The last few months have been tumultuous here; I lost my rhythm in interviewing on schedules that fit both the interviewee’s life and my deadlines. Therefore, I present you with a roundup of great work by multiple photographers, focusing this month on portraiture.
I will go out on a limb and state that women usually make different portraits than men when it is their personal work rather than commercial or other “for hire” work. The Male Gaze theory did have a starting point, and we don’t need to cover it again; we’ve done that other months. So we will jump right in. I’ve selected women who work with portraits of others and those working in self-portraiture. I’ve covered various styles, from environmental portraiture to faceless underwater imagery and everything in between. The artists this month are Beth Chucker, Morgan DeLuna, Judit German Heins, Amy Helmick, Susan Lapides, Aleks Miesak, Charlotte Niel, Kumi Oguro, Amy Parish, Anne Marie Tornabene, and Nina Weinberg Doran.
Beth Chucker and I met some years back in a workshop with Foley Gallery and have remained in contact through the ensuing years. But until this week, when the results of the 25th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards were released, I had never seen this work.
Instantly, I was reminded of Ann Hamilton’s series of photographic portraits entitled O N E E V E R Y O N E, where Hamilton’s 530 subjects stood behind a frosted, plastic material. The substrate altered what could be seen, placing the close features in sharp focus while the rest of the body softened and blurred as it receded behind the cloudy panel. At first glance, one might think Chucker had appropriated a clever conceit to make her portraits stand out, but that is inaccurate.
In speaking with Chucker, I learned that Adoptee Traces focuses on Chucker’s search for identity and connection through the lens of an adoptee. Her parents were as connected and as much a “home” as any birth parent would be, but upon becoming a parent herself at age 45, she experienced unexpected and surreal feelings. Although she and her twins shared DNA, she struggled to recognize any visual trace of herself in their features. That ultimately catalyzed a search for connection via photographic work.
Chucker said, “Adoptee Traces explores how those with complex family histories experience identity by photographing others like me who have been adopted. I wondered if others had experienced a similar mental block. Although it’s a personal journey, this work invites others to reflect on how we search for connection and the visible and invisible traces that shape who we are.“
Chuker’s use of clarity and obfuscation in the photographs brilliantly underlines the project’s thesis and gives the viewer a glimpse into Chucker’s mind.
I saw Morgan DeLuna’s Norah series a few years ago when Blue Mitchell at OneTwelve did a portfolio feature of it. It was one of those “I wish I made this work!!!!” moments. I instantly fell in love with Deluna’s sensitive imagery.
DeLuna related that each image is meant to be liminal, focusing on representing her emotional states in dealing with traumatic experiences, and relates them to the Tibetan Buddhist concept of Bardo. Because the work’s meaning is complex and profound, I have included DeLuna’s detailed explanations of each image.
“Opus No. 0: Zero has a symbolic correlation with endless possibilities and nothingness. The body language of this pose can be read as isolation/abandonment/loneliness or going inwards like a cocoon. I was working with the idea of sadness and loneliness. Periods of grief, isolation, and loneliness are transitions in themselves—generally not by our choosing. They can make us feel small, and the darkness can be overwhelming, but we facilitate growth by embracing and reflecting upon them.”
Opus No. 5: In numerology, five is tied to human life, and, in tarot, chaos. This image speaks directly to ‘looking over your shoulder’ in survival mode, thinking about fight/flight/freeze responses. Whether a threat is real or perceived doesn’t matter to the brain. You drop into this place of animal instinct for survival. In this image, I am specifically speaking to the sexual abuse I experienced growing up. Sexual violence leaves a specific type of scar; it is a core devastation, a betrayal of nature. I wanted to give that scar or maybe wound visibility—for myself, but for others too, because the hidden embarrassment and shame should not belong to survivors.”
Opus No. 7: The number seven has an ancient history of being spiritually significant and often sacred. In the tarot, it is connected to overcoming and wholeness. This image is about dreams, hopes, and looking toward the future. However, it has a specific personal narrative to it as well. As a child, my bedroom had a large picture window overlooking a wooded yard. I spent hours watching birds there. They were so free—I wished for wings as I dreamt about the day I would be free as they were.”
