Vantage Points
Allen Frame: Fever
Fever, Allen Frame’s new book of 50 color photographs made in 1981 in New York City, was released by Matte Editions in May this year.
Frame moved to New York in 1977 and began to photograph friends from his college days and others he was meeting. By 1981, he had a circle of artist friends that he photographed in his apartment, their studios, on beaches, and on the streets of New York. Frame had previously worked mostly in black and white, but in 1981, he photographed extensively with color. At the end of the book, Frame interviews eight of the artists who are still living about that period in New York.
The introduction to Fever is by Drew Sawyer, the Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator at the Brooklyn Museum. The book is published in an edition of 600 copies, 152 pages, 50 color photographs and ephemera. A deluxe edition of 25 copies priced at $200 each includes a 4x6 digital chromogenic print of the photograph Bob, George, Bill, Charlie, and Zamba at Jones Beach signed and hand numbered by the artist.
Fever is the 6th book published by Matte Editions, the Brooklyn-based publishing imprint of Matthew Leifheit. MATTE Magazine, founded in 2010 as a platform for new ideas in photography, has recently published work by emerging artists including Chanell Stone, Leor Miller, Olivia Reavey, and Hak Dixon.
Allen Frame is a photographer and writer, based in New York and represented by Gitterman Gallery. He has released four books of photography: Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2023); Innamorato (Meteoro Editions, 2023); Fever, (Matte Editions, 2021); and Detour, (Kehrer, 2001). Currently, his work appears in the exhibition Mexichrome at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. His two-person exhibition Lost and Found was presented at Soft Network in New York, in November. He is a winner of the 2017/2018 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and CEC Artslink’s Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2019. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Luxe, Calme, Volupte, which he co-curated with Sergio Bessa at Candice Madey Gallery in 2023. He is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts (BFA), the International Center of Photography in New York, and for StrudelmediaLive.
Allen teaches “The Life You’re In: The Joy and Pathos of Autobiography” for StrudelmediaLive.
allenframe.net
Makeda Best is the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums. Her fall exhibition is Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970. Her next exhibition at Harvard will explore the work of Darrell Ellis. With FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator Kevin Moore, she is co-curator of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial group exhibition, On the Line.
Vantage Points
David Oxton and James Prochnik: Trainspotting
North of Boston, commuter trains roll through suburban neighborhoods, fly past backyards, and sometimes race by homes so close it looks like people hanging out on their back porch could reach out and touch them. Photographer and educator David Oxton wondered what everday life in such close proximity to these enormous, rushing trains looked like. His curiosity resulted in two projects: Trackside: Backyards and Trackside: Stations.
James Prochnik’s photo project started from the opposite perspective — inside the train looking out. When Prochnik’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he began taking frequent trips on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor from New York City to Washington, DC to help out his father. These trips were melancholy, and he often didn’t feel like doing much but stare out the window. What he saw sparked a growing fascination — first at the expressive graffiti giving voice to the communities they passed through, and later at the whole sprawling mess. He began making pictures, using his practice as a street photographer to find moments and stories in the trackside landscapes speeding by. Track Record, the result of those pictures, is a unique journey through America’s urban, industrial, and rural backyards.
In this free talk co-presented by the NYC Photo Community and StrudelmediaLive, these two photographers will share their photos and train stories.
David Oxton is a Boston area photographer and educator who creates photographs that blend constructed tableaus with candid moments. Images from his latest Trackside project have been exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Montserrat College of Art, and Lesley University; and published in Shots Magazine and Cape Ann magazine. David — a commercial and editorial photographer for 10 years before concentrating on fine art photo projects — lives and teaches in the northeastern corner of Massachusetts.
James Prochnik is a Brooklyn-based photographer who uses photography as a means to explore the world outside, focusing on people, place, memory and the poetry of the everyday. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, Vice Media, Lenscratch, USA Today, and Shots Magazine and have been exhibited in galleries around the country. In 2019, James launched NYC Photo Community — a weekly newsletter listing photography events, workshops, exhibitions, and opportunities for photographers everywhere. James has been a regular guest lecturer on ethics and aesthetics in street photography at the University of Vermont.
James teaches street photography, poems and pictures, richness of light, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
The Photobook Show
The Photobook Show
The Moon
These days, the photobook has become a crazy popular (and important) form of photographic expression bursting with creative energy. In this new series, StrudelmediaLive teacher Stefan Frank will be looking at recent (and not-so-recent) photobooks that you might not know about — and how they advance this unique medium.
In this first episode, Stefan will present two photobooks relating to the moon: Lunario by Guido Guidi (Mack), and Dream Moons by Yurian Quintanas Nobel (Void).
Lunario by Guido Guidi
published by Mack Books in 2020
A project composed across several decades, Guido Guidi’s Lunario comes back to the moon as a source of stylistic and thematic inspiration: a symbol of melancholy and madness, changeability and a constant reminder of the transience of everyday life.
