew. My family’s ties to the city intrigued me. I visited my uncle, who still lives in the family home. I read early 20th century texts and learned that Pathans, my family’s ethnic lineage, were considered a warrior race, admired — and vilified.

My photographs explore the city’s architecture, people, and play with the formality of Indian-style portraiture popular during the pre-world war era. This series explores the history of the city, and also its present state, existing under the shadow of Hindu nationalism. -TK

Bio
Tira Khan’s photographs explore the meaning of family, the formal and informal moment, and the architecture of place. Her images are often personal, and she finds that elements of our daily lives often reflect broad, universal themes.

Tira enjoys shooting straight from the camera, as well as pushing the bounds of what is a photograph. Her images include documentary and collage.

Tira was recently invited to exhibit in the Photographic Resource Center’s 25th Annual Exposure Exhibition, juried by Kris Graves. Her work was previously selected for Exposure by Christopher Rauschenberg.  Two of her photographic series were finalists in Critical Mass, Photolucida’s national photography contest.  She has exhibited her work nationally, as well as Athens, Greece, and Barcelona, Spain. Her Growing Up Girl series has been featured in Der Spiegel, Lenscratch, and Musee Magazine. In addition, her documentary photographs have been published in the The Boston Globe, and The New York Times Lens Blog.

As an editorial photographer, Tira has worked for Bloomberg Businessweek, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Woz, Teen Vogue, and The Seattle Times. She began her career as a writer, working as a staff reporter at daily newspapers.

A selection of her photographs were published in We Who March, a book on the 2017 Women’s March.

View Tira Khan’s website.

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