Opus No. 11: In numerology, 11 is associated with the subconscious and inner wisdom. This image focuses on the process of change, whether beliefs and patterns that no longer serve us or identifying who we are underneath all of the ‘stuff’ we have been told or experienced; our subconscious is always trying to connect. On a less metaphorical note, looking into the mirror to converse with yourself is one of the most potent ways to create positive transformation. It has been an invaluable tool for me.”
I’m just as in love with the work today as I was when I first saw it, and I still wish I had made these images. Despite its challenging topic, the work is soft, beautiful, and melancholic. It touches my soul.
Judit German-Heins’ Women of Faith is a series of tintype images of women who don head coverings due to their religious beliefs, be it a veil, hijab, kippah, turban, or headscarf. German-Heins related that each is worn for the same reasons—modesty, to show belonging, and to connect the wearer to God. German-Heins began this project in 2017, when Islamaphobia and antisemitism in America were rising, resulting in attacks on Muslim women and mosques, as well as Jewish cemeteries vandalized. German-Heins told me, “These attacks on innocent people, on their homes of worship and burial grounds, made me think about the universal language of love as a common denominator in spirituality. When we concentrate on recognizing familiarity and similarity among each other, we can connect and forget about our differences. It is hard to hate someone when we get to know them.
Heather is a Muslim convert who grew up in Pittsburgh in a Polish Christian family. Hafsa grew up in a Pakistani family, and she wears a headscarf. Bibi is a Muslim woman with a traditional African head wrap as a head cover. Lorraine is a Jewish woman who uses lace to cover her head when praying. Using this black-and-white process from the 1860s allows me to create one-of-a-kind, handmade images of these beautiful women.”
I found out about Judit German-Hein’s work when she was awarded the Denis Roussel award from Rfotofolio earlier this year for her series A Monster In the Shape of a Woman. I found her work stunningly beautiful, tragic, and emotional. Emotional works are my favorite kind of photograph, so I immediately visited her website. She has so many incredible bodies of work that I wondered why I had not heard her name before. I selected this particular series to show you because it seemed so contemporaneous to the ever-increasing division and hate that has taken root so deeply in America now, but I could have shown her fantastic work from any of her series. She has a masterful way of using alternative processes and a tremendous ability to portray people and their inner states via her work.
I became acquainted with Amy Helmick’s work through the FRAMES Facebook group, so I am sure some of you will also recognize it. Each image is from a different series; style rather than subject matter is the thread that connects them.
In speaking with Helmick, I learned that she recreated several historical paintings in a quest to make images with similar lighting. Pieta is dervived from Michaelangelo’s The Madonna della Pietà.
Saving Uncle Sam came about through the convergence of an unexpected gift of an exam table and anxiety about the 2024 US Presidential election. Helmick said, “The idea came to me sometime in June when I thought about the divide in our country and how it’s making us ill as a nation. All the components I needed appeared just when I needed them. This piece was meant to be.“You Oughta Be Ashamed addresses Helmick’s feelings about obesity, a topic I repeatedly find in women’s artwork. How could it be otherwise? At every turn, the media, women’s magazines, and men tell us what ideals we “should” meet, even though most are unattainable without money and time—commodities that many of us regular citizens frequently lack. Helmick stated, “For years, I avoided self-portraiture, though I knew it could provide a path to healing and personal growth. I created “The Obesity Series” to address that; it continues to grow as I do. This image was born of the phrase “You oughta be ashamed,” which continued through my mind one morning, remembering how my parents would say it whenever they felt I needed correction. But that morning, I thought of its literal wording—as if shame is something one should aspire to have. Obesity is my biggest personal shame. I hope the series is helpful to others who might have similar feelings.“
I’m drawn into Helmick’s work by its lighting and storytelling, but more so because Helmick has the ability to shape a single image into the visual equivalent of the “thousand words” we are so frequently told our images should inspire.
