Press arrests used to silence protest coverage in 2025

Via US Press Freedom Tracker

December 15, 2025

 While covering anything from protests to government meetings, journalists in 2025 were pulled from news scenes, placed in cuffs and held in custody from minutes to days — long enough for deadlines to pass and breaking news to go cold.

As of Dec. 15, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented at least 32 instances in which journalists were detained or charged just for doing their jobs. While that count is lower than the 50 documented last year, each one is a warning flare that something fundamental is shifting in how authorities police information and those who gather it. Most were released without charges or had them quickly dropped, but the impact extends far beyond the time spent in custody.

One journalist arrested while covering a protest told the Tracker his arrest stopped the news from getting out. “Talk about putting the brakes on press freedom,” he said.

Protest beat as battleground

Protests have long been where the fault lines of press freedom are most visible, and 2025 was no different. Nearly 90% of the arrests and detentions this year occurred while journalists were covering demonstrations.

They all also centered around a single issue: immigration.  --click to read full report

STEVE SCHAPIRO: BEING EVERYWHERE SCREENING IN SANTA FE

 STEVE SCHAPIRO: BEING EVERYWHERE

DEC 29 & 30 · FILMMAKER Q&A

Over six decades, photographer Steve Schapiro bore witness to some of the most significant social and cultural moments in modern American history.

Monroe Gallery represents Schapiro’s historic photographs, and several are featured in the current “Artists Behind The Art” exhibition.

Shot shortly before his passing by filmmaker Maura Smith, Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere is a loving tribute to a man who was the quintessential "fly on the wall," waiting for moments to unfold and capturing them with a naturalism and skill that's nothing short of dazzling.

Sky Cinemas    (505) 216-5678

1606 Alcaldesa St. Santa Fe, NM 87501

Monday, December 29 7 PM

Tuesday, December 30  5PM

TIME Top 100 Photos of 2025; includes photo by Mark Peterson

 Via TIME

November 25, 2025

We stand at scenic overlooks and lift our lens to capture a post card view that, of course, looks better on a postcard. It’s not about gear, or the 10,000 hours. It’s simply that almost any photograph is improved by having people in it—a lesson TIME’s Top 100 Photographs of 2025 underscores in images that capture not only a year, but also the faint but discernable shadow cast by a less human future.

The moments photojournalists document tend to be most visible on faces: the panic of a fallen runner about to be spiked, the anguish in an immigrant in a headlock, a smiling Buddha toppled in a quake. Robots (in a footrace, at a bedside) serve as comic relief partly because they have no faces. But, as machines, they carry the same ambiguous edge as artificial intelligence. In Ahmedabad, the tail section of an Air India flight juts from a building like a paper airplane that sailed in and stuck. And in Portland, Ore., sworn agents of the United States government all but disappear inside red smoke, body armor and gas masks. — Karl Vick

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani talks to the press and meets with supporters at a park in Midtown Manhattan, on Oct. 28. Mark Peterson—Redux

WNYC: Photographer Steve Schapiro Witnessed American History

 Via All Of It with Alison Stewart

WNYC

November 15, 2025

 

 Photographer Steve Schapiro was often at the scene. Schapiro photographed historical Civil Rights marches, public figures like Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, and Robert Kennedy, and was also called to photograph films like "Taxi Driver" and "The Godfather." Before Schapiro died in 2022 at the age of 88, he sat down for interviews to reflect on his life and career. The result of those interviews is a new documentary, "Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere".

Several of Schapiro's iconic photographs are featured in the new exhibit "Artists Behind The Art", opening at Monroe Gallery November 28, 2025 and on exhibit through January 25, 2026.

Gallery Photographer Bing Guan Covers Historic NYC Mayoral Race For Politico

 

"A marathon Election Day in the books for Politico—19ish hours of coverage across three boroughs chasing Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo across the city that never sleeps, fueled by halal cart & an obscene number of coffees." --Bing Guan

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani addresses supporters after being declared winner of the 2025 New York City mayoral election at his election night watch party at the Brooklyn Paramount in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 4, 2025. | Bing Guan for POLITICO

Zohran Mamdani wins NYC mayoral race

The democratic socialist vanquished Andrew Cuomo in a contest being closely watched by national Democrats, Republicans and the White House. --click for Politico article with photos

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22

Via Fall of Freedom

Tracy Barbutes

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

In solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibit in the Gallery and Online November 18 - 22 of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

View the exhibition here.

