Concept Aware®

In Sovereign , photographer Jocelyn Lee actualizes the democracy she sees between humans, nature and the animal world as she explores their cycles of fecundity. Her sensual and intimate portraits made in collaboration with mature women create fictional narratives which challenge the cultural coding of shunning the aged female body. Using natural light, a medium format camera and film, Lee skillful...

Renée Jacobs, a photojournalistic turned civil rights lawyer turned erotic documentarian, uses  photography to explore her own sexuality and to listen and give voice to the desire of her co-collaborators. Joyful, intense, alluring and lustful, each image is a story grounded in visualizing felt emotion. Jacobs notes; “ I switched the lens and the lens switched me.” In this book group, Renée Ja...

By blending technique, process and intent Kuhn brings transcendent reflections to light by exploring shadows. Collaborating with her subjects, all enter into an undefined space to await the moment where art and life coalesce. In this session Kuhn’s restless energy generously shares her meditative photographic practice.    In this book group, Mona Kuhn discusses, among other things:...

Highly awarded for her vast humanitarian impact with over 500 global exhibitions, Ferrato is known for documenting the truth of domestic violence over the past 50 years. Holy is her call to action to celebrate the powerful complexity of all who identify as female. Combined for the first time are her intimate and unflinching images of survivors, swingers and activists. Three chapters are framed by...

This tactile hand-bound book is anchored by text excerpts from overshadowed contributions of three female visionary artists whose theses and research are seminal to our understanding of visual culture. Thomsen choreographs light and space to elicit wonder and activate curiosity to imagine post patriarchal structures of meaning and experience.   In this book group, Sonja Thomsen discusses...

Skilled at making invisible the visible, Friedman, sensitively documents the irony and ambivalence found in the parallel experience of exile. The protagonists live in a precarious environment for same sex couples, while their work supports a creative troop who are not allowed to officially perform in their homeland.  In this book group, Misha Friedman , discusses, among other things: The chal...

Boston-based documentary photographer, David Horton, and Swedish model and actress, Beatrice Lovely, share their serendipitous relationship and creative collaboration. What began as a skill-building exercise grew to a mutual exploration of the contours of emotion. The lyrical imagery was sequenced in a self-published monograph, woven with the reality of a recent grief. In this book group, David Ho...

Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza, shares specifics of his career-defining role documenting the Obama presidency. Through our candid conversation and his generous response to questions, we receive insights and behind-the-scenes stories of his iconic images. Pete explains how he, with skill and intent, used the visual archive he created to expose the truth of the Trump years in hi...

Entertainment, fine art and fashion photographer BBS combined his boundless energy and expansive Instagram presence to turn an idea (initiated on a Zoomtail) into a historical record of an unforgettable time. Eleven thousand miles, six weeks and hundreds of engaging portraits later, Smith captures the soul and joy of connectivity. In this episode Brian and Paris Chong, Leica LA curator/direct...

Andrew Feiler’s visually compelling narrative documents the generational impact of a unique challenge grant program. Created by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, it served to educate Black children denied access to public schools. Through extensive research and diligent outreach Feiler weaves the irrevocably impacted life stories, with the historical and political benchmarks of desegregat...

Durant invites us into a fluid free fall with his intentionally sequenced interplay of history, ideas and first-hand knowledge in text and image. Incubating his idea of how still images capture physical, emotional, social, cultural and political states grew to cross geography and time. Evocative and insightful this book is a symphony of authentic voices echoing the harsh and exciting realities of...

Sandwiched between endpapers featuring the 1938 Photogram, Stars, by artist Alexander Rodchenko, 120 photographs by known and anonymous artists reflect how one can think about images - underscoring their uncontainable hybrid nature. His compelling text ignites curiosity, excavates and illuminates intention and process, inviting the reader/viewer to ponder what and how they see.  In this book...