Dream Moons by Yurian Quintanas Nobel
published by Void in 2021
“My house looked like a maze, a tenebrous shelter where nobody could enter…. I walked through its corridors and up and down the stairs, but I couldn’t reach the exit. Darkness everywhere.”
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Spontaneous In-Person Get-Together in New York City with Anja!
Hi StrudelmediaLive Community!
I would like to invite you to a spontaneous in-person student get-together in NYC this Friday, April 22 at 1pm. Join me for a brief stroll on the High Line and then we’ll visit a few galleries in Chelsea, and then go to an outdoor cafe. Bring your camera! There are lots of new and interesting buildings along the High Line.
We'll meet on the High Line on the Westside of Manhattan at 1pm. I'll email you the exact meeting location Thursday evening, once you register. Space is limited.
This is a free community event — but you must RSVP below.
The Photobook Show
The Photobook Show
Family Albums
Of all the photobooks you may encounter in your life, the family album is the first and by far the most intimate. One might say that the impulse to hold on to these memories and search through lost time is a driving factor behind many photobooks. In this episode, we’ll look at examples of how artists have translated this impulse into their work:
- Diane Arbus’s Family Albums, which examines contact sheets from several of her portrait sessions, including one with a New York family in 1969
- an actual family album — found in a flea market — from an unknown photographer
- Masahisa Fukase’s Family — a look at his own family
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Silence and Image
Let’s step out of our fast-paced lives for a brief moment and look at photobooks that deal with the topic of silence — which at first glance might seem counter-intuitive: how can you photograph sound, or even more, the absence of sound? In this episode we’ll look at examples of how photographers from both eastern and western traditions embody silence in their work:
- Yamamoto Masao’s Small Things in Silence
- Mariko Takeuchi’s collection of essays titled Silence and Image, which inspired the title of today’s show.
- Ulrich Wüst’s Stadtbilder, silent pictures of the vanished East Germany
- Work by Robert Adams — Sarah Meister (Aperture) recently edited a retrospective book with his pictures and gave it the very fitting title American Silence.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Robert Adams
Why do people take photographs? Robert Adams tried to find an answer in his 1994 book of collected essays, aptly named Why People Photograph. In this episode of the Photobook Show, we’ll try something different: instead of looking at books from different photographers grouped around a topic, we’ll look at one artist’s lifetime of work through his books.
Robert Adams, whose approach and style has been hugely influential, started photographing the American landscape in the ‘60s and is still working, now 60 years later. To mark “American Silence: The Photographs of Robert Adams” — his current exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC through October 2 — we’ll look at some of his landmark publications (The New West and Summer Nights, Walking) and American Silence (Aperture) that accompanies the exhibition.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
StrudelmediaLive Community Weekend in New York City
In-Person Get-Together in New York City with Anja
Hi StrudelmediaLive Community — I would like to invite you to our second in-person student get-together in New York City! Please join me for another curated gallery tour and get-together with other StrudelmediaLive students. We'll meet for a brief stroll on the High Line and then visit a few selected galleries in Chelsea, and then go to discuss and socialize at an outdoor cafe. Bring your camera! There are lots of new and interesting buildings along the High Line.
We'll meet on the High Line on the Westside of Manhattan at 1pm. After you register — this is a free event — we'll email you the exact meeting location shortly beforehand. Space is limited.
This is a free community event — but you must RSVP below.
This event is the first part of a special weekend we have planned: Part 2 is an in-person weekend workshop on Saturday and Sunday — see details here.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Moonlighting I: When Painters and Writers Take Pictures
What are painters looking for when they use photography in their practice? When writers pick up a camera, what do they see? Let’s take a look together at what this view from outside of photography reveals about photography itself and what we can learn from different crafts for our practice.
We’ll be looking at a wide range of books from Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer, and others. Join us in this episode of The Photobook Show for an hour of crossovers between painting, writing, and photography!