Find an event near you.

Nina Berman

F**k the KKK, New Jersey, 1990

Inside NPPA’s fight for the future of photojournalism

 Via Editor and Publisher

November 1, 2025

For decades, visual journalism has been at the heart of storytelling — shaping how audiences understand, connect with, and remember the world around them. Yet as newsroom budgets tighten, the visual side of journalism has become one of the first casualties. The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) is trying to change that. --Click for full article

How two photojournalists are dealing with the trauma of documenting immigrant detentions at Federal Plaza

 Via AM New York

October 28, 2025

ICE in courts: How two photojournalists are dealing with the trauma of documenting immigrant detentions at Federal Plaza

Almost every day for five months, photojournalists David Dee Delgado and Carol Guzy have entered 26 Federal Plaza with cameras in hand, ready to capture what many are calling one of the most startling stories of this century: ICE detainments inside the immigration court.

Guzy, 69, and Delgado, 49, have walked the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza, working alongside amNewYork and other outlets to document masked federal agents arresting immigrants who attended legally mandated court hearings. With Delgado on assignment for Reuters, a photo agency, and Guzy performing a long-term photo project, both shutterbugs knew that the proliferation and escalation of President Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown was going to be a vital story to tell. - click for full article

"Guzy, a multi-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has covered war zones, the toll of gun violence, and much more, yet says covering ICE arrests has affected her unlike anything else in her long career."

"I know down the line, I’m pretty sure this is gonna come out in some type of f**ked up way. I’m probably gonna need therapy, but, yeah, but at this moment, you know, I just go through the motions,” Delgado said."

Work In Progress Podcast Conversations With Creators Features Ed Kashi

 Via Work In Progress 

October 22, 2025

WORK IN PROGRESS: CONVERSATIONS WITH CREATORS is a monthly arts podcast with Albuquerque Journal writer Logan Royce Beitmen. Logan talks to visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, and others about their current projects, getting inside the minds of creators and exploring their creative processes.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Conversations with Creators | Podcast on Spotify

WORK IN PROGRESS: Conversations with Creators Podcast on Apple

View the exhibition Ed Kashi A Period In Time here

Photojournalist Ed Kashi on his career-spanning exhibition at Monroe Gallery

 Via The Albuquerque Journal

October 19, 2025

Ed Kashi

In a Turkish terrorist court in Diyarbakir, this Kurdish woman was sentenced to 13 years in prison, accused of belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which seeks to create an independent state in southeastern Turkey, 2006

By Logan Beitman

Even people who don’t know Ed Kashi’s name are often familiar with his photographs. Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, the award-winning photojournalist has created memorable long-form photo-essays for National Geographic, and his work has been published in Time, Newsweek and The New York Times. The World Photography Organisation has called him “one of the leading and most innovative photojournalists of our time.”

Kashi’s current, career-spanning exhibition at Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, “Ed Kashi: A Period in Time,” is also the title of his most recent book. The exhibition runs through Nov. 16.

Known for documenting some of the world’s most challenging social and geopolitical issues, Kashi’s subjects have ranged from Protestants in Northern Ireland during the time of the Troubles to oil workers in the Niger Delta to America’s rapidly aging population.

Ed Kashi

A worker subcontracted by Shell Oil Company cleans up an oil spill from a well owned by Shell that had been left abandoned for over 25 years, 2004

“One of the many reasons that I feel so fortunate that I’ve been able to have a long career in this field is that I get to really go deep with issues and subjects that I come to truly care about and that I think that are important,” Kashi said.

One thing that sets Kashi apart from more events-driven news photographers is the length of time he spends with his subjects. He often embeds himself with the groups he’s documenting for months on end, returning year after year for decades-long projects.

“I often say I’m as much of an anthropologist as I am a journalist,” Kashi said. “While many of my projects have a journalistic edge, or they’re topical — like oil in Nigeria or Jewish settlers in the West Bank — I’m not a great news photographer, and frankly, I don’t like working in situations where there’s a lot of other media around. It always feels intrusive to me, and it makes me uncomfortable.

“I much prefer to work where my subjects, or collaborators, as I like to call them, are my own, and I’m able to develop a direct relationship,” he said.

One of Kashi’s longest-running photojournalism projects centered on the Kurdish diaspora. He began photographing the Kurds for National Geographic in 1991 — his first major project for the magazine — and kept returning to the subject for the next three decades.