From her own experience of objectification and othering in corporate culture, Beal innovates entry points to spotlight the experience of ‘double consciousness’ as described by W.E.B. Du Bois, currently referred to as code switching, by compiling the stories of 65 Black women. Also collaborating with white students and colleagues she probes differences in human experiences, exposes assumptions, adv...

Bogre honors the foundations of evidential aspects of photography to forge human connection and activate advocacy. She wrestles with the elasticity of the medium as digital capture and distribution impact and change everything. Accountability and authenticity remain essential while construction, portraiture, and installation are broadening the tool kit for visual storytellers.  In this book g...

Precision, observation, and reflection meet patience, serendipity and courage in this lyrical and poetic visual exploration of the fragile and threatened Virginia coastline. Eich deftly exposes our human gravitational pull to the unspoken and invisible weaving of our relationships, our physical landscape, our shared history and the mortal coil. In this book group, Matt Eich, discusses, among other...

Defibaugh, alongside a selective team of scientists, historians, and anthropologists, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, Nikon Camera and a host of cultural organizations in Greenland, created a modern and multi-media ethnology of life above the Arctic Circle. Living among the Inuit, over 15 months in four progressively remote locations, Defibaugh was able to establish portrait...

Enough, is a visual tapestry delivering moving witness to the pain, beauty, resilience, outrage, wonder and verve radiating from the heart of Brooklyn; thoughtfully woven with original poetry by Dr. Jamilla Lyiscott. Chevalier masterly constructs a virtual time capsule blending insight, concept and document into testimony, chronicling the embodiment of individual and collective agency and a commun...

Brody debunks lies and shatters delusions by confronting false narratives and simplistic notions of war. Revealed is the perpetuation of military-created propaganda commonly amplified by legacy formats of the media. War, Brody argues, does not contain moral and noble causes nor glorifies or institutes an ideology; it weaponizes human instincts and makes monsters of everyone.  In this book gro...

Confronting the societal and familial taboo of addiction, Keulards courageously shares her journey to understand the impact on her brother, herself and their family. Fifteen years following her brother's death by cardiac arrest in a luxury Berlin hotel room due to his drug use, Keulards literally and metaphorically pulls back the curtain to reveal her exploration and discovery of the human experie...

Utilizing the name and frame of John Szarkowskis’, Frailey highlights 100 photographers based on Susan Sontags’ premise that photography is an instrument for knowing things, and this is his collection of what he knows. His intention is to provide a platform to repeatedly explore the layered discoveries within a single image. As Frailey notes : “all images traffic in the marketplace of ideas.” In t...

The result of a post college grant landed Meyer in Swaziland, now Eswatini, as a journalist  exploring the reality of a country with the world’s largest HIV population. He began with a job in a candle factory, spending two years without access to the internet. Led by curiosity and his ability to create community Meyer developed the framework to honor and amplify the visibility of the African...

The result of a post college grant landed Meyer in Swaziland, now Eswatini, as a journalist  exploring the reality of a country with the world’s largest HIV population. He began with a job in a candle factory, spending two years without access to the internet. Led by curiosity and his ability to create community Meyer developed the framework to honor and amplify the visibility of the African...

Walsh lays bare the issues which confront fair representation, including limitations caused by censorship, complacency, race and gender inequity. A conversation that lands on answering the question “what is conflict photography?”, with an attempt to enlighten our sense of collective awareness and lessening the distance between us and them.  In this book group, Walsh discusses, among other thi...

Self described as a painter, with a digital palette made of images, Forman discusses her inspiration, and her background, that led her to create the images captured in her book. The breaking of rules, constraints and the frame is discussed as a quiet revolution found within her works.  In this book group, Fran Forman discusses, among other things: The conceptual impact of photomontage Being a...

This book, like England, is generous, respectful and exploratory. The Winter Garden Photograph, which is foundational to the text, is described as a childhood image of Barthes’ recently deceased mother, Henrietta. England posed this query to a handful of colleagues, what to you is a reimagining, an homage or a reflection of this elusive photography?  In this book group, Odette discusses, amon...