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Moonlighting II: When Writers Photograph
In our last episode (“Moonlighting I”) we looked at painters who photograph; this time we will focus on writers: how they approach photography, what we can learn from theater about staging a photograph, and what the commonalities and differences between writing and photography are. We’ll focus on the German writer Einar Schleef — a towering figure in the German-speaking literature and theatre scenes of the ‘90s — whose most famous book, Gertrud, is about his mother and his upbringing in East Germany. He photographed and painted all his life as well as writing and we’ll examine a book with contact sheets that accompanied a large retrospective on his life and work. In addition, we’ll visit the work of photographer Michael Schmidt, particularly his most well-known book, Waffenruhe, which features writing by Schleef.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
“Trance” and Altered States of Mind
Are photographs living beings? Can looking at photographic images induce altered states of mind? Why would a book of landscape pictures be titled “Trance”? We will be asking these kinds of weird questions and will look at books that take a stab at addressing them with equally weird answers. Diana Michener’s majestic book Trance gave this episode its title, but we will also look at the books of Dutch photographer Awoiska van der Molen before we venture into a classic by Lewis Baltz to find out what all of this has to do with the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Live Show and Tell
Presenting Work
Two Photobooks Published by StrudelmediaLive
Living Above the Store is a unique set of portraits using photography, text, and the individual voices of six independent business owners in the village of Rosendale — a former cement-mining town in New York’s Hudson Valley. Through this collection of environmental portraits, we see the story of how each of these owners adapted an older building to create their individual live/work space, giving them flexibility in running their shops and creating a distinctive sense of community along a two-block stretch of the town’s Main Street. Trained as an architect, author, and photographer, Christine Hunter is interested in these modern adaptations of a traditional world-wide building typology rarely found now in the United States.
In the Footsteps of Alfred by David Comora is a collection of black and white photographs taken in New York City locations where Alfred Stieglitz may have placed his feet, in a spirit he championed. His contributions to the art of photography remain critical to showing us what is possible. What started for David as the search for a truncated cityscape slowly became a study of approach and vision. This is not an homage to one of the craft’s great early masters, but rather a meditation on dedication, process, and practice.
About StrudelmediaLive Publishing
Photographers in the StrudelmediaLive community create work on a very high level and we want to nurture these projects — from start to finish — by offering our support, guidance, knowledge, and expertise in the complex process of professionally publishing their work. We feel that creating a book or zine — a physical object — is a great way to complete a project and give it the presence and audience it deserves.
StrudelmediaLive Community Weekend in New York City
In-Person Get-Together in New York City with Anja
Hi StrudelmediaLive Community — I would like to invite you to another in-person student get-together in New York City! Please join me for a curated gallery tour and get-together with other StrudelmediaLive students. We'll meet in a gallery in Chelsea at 1pm, then take a stroll through the neighborhood and then visit a few other selected galleries. Afterward, we'll go discuss and socialize at an outdoor cafe. Bring your camera!
After you register — this is a free event — we'll email you the exact meeting location shortly beforehand. Space is very limited. This is a free community event — but you must RSVP below.
This event is the first part of a special weekend we have planned: Part 2 is an in-person weekend workshop on Saturday and Sunday — see details here.
The Photobook Show
The Photobook Show
The World is Not Flat
A picture is flat, while the world it depicts is not — and it took painting and photography quite a while to become aware of this fact.The art critic Clement Greenberg places this realization — that a picture is flat — at the very beginning of modernism: “Modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of painting — the flat surface … came to be regarded as positive factors.…” There is a tension that arises between our three-dimensional world and the flatness of the picture whenever we press the shutter. In this episode, we’ll look at books featuring artists for whom this tension is central for their practice: Thomas Demand, the Swedish photographer Dawid, Steve Kahn, Christopher Wool, and Charlotte Posenenske.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Can Photography Be Funny?
In this month’s show we ask Can Photography Be Funny? Photography can be a serious business, with imagery of conflicts, crisis, and chaos; very often, there is nothing to laugh about. This begs the question: what’s the place for humor in photography? In this episode, we’ll look at books that dabble with a most tricky thing: they try to be funny. This, of course, can go horribly wrong and take us into some dangerously shallow territory. Let’s hope that the joke is not on us when we look at books by Elliot Erwitt, Paul Kooiker, and Robert Cumming.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Vantage Points
A Short History of New York City Beach Photography
with James Prochnik
Sweat, sand, and swagger are just a few ingredients that make New York City beaches magical to beachgoers and photographers alike. In this free online talk, James Prochnik guides us through iconic, influential, and interesting photographs and bodies of work that have been made on New York City’s unique and diverse beaches. Featured photographers include Lisette Model, Diane Arbus, Bruce Gilden, Christine Osinski, Joseph Szabo, Harvey Stein, and Wayne Lawrence. Come celebrate the opening of the summer beach season in New York City with us, and leave with some great inspiration and ideas for your photography!
This free talk is co-presented by NYC Photo Community and StrudelmediaLive.
James Prochnik is a Brooklyn-based photographer who uses photography as a means to explore the world outside, focusing on people, place, memory and the poetry of the everyday. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, Vice Media, Lenscratch, USA Today, and Shots Magazine and have been exhibited in galleries around the country. In 2019, James launched NYC Photo Community — a weekly newsletter listing photography events, workshops, exhibitions, and opportunities for photographers everywhere. James has been a regular guest lecturer on ethics and aesthetics in street photography at the University of Vermont.