“It was something I really cared about, and I was given this tremendous support that only National Geographic could give, where I went to eight countries — not only in the Middle East, but in the Kurdish diaspora in Germany and the U.K. — and I was really able to spend time to tell a very deep story about what was the largest ethnic group in the world without a nation of their own,” Kashi said. “The Kurds have the geopolitical misfortune of being in what is now Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, mainly, so not the friendliest places for a minority group.”

One of Kashi’s most compelling images from that series was taken at a military tribunal in Diyarbakir, Turkey. A fashionably dressed Kurdish woman, accused of being a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), stands at a cage-like witness stand, a handful of armed military men behind her.

“I think I got in because I was following a Kurdish human rights lawyer, so I sort of traipsed into the courtroom with him and made a few pictures. And that ended up being a very significant image,” Kashi said. “But after that image appeared in the magazine, they (the Turkish government) confiscated all the copies of (that) 1992 issue of National Geographic within Turkey.”

Despite the attempted censorship, that image, and others from the series, reached a wide international audience. Kashi credits those images with bringing much greater attention to the persecution of the Kurds, a subject that had previously gone underreported.

The Turkish government, meanwhile, grew increasingly restrictive on press freedom. Government repression is an ever-present challenge for photojournalists around the world, Kashi said, and something he has contended with many times.

“For journalists, and particularly for photographers, there is a constant battle of how much can we get away with. How close can we get? What can we access? And when that gets shut down, we have to find other ways to gain access,” he said.

The global landscape for press freedom has gotten significantly worse in recent years, according to Kashi, with widespread and concerted attacks on journalists that he calls “unprecedented.”

“Look at our own Pentagon and the restrictions they’re trying to place on the media,” Kashi said. “It’s a very interesting and tricky moment right now for the media in general, all around the world. There’s been an increase in journalists being arrested, imprisoned and in some cases killed, particularly in Gaza.”

Although Kashi said he has sometimes risked his life for stories, he was never deliberately targeted, the way he said some journalists are currently being targeted and killed in places such as Gaza and Ukraine.

“I’ve not worked in Ukraine, but a colleague of mine, who works a lot with the New York Times as a photographer, was just saying, the scariest thing is when you’re driving down a highway and you hear a drone overhead. It’s not even about (accidentally being hit by) missiles or bombardment from planes or artillery. It’s that a drone can take your car out because they suspect you of being the enemy, or they just want to,” Kashi said. “They know you’re a journalist. They wanted to target you.”

Despite the dangers, photojournalists continue doing their jobs, Kashi said, because they know it can change people’s hearts and minds. Kashi has seen the far-reaching impact his own work has had, and he hopes it will inspire others.

“If you tell good stories, and you tell them in an authentic and sincere way, you can reach people. You can penetrate their consciousness,” Kashi said. “And whether they donate money, or they get involved through their actions, or, at the very least, you might change their mind about something. That’s the reason we must do this work.”

Ed Kashi

A journey, made in 1999, to some of Peru's most outstanding natural and man-made sights. A cloudy view near Machu Picchu.

How we captured the photo of federal immigration agents pointing a crowd control weapon at a protester

 Via The Chicago Sun Times

October 18, 2025

"Our photographers will continue to document these stories and more as they unfold. We couldn’t be prouder of their work. Here are 18 more photos from the Sun-Times."

Ron Haviv Exhibition Featured At FOTOIST - International Photography Festival - Edition 3

Via Fotoist International Photography Festival

October 17, 2025 

Program – FOTOIST

Exhibition: "A Brief Guide to Investigating War Crimes” by Ron Haviv - VII Foundation / 17.10.2025 / 18:00 / Barabar Centre - Grand 4th Floor 

Photo: © Ron Haviv – VII Foundation / Young Darfuri girls leave a camp for internally displaced persons to gather firewood. Girls as young as 8 have been raped, attacked and killed trying to get wood. Darfur, Sudan, 2005

Exhibition: “A Brief Guide to Investigating War Crimes” by Ron Haviv

World-Renowned Photojournalist Ron Haviv Presents “A Brief Guide to Investigating War Crimes”

Internationally acclaimed photojournalist and co-founder of the VII Foundation, Ron Haviv, in collaboration with the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), presents the powerful exhibition “A Brief Guide to Investigating War Crimes.”