I saw Susan Lapides’ enchanted image, Evening Walk, somewhere online many years ago. My mental association links with an exhibition at the Griffin Museum, but so many years have passed that I can’t remember if that’s true or invented. The image never left me, and I can mentally picture it as clearly as if I were standing before it. It has that elusive but magical je ne sais quoi, which also infuses the entire series, St. George: Ebb & Flow, her tribute to the residents of a rural community on the Bay of Fundy in Canada. Lapides stated that St. George, home to the highest tides in the world, still has no traffic light today. Its age-old lobster and sardine fisheries mingle with newer salmon farms as they rapidly reinvent themselves to keep pace with climate change and global demand. The images present a way of life now fading from our collective memory, harkening back to living and working to the cadence of tides and seasons, lightness and dark.
Each image narrates lives specific to the place and its people. Lapides said, “The short maritime summers with long evenings are cherished as they have been for generations. Light bends, time slows, families and friends gather around bonfires as the sun sets, and the stars alight. These are the moments between the memories that feel iconic to the maritime experience: the deep connection to the natural world, the rhythmic dance of the tides, and the mesmerizing, shifting beauty.” Her description takes me back to my childhood in a small East Coast town.
Sisters celebrates the heartiness of people accustomed to summer water temperatures in the 50s. Lapides relates, “As the 26-foot tide rolls in, the sisters stand by a campfire. Once warm, they dash into the water and scream because it’s freezing. They rocket back to the fire’s warmth to begin the dance again. Like generations before them, the girls found a clever way to enjoy swimming here. The sisters are fierce, and their stance seems to say, ‘Now pay attention.’
In Mending the Nets, a fisherman desperately pulls to release his stuck net before the sardine carrier arrives at the weir for the herring catch. Weirs are one of the most sustainable ways to fish because they only trap adult fish; First Nations in the Pacific Northwest used this method for thousands of years to selectively harvest salmon. St. George herring is used for canned sardines, an inexpensive food of worldwide significance. The colors and textures are reminiscent of a Monet. This image emphasizes the weir’s beauty and the strength fisherman need to do their job—working-class physical strength and grace.
The Shift Worker sits, exhaustedly staring after ten hours of packing lobsters. The majority of jobs for women there are in fish factories, where shift workers toil long on the production line. She is strong by necessity; she stands, lifting bins, boxes, or fish all day.”
I suggest visiting her website to view the rest of the series, and while there, also view her Sea Change series, an ongoing series of annual portraits of 12 girls photographed holding lobsters, a symbol of their St. George community. Lapides’ powerful work on the latter evokes the work of Reineke Dystra, yet they are unmistakable as Lapides’ own. Lapides’ environmental portraits are the kind of work I would aspire to make if I were a photographer who tells stories about others rather than of my inner world.
Although I am Aleks Miesak’s social media friend, I haven’t seen much of her photographic work. I found this image on her Instagram one day recently and was captivated. I wanted to see more of her underwater motion works, but auwe this is the sole image Miesak made in this style (which explains why I only showed a single image.) It exemplifies the idea of “portraiture without a face.” We depend on the gesture captured to infer what the subject is experiencing. It’s a joyful image with a tiny hint of fear peeking through. Miesak said, “I took this image at a resort in Orlando using an underwater film camera. I sought to show the joy of swimming from an underwater perspective. It’s a picture of my son, who is a very active child. Getting him to slow down is a challenge. The water allowed a more natural way to show a quieter and more relaxed side of hyperactivity.“
I hope Miesaks makes more images like this one during her next resort vacation.
