Former Students, Interns, Assistants
While many people have taken courses with me over the decades, a few have studied with me at length. For some I’ve served as a thesis advisor, on the MFA and doctoral-dissertation levels. Other people have worked with me as interns and assistants. They’re now leading their own lives, many of them professionals in the field. Here are a few of whom I’m particularly proud:
Steve Albahari came to me through a work-study program at Bennington College. During that period he developed from scratch the early version of what eventually became my published bibliography. Still a photographer himself, he is founder and director of the photo-publishing house 21st.
Kate Palmer Albers took an independent seminar in criticism of photography with me in New York City in the late ’90s. She’s now Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Arizona, School of Art, specializing in the history of photography.
I served as Fran Antmann‘s doctoral thesis advisor at New York University, then wrote a catalogue essay for her subsequent show combining her own imagery of the mining town of Morococha (in the Peruvian Andes) with the images of the Peruvian photographer Sebastian Rodriguez that she recovered and restored. Subsequently, I included an excerpt from that project in a show I curated for Houston Fotofest International, “Testimonies: Photography and Social Issues.” Fran, who’s also a fine writer, now teaches at Baruch College in New York and serves as Representative for the New York Metropolitan area for Adoptions International.
Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, who studied with me at the Centre d’enseignement professionnel de Vevey (CEPV) in Switzerland, received the 2006 BMW – Paris Photo Prize for photography. Mathieu, who works in Lausanne, Switzerland, also won the 2003 HSBC photographic award (while still in school).
Edward Q. Bridges, now a software engineer, runs Tinfoil, Inc., a Type-S New York corporation based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn offering internet software consulting services to other companies. In the early 1990s Ed worked with me on my bibliography, as well as on prepping materials for my archive at the Center for Creative Photography and other projects.
Matthias Bruggmann, another former student from the Centre d’enseignement professionnel de Vevey (CEPV) in Switzerland, has become a working photojournalist specializing in Middle-East hotspots. Also a skilled writer. His blog, And where it got us …, will reward your visit.
Martha Chahroudi, former Curator of Photography at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, spent a summer in the mid-1970s cataloguing and annotating my eccentric collection of books and photographs, while she was till at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. (Part of that collection then went to the VSW on long-term loan.) Since then she’s written and curated extensively.
Herman LeRoy Emmet studied with me in the MFA program at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. herman now exhibits and publishes internationally. I had the pleasure of writing introductions to his first monograph, Fruit Tramps: A Family of Migrant Farmworkers. Subsequently, I included an excerpt from that project in a show I curated for Houston Fotofest International, “Testimonies: Photography and Social Issues.”
Harris Fogel volunteered himself as an assistant during his days in the M.A. program in the School of Education at New York University, working on my bibliography. Until recently he served as Chairman of the Media Arts Department and Associate Professor of Photography at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (where I’ve taught on several occasions, and where he still teaches). Harris photographs, writes, and runs Mac Edition Radio, an internet radio program on matters Macintosh/Apple.
Larry Gianettino, a student of mine in the undergraduate Department of Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, who became well-known subsequently for his wonderful, weird close-up color portraits of toy animals, died suddenly in 2002 at the age of 45.
Peter C. Guagenti put me on the internet in 1995, designing the first web version of my newsletter, “C: the Speed of Light,” and then helping me expand that into the original model of The Nearby Café. Peter, a young Staten Island-based photographer when I first met him, went into web design and moved to Portland, OR. Visit his website here.
Connie Imboden studied with me in the MFA program at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. She now exhibits and publishes internationally. I’ve had the pleasure of writing introductions to two of her monographs, and included her work in a group show I curated for See+ Art Space/Gallery in Beijing in spring 2009.
Peter Kayafas studied with me in the undergraduate Department of Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Now Director of the Eakins Press Foundation, Peter’s a fine photographer as well (also a good writer). Stop by his website, peterkayafas.com.
Christopher Mahoney, Senior Vice President and part of the Photographs Dept. at the auction house Sotheby’s, studied with me in the undergraduate Department of Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. I shared a panel presentation with Chris at The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, in September 2006. (He was still using slides, in the age of PowerPoint; where did I go wrong?)
Ellis Marsalis, III, a member of the redoubtable Marsalis dynasty (father Ellis Jr., Wynton, Branford, et al), studied with me in the undergraduate Department of Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Ellis photographs and writes poetry, under the pen name t. p. Luce. Check out his project thaBloc.
Pamila Matharu, who co-founded the Toronto Alternative Art Fair International, also organizes Metro Desi, a Southeast Asian music event in Toronto, does her own photographic projects, produces and directs videos and films, serves on the board of Toronto’s Images Festival (film, video, installations, new media), and generally spices up the cultural scene north of the border. She interned with me for a semester, helping me to develop several databases
Tanya Murray took several seminars with me, worked with me on my bibliography, and helped develop a section of The Nearby Café called the New York Photography Calendar, which served as the infrastructure for the Café’s current popular feature, the History of Photography Calendar. Tanya then worked for Houk-Friedman Gallery and Edwynn Houk Gallery, representing such photographers as Lynn Davis and Sally Mann.
Robert Seydel studied with me in the undergraduate Department of Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. After obtaining his MFA elsewhere, he went on to serve as Director of Exhibitions at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, an organization I co-founded. He has also taught at the University of Connecticut, Dartmouth College, the University of Massachusetts, and, currently. at Hampshire College. Here’s a sampling from his project “A Short History of Portraiture.”
Sally Stein took my seminar on photography criticism at the New School for Social Research in the early 1970s, then did independent study with me. Since then she has taught, researched, written, and published widely.
Tove Thage, who studied with me in the doctoral Cinema Studies program of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, served as Chief Curator at the Frederiksborg Museum and the National Portrait Gallery of Denmark. Now she is a freelance editor, writer, and curator in Denmark. For her latest project, “Contemporary Danish Photography & Video in Seoul,” click on this link.