Curated by Haviv himself, the exhibition draws from the GIJN’s definitive guide for journalists covering war crimes, and features evocative and hard-hitting imagery by members of the prestigious VII Foundation. Through a compelling visual narrative, the exhibition explores the brutal realities of armed conflict, the mechanisms of war crimes, and their long-lasting human and societal impacts.

“A Brief Guide to Investigating War Crimes” underscores the critical role of investigative journalism, human rights advocacy, and legal accountability in uncovering the truth. It stands as both a tribute to courageous reporting and a call to action for justice and transparency in times of war.

RON HAVIV

Ron Haviv is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and an award-winning photojournalist. He co-founded VII Photo Agency and The VII Foundation, where he currently serves as a director. He is dedicated to documenting conflict and raising human rights issues around the globe.

Haviv’s first photography book, Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal, was called “One of the best non-fiction books of the year,” by The Los Angeles Times and “A chilling but vastly important record of a people’s suffering” by Newsweek. His other monographs are Afghanistan: The Road to Kabul, Haiti: 12 January 2010, The Lost Rolls and Shadow of Memory.

Haviv has produced an unflinching record of the injustices of war covering over twenty-five conflicts and his photography has had singular impact. His work in the Balkans, which spanned over a decade of conflict, was used as evidence to indict and convict war criminals at the international tribunal in The Hague. President George H.W Bush cited Haviv’s chilling photographs documenting paramilitary violence in Panama as one of the reasons for the 1989 American intervention.

His work is in the collections of The Getty, Eastman House and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston amongst others and has been seen in numerous other museums and galleries, including the Louvre, United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, Fotografiska, and the International Center of Photography.

Haviv has co-created multi-platform projects for Doctors Without Borders’ DR Congo: The Forgotten War and Starved for Attention, Unicef’s Child Alert for Darfur and Sri Lanka and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s World at War. His commercial clients include Ad Council, American Express, BAE, Canon USA, ESPN, IBM and Volkswagen.

Haviv is the central character in six documentary films, including National Geographic Explorer’s Freelance in a World of Risk, in which he speaks about the dangers of combat photography, including his numerous detentions and close calls. He has provided expert analysis and commentary on ABC World News, BBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, and The Charlie Rose Show. He has written opinion pieces for the Washington Post and The New York Times and spoken at TEDx along with numerous other lectures at Universities and conferences.

He is currently co-directing two documentaries, Biography of a Photo and Picasso of Harlem.

Anna Boyiazis Receives Highly Commended Recognition At 61st Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2025

 Via Natural History Museum in London

October 15, 2025

Wildlife Photographer of the Year at The Natural History Museum in London celebrates the extraordinary life with which we share this planet, while illuminating some of the urgent threats it faces. On exhibit October 17, 2025 to July 12, 2026. 

Anna Boyiazis (USA) documents this low-tide scene of seaweed farmers tending to their underwater farm on the Zanzibar coast.

Seaweed farmers Maua Mkubwa (standing) and Maua Mdogo nurture their undersea garden in the Indian Ocean off  Paje, Zanzibar, within the Menai Bay Conservation Area, the archipelago’s largest marine-protected area. As members of the women-led, community-based Mwani (Swahili for seaweed) Zanzibar co-operative, they sustainably harvest a red alga in the genus Eucheuma, known as eucheumatoid seaweeds. These are used to create handmade skincare for international markets.

This recent initiative is empowering local women and improving the livelihoods of families traditionally reliant on fishing — now facing depleted stocks due to climate change, overfishing and destructive practices. Seaweed cultivation also has environmental benefits: the fronds absorb carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and take up nitrogen and phosphorus, and act as a water purifier ­by reducing acidification and removing some pollutants. All this, while providing precious habitat for marine life.

Anna is a documentary photographer based between Southern California, USA, and East Africa. Her areas of focus include conservation, human rights, public health and women and girls’ issues. Her ongoing project Finding Freedom in the Water, which was first published by National Geographic, documents women and girls in Zanzibar learning to swim – an act of emancipation. Anna is a contributing photographer for GEO, National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine. She has an MFA from the Yale School of Art and a BA from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

Fragments in Time, a powerful two-person exhibition of work by renowned photojournalists Ashley Gilbertson and Franco Pagetti, opening this fall at Stanley. The exhibition is presented courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography.