I don’t remember where I first found the Body Options series by Charlotte Niel. I enjoy her unique approach to commenting on idealized, unattainable beauty. It’s another topic I find women frequently making work about, and it’s not something we see from most men. Society makes it acceptable to comment on women’s appearance to such an extent that women go to great lengths to turn back the hands of time. Men do this, too, but their focus seems not on the outward signs and creep of age and what that means in their lives. It’s worth noting that each image was created via collaboration between Niel’s sitter and herself. Niel said, “We live in a paradoxical society where longevity is coveted, but aging is not. I began to notice the alarming rate with which my peers, and women in general, were seeking body perfection. It made me curious about how women felt about aging in a society that keeps closets it. If they had the opportunity, what would they change about themselves? Using humor and compassion, my series combined idealized concepts of unattainable beauty with those of everlasting youth juxtaposed against the results of the passage of time.”
With each subject’s input, Niel created ‘improvements’ from magazine ads and then used them to conceal or change each woman’s self-described imperfections. These are either hand-held or taped to emphasize how change always remains separate from people’s authentic bodies.
Wanda’s Wish emphasizes facial rejuvenation, which has a restaurant-like menu of options: face-lift, nose job, eyelid reshaping, and injectables. Lips for You addresses the growing obsession withlip augmentation, which women turn to as soon as their early 20s. Niel related that by 2023, injectables were among the top 5 non-invasive cosmetic procedures in the US, with over 1.4 million performed, 4% more than in the preceding year. Hands Don’t Lie speaks to her sitter having always prided her graceful hands, but by age 86, the usual suspects of prominent veins, crepey skin, and age spots had overtaken them. Niel said, “Hands will always give your age away.”
Many people overlay or collage photos with other photos or advertisements, but it’s usually done in Photoshop or made so that each image is layered separately but conceptually or visually interwoven. However, by maintaining the portrait and its “improvement” as disparate and obvious, Niel brilliantly underlines her concept. In doing so, she nodded to Robert Heinekken’s best-known paraphotography and turned it on its ear.
I’ve been a ‘superfan’ of Kumi Oguro’s work for a few years now but never interacted with her until 2021 when I asked her to feature her work in a Poignant Pics article at OneTwelve Publications. Oguro has spent her photographic career focused on female portraiture. At first, her models reenacted Oguro’s experiences for the camera, which is a distant cousin of self-portraiture. Later, she focused on a character she found in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. While interviewing her for the previous feature, Oguro told me, “I am drawn to this fictional female, Hester, because of her extreme nature; she is an extrovert, aggressive and chaotic, but also sensitive, loving and charming. I suppose it is true to say that to a certain extent, I could call all the women in my photographs’ Hester,’ with a lot of affection.“
Oguro’s sensual yet tragic work is not at all comforting. Her imagery is better termed disquieting, perhaps disturbing, due to her intentional use of dichotomy. The thread winding through these and all of her other works is a sense of tragedy or danger, mainly due to the inability of the viewer to see the faces of her models clearly. She focuses on details while limiting what she allows the viewer to see. We are left to mine our imaginations—or perhaps our nightmares—for narrative, as Oguro created the work by intentionally using incomplete narratives.
Oguro said, “What I do via photographic images cannot be translated into words. They are not ‘dream images’; my dreams do not inspire me, but only by the impossibility of describing them. I analyzed what drives me to create these works and what has accumulated inside me to keep giving birth to this kind of imagery. The thread that weaves my work together over many years is mainly an underlying anger. Living my life and seeing the world as a minority (as a foreigner and, to some extent, as an artist) has had a great impact. It makes me smile to realize that, in recent years, I have become what others sometimes describe as ‘a nice person.’ I am still full of anger, but I believe that it transforms itself into my photographic creations. Occasionally, I still feel the urge to shout out what I am in the face of misunderstanding or prejudice, but just like my dreams, they can never be put into exact words. My work is a silent scream to the world.“
“Pack was made in a cultural center in a small town that had been closed for several years already. Thanks to the model, I was allowed to go in and photograph. It was, for me, full of treasure! Somewhere in the building, I found a box full of packing peanuts. I like images in which particular objects are overflowing outside of the image. The model I used in Show sports a ‘skin-head’ haircut, and the attire she wore here is not something she would be likely to wear in real life. I use models as if they are dolls, by dressing them in certain outfits and posing them in specific ways, I bring myself into the imagery. It was also a true blessing to have this beautiful auditorium for this project. It was my first time working with the woman who modeled for Daisy, and we collaborated on costuming.I was roughly inspired by ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ which I had seen some time before this photoshoot. For Pile, we worked in a studio that was once a monastery. I instantly fell for the color of the walls, the curtains, and the drawers that had been abandoned there. And my model had such long wild hair that it became an essential prop in itself!”
