After falling in love with photography as a teenager, I went for my AFA in Photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design and later gained my BA in Liberal Arts at the New School in New York, quickly finding that photography was a thread which always wove through the many things that interest and motivate me. I began working at the Museum of Photographic Arts in 2013 as an education coordinator, which opened my eyes to an entire world I hadn’t considered before, moving beyond photography as a personal craft or profession. I came to see its potential in how it relates to people, society and the broader public: images as a springboard for dialogue and discussion, as a deeply personal record or memento of a moment in time, and as a statement of advocacy and to inspire change. These are the threads which motivate me and keep me inspired and engaged in the world of photographic arts.

My role at the museum bridges a few different worlds, which is an exciting position to be in. As a center for visual learning, the museum strives to inspire dialogue and foster learning through everything we do, from exhibitions to educational programs and digital content. A typical week for me could include content creation and production, mining the collection for in-person or online programming, overseeing our special collections library (one of only a few remaining independent libraries dedicated to photography and film in the country) among many other things. The part of my job which I love the most are the conversations I have while engaging with a broad range of people, from the general public to members to researchers.

Whenever I think about the future of photography or exhibitions, the word synthesis comes to mind. I’m just old enough to remember a big transition from analog to digital in the early 2000’s when I was in undergrad. Darkrooms were being torn out. Digital labs were going in. Yet twenty years later, we see that history is not perfectly linear and it’s never just one side that wins out. Film still exists. Digital workflows are as complex and nuanced as their analog predecessors. Many artists work intuitively across both. Traditional in-person exhibitions of original prints can be just as exciting as contemporary and multimedia based shows both in-person and online. So what stands out to me is that photography has always been, and will continue to be, about synthesis both in the way which images are made and the manner in which they’re presented, whether it be in-person or online; a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new in the pursuit of an image and, in turn, how this synthesis can come to shape the kinds of images artists create and the perspectives they share through their work.

It’s hard to choose only three, but I’d say that the photographers who have influenced me most would be Duane Michals for his use of image, text and sequencing to speak to such deeply personal truths; Daido Moriyama for his unflinching approach to the street and his embrace of the full-bleed print; and, for an historical throwback, Anna Atkins for her pi oneering work in using early photographic processes in new ways to compile the first photobook from her botanical studies.

I’m deeply grateful for the invitation to participate as a judge for reFocus, and I’m excited to view such a broad range of incredible work by photographers. I always learn something, and see the world in a different light, by viewing new work. 

Outside of my work in photography, I’m a big space geek. So if I could own any work it would be a dream to own a James Nasmyth print, or hi s full publication The Moon: Considered as a Planet, A World, and a Satellite (1874). Not only was the layout original and innovative in its design for the time it was produced, but to think of all the artistry which went into creating detailed topographic models of the moon in order to rephotograph them, since photography still wasn’t quite advanced enough for detailed astrophotography, is astounding. It speaks to a time when the lines were a bit fuzzier between art and science, and practitioners were keenly aware of the medium’s limitations and were looking to new approaches and techniques.

Too many to count! My bookshelves at home are a testament to that. The top few which come to mind though would be Bruce Davidson’s Subway, Daido Moriyama’s Stray Dog, Broomberg & Chanarin’s Spirit is a Bone, Nasmyth’s The Moon: Considered as a Planet which I mentioned above, Joakim Eskildsen’s The Roma Journeys, Paul Nougé’s surrealist publication Subversion des Images, among many, many others.

I would say that my advice to photographers out there is two-fold: look closer, both at your own work and the world around you, and always stay curious. Sometimes artists can set such strict parameters for a project or an individual work, or even their entire career, but the reality is that every photographer changes and grows over time. Not everything has to be done according to some classical standard or industry practice, and no single artist creates the same exact type of work for their entire life. It’s often in the act of exploring at the edges of one’s comfort zone which can lead to a new way of thinking about one’s own work, or even lead to an entirely new and exciting project.