 

Via Twenty Summers

Twenty Summers is proud to present Fragments in Time, a powerful two-person exhibition of work by renowned photojournalists Ashley Gilbertson and Franco Pagetti, opening this fall at Stanley. The exhibition is presented courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography.

First shown at Mad Rose Gallery in Millerton, NY, Fragments in Time brings together two distinct photographic voices in a tightly woven visual conversation that ranges in subject matter from the fashion world to the war torn lands, from refugee camps to New York during the pandemic. Though their assignments in conflict zones have taken them to different places—Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and beyond—Gilbertson’s and Pagetti’s work in this sphere overlaps in theme and sensibility, showing a deep concern for both soldiers’ and civilians’ experience of war, the emotional residue of violence, and the personal, often ambiguous role of the photographer as witness. War is not an event but a state that persists in bodies, landscapes, and memory.

At Stanley, these and other images—intimate, unflinching, and formally rigorous—are installed in close proximity, allowing the viewer to move between scenes of devastation, reflection, solitude, and survival.

Fragments in Time Opening Reception

Friday, October 10, 2025

7:00 PM  9:00 PM

Stanley

494 Commercial Street

Provincetown, MA, 02657

RSVP here

Fragments in Time | Ashley Gilbertson and Ben Brody in Conversation

Join us for an evening of conversation and reflection as photographers Ashley Gilbertson and Ben Brody explore the role of images in shaping memory, documenting conflict, and capturing fleeting moments in time. Presented as part of our new exhibition Fragments in Time, this event invites audiences into a dialogue on storytelling, truth, and the emotional weight of visual history.

RSVP here.

Saturday, October 11, 2025

6:00 PM  7:30 PM

Stanley

494 Commercial Street

Provincetown, MA, 02657

American photojournalist urges Kurds to honor past while embracing future

 Photojournalist Ed Kashi will be at the Gallery tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 3 for a book signing and conversation with Don Carleton, Executive Director of the Briscoe Center For American History.

Conversation begins at 5:30, book signing follows

Seating is limited RSVP essential

Exhibition continues through November 16, 2025

Via RUDAW

October 2, 2025

Watch video here

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An American photojournalist who has documented Kurdish struggles for more than three decades urged Kurds to honor their history while also embracing their cultural identity and future role in the world.

“It’s important to hold on and remember the past, but it’s so important to move forward… not to forget the past, but not to dwell on it,” Ed Kashi told Rudaw earlier this week. 

Kashi said that he first arrived in what is now Kurdistan Region in 1991 during the refugee crisis that followed the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein, which was then brutally suppressed and led to a massive refugee crisis as over a million Kurds fled to the mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders, fearing renewed genocide. In response, a US-led Coalition launched Operation Provide Comfort to deliver aid and enforce a No-Fly Zone, which led to a de facto safe haven where Kurds began to establish their own autonomous administration in 1992.

“I was with [Kurdistan Democratic Party President Masoud] Barzani and [late Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal] Talabani in the mountains,” he recalled. “They were trying to figure out what to do… reclaiming their authority for good and bad, establishing political structures, economic structures, [and] trying to figure out how to reclaim this land.”

“There is so many reasons now for Kurdish people, especially in Iraq… [where] you actually have a chance to move forward, you know, to teach new generations about your amazing, glorious history and past, and to talk about good things that are happening,” Kashi said

Reflecting on the aftermath of the Anfal campaign in 1988, which killed an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds and destroyed more than 4,000 villages, he said, “I had never seen anything like that before: all the destroyed villages, towns and communities.”

Kashi, who spoke to Rudaw on the sidelines of the inaugural Kurdish Studies Forum at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) on Saturday, echoed an AUIS graduate Lana Salim, who last week, during an episode of Rudaw’s Legel Ranj program, said Kurds should not only look back on tragedy but also celebrate their cultural and artistic contributions. “It is time for us as Kurds… to remind ourselves of the cultural and artistic essence we have, [and] act based on the premise that we should be a player in the world,” she said.

His 1994 book When the Borders Bleed: Struggle of the Kurd, which he published with the late British journalist Christopher Hitchens, had lasting resonance. 

“A Kurd I met in Europe told me that book taught them about their history,” Kashi said. “One of the beautiful things about doing something for so long is when you meet people and realize your work had an impact on their lives.”