Oguro plays with visible fragments and cunningly uses angles and light to create her enigmatic narratives. It is work I wish I made—all of it!
Amy Parrish’s series, An Ocean Within Us, has a complex origin; instead of attempting to summarize and possibly getting it wrong, I will directly publish what Parrish related to me.
“Several years ago I was running ground operations and teaching photography for The Light Space program in Kolkata, India. It was an initiative created by photographer Brooke Shaden and Laura Price of Blossomy Project. Their vision was to work with human trafficking survivors and daughters of sex workers, using photography as a therapeutic form of expression. Laura’s close friend, sociologist & DMT (dance/movement therapy) therapist, Sohini Chakraborty, used to volunteer with her at a shelter home many years before that and built her own international organization for survivors of gender-based violence. She is considered a pioneer of DMT. With so much social and mission-based crossover, creative collaborations often happen in a synergetic way.
The women in these photographs are Kolkata Sanved DMT trainers, facilitators, and performers who bring this method of healing into local communities. I was commissioned to make these photos when a friend volunteered for the organization.
I am currently the volunteering Coordinator of Studio Visits & Workshops for the Bengal Biennale in India. Kolkata Sanved will be offering two DMT sessions for the general public (since trauma from gender-based violence is not restricted to a specific socio-economic status.) Kolkata Sanved will guide participants through prompts and exercises to unite body and mind. Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) bridges physical expression with emotional and psychological recovery, emphasizing the body’s role in processing trauma and enhancing well-being. That aligns with a broader artistic shift toward participatory and embodied experiences, where the act of creating and moving becomes a transformative tool for both personal healing and collective reflection on societal issues.
This work was transitional for me because it was created not long after I closed the full-time operations of my commercial portrait business, but before I fully developed my voice as a visual artist.”
I’ve been following Parrish’s work for a while and had wanted to feature it previously at OneTwelve, but our respective schedules never quite fit together. I’m glad they finally did this time. I don’t fully understand the DMT process described by Parrish; therapy and dance are both outside my realm of knowledge. I’m also unclear about the translation from idea to photograph. But her images are beautiful. They convey “an ocean of emotion” as well, which is highlighted via her use of space and lighting. It conveys a message to me without my deep knowledge of its origin. It’s excellent work.
I first saw AnnMarie Tornabene’s work after she commented in response to someone’s question in a women’s photography group on Facebook. Whatever she wrote about photo and modeling sent me looking for her work online, and I fell in love with it. Sometime later, I learned that she was one of the models in Lynne Bianchi’s The Spaghetti Eaters project, a work I wrote about sometime last year for FRAMES.
Tornabene has a long history as an artist model and 27 years of photographic self-portraiture, much of which is quite dramatic. She is an adept performer as she performs for the camera. Tornabene’s images deal with physical and psychological aspects of her life as it evolves. She alternates between traditional photographic materials and modern technology in making her images. Tornaben told me, “My connection to nature began at the earliest age I can remember. Never feeling connected to the material world or contemporary times, the woods and the forest felt home to me due to the magic and splendor in the spirits that live within them. In the last 15 years, as the material world has become colder and more aggressive, my desire to flee in escape to the natural world has grown. However, significant changes in my life, along with aging, create a desire to root myself and become grounded. But this feeling never lasts, and I once again desire to flee.
While these thoughts have entered my photographic work throughout my artistic career, they had indeed become the common thread between these multiple series of self-portraits that I began in 2021 and compiled together in 2024 when contemporary society made even less sense to me and when the uncertainty of my future became more prominent.”
