Engage with the International Center of Photography

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Photography from Isolation to Communication: Ben Gest (April 22, 23, 24)

Around the world, we are all under very tight parameters. Our movements and interactions are limited. What can be done with photography under such restrictions? Creative work always needs parameters. They help us to reconsider and reinvent. Isolation can also be a time for reflection, reviewing work we have made, and shaping it into something meaningful.

Photography from Isolation to Communication is a series of online 60-minute lectures that demonstrate and discuss in detail what can be done with photography in our present restrictions. 

All lectures are scheduled to take place from 1 to 2 PM EST. Tickets are $35 for general audience and $30 for ICP members and give access to each speaker's series of three lectures.


Photography from Isolation to Communication with Ben Gest

This class will meet for three one-hour sessions: April 22, 1 PM; April 23, 1 PM; April 24, 1 PM

Session 1. Decision in the Digital Darkroom (April 22)

Students explore the process of decision making in a digital darkroom and how integral those choices are the creation of meaning in a photograph. Ben Gest will discuss the set of decisions he made in the creation of one of his own photographs from start to finish.  The class will look at how post-processing decisions help create the end product and consider the process by which meaningful choices are made. 

Session 2. Toward the final image (April 23)

In this presentation, Ben Gest  will discuss how the use of the computer allows for a rethinking of the photographic space.  He will look at painting and consider how the way photographers manage spatial constraints could be informed by solutions embedded in paintings of the past. 

Session 3. The impossible Portrait (April 24)

In this presentation, Ben Gest asks how the necessity of the photographer to be physically present in the making of a photograph disrupts any sense of “aloneness” that could be conveyed by the subject.  Successfully removing the presence of the photographer is inherently contradictory to very nature of the medium.  How can a photographer subvert this ‘constraint’ and in doing so challenge the very nature of the medium relationship to indexing of the world?


Please note: All sales are final and no refunds will be given.