“I truly believe if we can change one mind, that is when change begins,” the photojournalist said. “If you can change one young person to maybe become a historian or a Kurdish scholar or a journalist to tell the stories of their own people, that is a beautiful thing.”

Beyond Extraction: Nina Berman

 Via The SNF Rendez-Vous de l’Institut 

October 2, 2025

Beyond Extraction

Nina Berman

SNF RENDEZ-VOUS

7 p.m.

Reid Hall | 4, rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris

Free, registration required

Beyond Extraction: Climate Futures and a Photography of Ecology

Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered.


Please note that access will not be permitted 15 minutes after the start of the event.


This event will be held in English.

To be notified of upcoming Institute for Ideas and Imagination events, we invite you to sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Nina Berman will present work on communities trapped amid extractive violence as a launching point for a larger discussion about trends in both journalism and photography and the importance of centering radical climate futures as a topic of inquiry.

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, journalist, and professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her work looks at war, militarism, trauma, and environmental justice. She is a 2025 Guggenheim fellow, the author of three books, and is represented in numerous public collections including the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Smithsonian.

The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Panel Discussion With Nina Berman: The Personal and Collaborative: Women Photographers on Relationship–Focused Modes of Representation

 Via Ballarat International Foto Biennale

September 9, 2025

Panel Discussion: The Personal and Collaborative: Women Photographers on Relationship–Focused Modes of Representation

Nina Berman and Raphaella Rosella in conversation with Fiona Morris and Gemma Turnbull

Online Event - Book here

Contemporary documentary photographers and photomedia artists seek to address issues of representation and testimony by utilising new storytelling approaches, including nonlinear narratives, repurposing archival footage and collaborative practices. There has been a move from photographers recording ‘the other’ to working with non-artist individuals to share their own lived experiences. This turn towards the personal and collaborative has been led by women, rejecting the selective history which has been represented by the dominantly white, male, heteronormative gaze of the documentary mode. The work still questions and highlights social issues, including gender, representation and displacement, but from personal perspectives.

This online panel exploring the ethics, benefits and challenges of a collaborative documentary approach will focus on two women photographers: American documentary photographer Nina Berman’s whose work An Autobiography of Miss Wish (2017) is the product of a 25–year exchange between her and friend and collaborator Kimberly Stevens and Australian artist Raphaela Rosella who has spent decades co-creating photo-based projects alongside significant women in her life––low socio-economic communities with limited access to adequate support and opportunities. It will be led by Dr Gemma Turnbull and Fiona Morris, both Australian photographers and academics.

Participants will be emailed a Zoom link prior to the panel.

Please note: parental guidance may be needed for participants under the age of 18.

About the Panel

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, journalist and educator.  Her work explores American politics, militarism, environmental issues and post violence trauma.  She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq, (Trolley, 2004) portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland, (Trolley, 2008) an examination of the militarization of American life post September 11, and An autobiography of Miss Wish (Kehrer, 2017) a story told with a survivor of sexual violence which was shortlisted for both the Aperture and Arles book prizes. Her work has been exhibited at more than 100 international venues from the Whitney Museum Biennial to the concrete security walls at the Za’atari refugee camp. Public collections include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of the City of New York, the Harvard Art Museums and the Bibliothèque nationale de France among others. She has participated in workshops around the world for young photographers and writes frequently on photojournalism for the Columbia Journalism Review. She is a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

Fiona Morris is an Associate Lecturer in Visual Arts and Photography at the University of Wollongong where she is also a PhD candidate. Her photographic practice and research explore representation and personal narratives in the expanding field of documentary photography. With over 15 years of experience, Fiona has worked extensively across media and non-governmental organisations, including as a photographer for Fairfax Media, Getty Images, Greenpeace Australia, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Her work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals both nationally and internationally, with shows in the United States, France, Lithuania, and Hong Kong.

Raphaela (Rosie) Rosella is an Italian Australian artist from Nimbin – an over-policed, low socio-economic community in New South Wales. For over fifteen years, she has worked at the intersection of socially engaged art and documentary practice, co-creating lens-based works alongside her sisters, friends, and family – women directly impacted by the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Together, they have built a co-created archive spanning photography, moving image, audio, and the collection of ephemera and state-issued documents, to resist bureaucratic representations of their lived experiences. Beyond the gallery, their work plays a critical role in legal and personal spaces – appearing in family albums, memorials, custody disputes, and courtrooms. It has supported successful bail and parole applications and contributed to reduced custodial sentences. Rosella holds a PhD from RMIT’s School of Art (2025). From an abolition feminist standpoint, her research offers a relational framework for decarcerating archives within long-form and collaborative documentary photography projects.