BirdWoman #8 uses natural elements to create almost a nest-like feel, with Tornabene as a somewhat vulnerable bird enveloped within it. Burden has multiple meanings. Universally, it represents humanity’s shared burden of restoring nature’s balance to our world. But it also speaks quite personally. Tornabene wrote, “I carry the weight of personal demons—physical and psychological. So it represents the metaphorical ‘carrying the weight of it all on my back; the tree limb represents the spine that I feel I lack.” One Feather (Diptych) has a duality of meaning as well. The white feather represents innocence and purity, but once humans get hold of it, it becomes corrupted, as denoted by the black feather. More personally, as Tornabene ages and reflects on years past, she laments that she did not have the fairytale childhood that all of us wish for, but only some of us get. Instead, Tornabene had endured abuse, toxic relationships, and a difficult life. She said, “As the years go on, I notice a dichotomy—my spirit has become hardened in many ways, but I hold on to hope, love, and romantic ideologies.”
These images are smartly conceived and executed, beautiful yet poignant and melancholic. Because we all suffer hardships, seeing ourselves in Tornabene’s photographs is easy.
I met Nina Weinberg Doran via Facebook during the mid-2010s. I knew that she was a cancer survivor and that she felt that photography had saved her sanity during a difficult time. However, I didn’t know this work existed; it wasn’t among the series of hers I had seen. I found the work while exploring websites for a different FRAMES article; it immediately moved me. How do you find the spunk and bravery to show the world this private darkness? Doran looked the dragon in the eye and stood firm, making a work that every woman fears living through themselves. The work lays bare the fear and frustration only one who experienced it can know. It is impossible to see this work and not feel deeply.
I’ll close with the words Weinberg Doran wrote for me, “a routine mammogram, followed by the unexpected diagnosis of breast cancer…HER2+, my head was swirling…i couldn’t imagine what might be my life in the coming year or more…the first word…Chemotherapy…turned my insides out…loss of hair…the world would know…i would be exposed…to them…to myself…to my inner world of terror…as i grappled with a long period of time in treatment…surgery…radiation…more treatment for a year after…i peeled the layers back inside myself…and found the most important gem…myself. True Identity. Truly Exposed…. it was then i turned the camera on myself.”
Thank you to each photographer for working with me on this feature. I look forward to seeing the work you make next.
I hope you, FRAMES readers, enjoyed this feature, and that I have introduced you to some photographers and work you hadn’t seen before. Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and much success in 2025.
ARTIST BIOS
Beth Chucker is a lens-based artist, educator, curator, and busy mother of twins based in Montclair, NJ. Her solo exhibitions include Family: Matters at the University of Dayton (OH/2022), Femme and Flora PopUp at 4Flavors (NJ/2021), and Comfort Food at Bard ICP (NY/2009) in addition to numerous national group exhibitions such as Photography Now (CPW) and Ode to Ballet (One Art Space NYC). Her curatorial projects include Finding Family, Sweet People, and Anything to Declare? Recent recognition consists of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards (2021, 2024) and being named a Critical Mass Top 200 Finalist (2022), in addition to having her work featured in Aint-Bad, Colors Lab, and F-Stop Magazines. She was awarded her BFA from The Corcoran College of Art and Design, a second BFA from Art Center College of Design, and an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from Bard’s ICP Program.
Morgan DeLuna is a photographic artist based in Southern California. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues that include the Los Angeles Center of Photography, The Rankin Arts Photography Center, FotoNostrum, and the San Diego Art Institute. DeLuna received the 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Award in the category Self-Portrait: Women Seen by Women for her series “Norah.” Her work has been featured in Diffusion, SHOTS magazine, and profiled online at Lenscratch, OneTwelve Publications, Canvas Rebel, and Art and Cake.