Gemma Turnbull is an Australian artist, researcher, and educator whose work exposes and challenges the historical weaponisation of photography against marginalised communities. She positions collaborative practice as a reparative approach to documentary storytelling, focusing on amplifying images made by and with people typically excluded from mainstream art spaces.

George Eastman Museum acquires prints by Mark Peterson and Bing Guan

 September 8, 2025

The George Eastman Museum has acquired prints by Mark Peterson and Bing Guan for their permanent collection.

Mark Peterson: Waiting for election results at a Trump watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, November, 2024

Bing Guan: New York Police officers in riot gear enter Hamilton Hall at Columbia University, New York, April 30, 2024

Mark Peterson is a photographer based in New York City. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, National Geographic, Geo Magazine and other national and international publications. In 2018 he was awarded the W. Eugene Smith grant for his work on White Nationalism. This photograph was published in The New York Times and selected as one of the "photos that defined 2024."

Bing Guan 管秉宸  is a Chinese American  photographer and journalist. He is based between New York City and Southern California. He is currently an adjunct professor of photography at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Bing is a regular contributor to Reuters, Bloomberg, and The New York Times. 

The George Eastman Museum is located in Rochester, New York, on the estate of George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography and motion picture film. Founded in 1947 as an independent nonprofit institution, it is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. The museum holds unparalleled collections—encompassing several million objects—in the fields of photography, cinema, and photographic and cinematographic technology, and photographically illustrated books. The institution is also a longtime leader in film preservation and photographic conservation.

"Throughout its history, our institution has collected and exhibited photographs and films that address timely and timeless topics."

In an era dominated by misinformation and digital manipulation, photojournalism plays a vital role in restoring trust and authenticity in media. Verified images serve as undeniable evidence of events, countering false narratives and providing clarity in a world overwhelmed by conflicting information. This power makes photojournalism an indispensable tool in the fight against fake news.

Watch Refractions: A Conversation with Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe

 Via B&H Photo Refractions

September 4, 2025

About Stephen Mallon

Stephen Mallon is a photographer and filmmaker who specializes in the industrial-scale creations of mankind at unusual moments of their life cycles. 

Mallon’s work blurs the line between documentary and fine art, revealing the industrial landscape to be unnatural, desolate and functional yet simultaneously also human, surprising and inspiring. It has been featured in publications and by broadcasters including Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, National Geographic, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail, MSNBC, PBS, GQ, CBS, the London Times and Vanity Fair. Mallon has exhibited in cities including Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, St. Louis and New York, as well as in England and Italy. 

Stephen’s project following the MTA’a artificial reef project where over 2000 subway cars were placed in the Atlantic was shown at The New York Transit Museum’s Grand Central Terminal Gallery. Over 60,000 people experienced the exhibition and was featured by Gothamist, Artnet, Yahoo, Fox News, and numerous other outlets. 

As David Schonauer wrote in Pro Photo Daily, “Mallon’s word harkens back to the heroic industrial landscapes of Margaret Bourke-White and Charles Sheeler, who glorified American steel and found art in its industrial muscle and smoke during the Great Depression.” He has also been compared to photographers including Edward Burtynsky, Thomas Struth and Chris Jordan. 

Mallon served as a board member of the New York chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers from 2002 until 2020 and served as president from 2006 to 2009. He is represented by Front Room Gallery in New York.

Tracy Barbutes Photographs Yosemite Protest Rally For The SF Standard

Via The San Francisco Standard

August 25, 2025

At the rally on Sunday, people sign the same trans pride flag that Joslin and others helped hang on El Cap earlier this year. | Source:Tracy Barbutes for The Standard

Protesters rally in Yosemite for ranger fired over hanging trans pride flag

The Yosemite community has been reeling since Shannon "SJ" Joslin’s firing. --Click to read full article

"...then an upside-down U.S. flag in February to protest the NPS budget cuts. None of the people who hung those flags faced consequences. That upside-down flag garnered international attention and showed the power of El Capitan as a symbol"

An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Falls to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration, February 22, 2025

©Tracy Barbutes

Related: Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images.