Judit German-Heins is a Hungarian-American photographer who resides in Kingston, NY. She received her MFA in Photography and Integrated Media at Lesley University College of Art and Design in 2023. Her work has been awarded by the NY Center for Photography, the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, the Houston Center for Photography, Gallery Photographica, and Photographers’ Forum Magazine. German-Heins was a 2019 and 2023 Critical Mass Finalist. She is internationally exhibited, including group shows in Houston, New York, Spain, and Germany.
Amy Helmick is a Fine Art and Portrait photographer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. She has been involved in photography since 1997, professionally since 2117. Her accomplishments include multiple Bronze Awards from The Portrait Masters Awards and Accreditation (2020-2023). Her work has been featured in Interviewing Art, The New York Optimist and Canvas Rebel online magazines (2022-2024). Exhibitions include two pieces in Your Daily Photograph by the Duncan Miller Gallery and the Blue Line Arts’ Quadrennial Politically Charged Exhibition.
Susan Lapides is a photographic artist who creates time-based projects focusing on adolescence and place, a continuation of her extensive editorial career for national publications, including photographing luminaries and extended essays on communities in New England. Most recently, St. George: ebb and flow was exhibited in a museum setting at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick, Canada, which published a monograph of the same title. Lapides was a Critical Mass Top 200 Finalist in 2019 and 2024. She is a member of the Memory is a Verb photographic collective. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts, and St. George, New Brunswick.
Aleks Miesak is a photographer from Warsaw, Poland, living in Livingston, MT. Her work encompasses traditional film photography as well as alternative historical printing methods. She studied art history and photography at New Jersey City University. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions nationally; venues include SoHo Photo (NY), Rayko Photo Center (CA), PhotoPlace (VT), PRAXIS (MN), and virtual exhibitions with the Lucie Foundation and Rfotofolio. She was a finalist in the Lucie Foundation’s Cate Blanche competition.
Charlotte Niel is a self-taught photographer and visual artist focusing on identity, memory, and loss. Niel’s work has been shown nationally, is held in private collections, and has been published both nationally and internationally. Exhibition venues include the deYoung Museum, Harvey Milk Center, Center for Photography Carmel, the Bowers Museum, and the Griffin Museum of Photography. She has been recognized as a Critical Mass Finalist multiple times.
Kumi Oguro is a photographer working in Antwerp, Belgium, who has participated in exhibitions and art/photography fairs in Europe, the USA, Canada, and Japan. Her first photobook, NOISE, was published in 2008 by Le Caillou Bleu (Brussels); her second photobook, HESTER, was published by Stockmans Art Books (Duffel, Belgium) in 2021. Most recently, Oguro’s work was recognized as the 2024 BBA One Shot Award winner.
Amy Parrish is an American artist and writer living in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. Festival selections include Indian Photo Fest, Beirut Image Festival, Kuala Lumpur PhotoAwards, Angkor Photo Festival, and Scotland’s ACTINIC Festival. Other notable highlights include an NPR feature, the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and studio practice filmed for two seasons of Photovision. Her writing can be found on a number of platforms, including LensCulture, where she has also reviewed hundreds of portfolios from contemporary photographers around the globe.
AnnMarie Tornabene is a New York-born photographer and professional artists’ model now residing in France. While exhibiting internationally, Tornabene has been reviewed and published numerous times by The Eye of Photography, OpenEye, Corridor Elephant, The New York Times, Newsday, and other fine art online and print magazines/blogs. She has spoken about her work at universities and in artists’ and women’s groups; her images have invoked essays and prose. Her photography is included in personal and institutional collections in the US, Canada, UK, Hungary, and Japan.
Nina Weinberg Doran is a self-taught photographer living in New York. She has shown her work nationally and internationally; recent venues include PH21, Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Atlanta Photography Group, Culture Lab, Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Center for Photographic Art. Awards recognizing her work include the Pollux Award (2023), the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2010, 2017, & 2020), and the Robert Cornelius Portrait Award (2010). Her work has been featured in Shots, F-Stop Magazine, Feature Shoot, Don’t Take Pictures, Fraction, and Black & White Magazines.
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