James teaches street photography, poems and pictures, richness of light, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
A Thousand Words: On the Role of Text in Photobooks
A Thousand Words: On the Role of Text in Photobooks
Many photographers struggle with using words to go with their pictures — we often think an image should speak for itself. And yet, using text in the right place in a photobook can help your audience find the best perspective with which to look at your work. To kick off this new season of The Photobook Show, we’ll look at different methods photographers have used to pivot the perception of their images through the use of text at strategic places in their book. We’ll briefly revisit Waffenruhe by Einar Schleef and Michael Schmidt; continue on with Florian Glaubitz‘s Mutter Architektur and Giulia Parlato’s Diachronicles; and end with one of my favorite books: David Campany’s A Handful of Dust.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
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StrudelmediaLive Community Weekend in New York City
In-Person Get-Together in New York City with Anja
We would like to invite you to an in-person StrudelmediaLive gallery tour and get-together in New York City! Please join us for a curated gallery tour and get-together with others from the StrudelmediaLive community. We'll meet in a gallery in Chelsea at 1pm, take a stroll through the neighborhood, and then visit a few other selected galleries. Afterward, we'll go discuss and socialize at an outdoor cafe. Bring your camera!
This is a free event for our community, but you must RSVP below — space is very limited. We'll email you the exact meeting location shortly beforehand.
In‑Person Weekend Workshop NYC: Explore Broadway, NYC’s Longest Street
Join us! This Friday gallery tour and get-together is the first part of a special weekend we have planned: Part 2 is an in‑person weekend workshop on Saturday and Sunday in New York City where we'll explore Broadway, NYC’s longest street — click here for info or to register.
Make sure to wear good shoes because we'll be walking a good amount.
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan. Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
The Photobook Show
The Photobook Show
New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape
Let’s look at an influential exhibition and how its trajectory helped shape photography from the 1970s through to today: “New Topographics: Pictures of Man-Altered Landscapes,” shown in 1975 in the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York. We’ll follow the course of the show’s lasting impact on aesthetic and conceptual approaches to landscape photography, as well as look at the careers of some of its protagonists and the art scene from which these images emerged. Photobooks we’ll explore include Lewis Baltz’s The Prototype Works, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Basic Forms, and Henry Wessel‘s collection of three bodies of work titled Traffic/Sunset Park/Continental Divide. “New Topographics” was also a significant influence on Stefan’s own work, so he will close by showing some images from his newly published book Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), released just two weeks ago.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Fotografiks
Most photobooks follow a very simple, straightforward formula: one picture on a page, plenty of white space to make it stand out, evenly spaced. It is an elegant and unobtrusive way to give images room to breath and calm the viewer down. It worked for Robert Frank’s The Americans and is still in heavy use today with slight variations in modern classics like Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi. However, this is not the only way to do a photobook.
In this episode, we look at the work of David Carson (known primarily for his design work for magazines including Ray Gun and Beach Culture) who has made photography a part of his design life from the very beginning. We’ll look at his Fotografiks, a free-flowing symphony that weaves together typography and photography. He is not the only one with a looser, more experimental way of spreading images over pages — Japanese photographers have long been known for their courage and experimentation in the medium of the photobook, and we’ll look at two examples from Takashi Homma and Takuma Nakahira. Join us for an hour of creative ways to move beyond the one-page-a-picture formula.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Jungjin Lee: A Captivating Stillness
Let’s begin 2024 in a meditative way by looking at three photobooks by Jungjin Lee — the visual pace of her work can provide a needed respite in these times. Drawing on her South Korean heritage, the photographer has developed a highly unique pictorial language, and to “see” her images, you need to slow down and take your time.
Very often, what’s depicted is minimal — some crisscrossing branches of a tree, a solitary rock in the desert, the edge of a wall splattered with dirt and paint — and yet all her images have a captivating stillness and make you want to run your fingers over the texture of the photograph on the page. Lee’s work shows a profound understanding of materiality, texture, and craftsmanship. Join us for a tranquil look at rocks on the sand and shadows of trees as we examine three of Lee’s photobooks — Echoes, Unnamed Road, and Voice — two of which came out very recently.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.presenting work
Presenting Work
Photography and Poetry in Dialogue: Part 1
Susan Artaechevarria, who lives on a farm in the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado, makes work about experiences and encounters that unfold during her daily routine in the remote landscape. She grew up in Michigan and did marketing and art directing in New York before moving to the West.
Chel Delaney, who lives in San Antonio, Texas, and has worked extensively as a print editor and reporter, makes photographs, assemblages, and collages that often confront and document contemporary issues of social justice. Her writing and reportage have been recognized by the New Mexico and Florida Press associations. She currently studies poetry through the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, New York.
Anthoula Lelekidis is a Greek-American lens-based artist who utilizes photography, printmaking, and mixed media in her practice to navigate themes of personal memory, loss, and migration. With a deep interest in the archive, she alters found family photos to interpret a deeper tie to her heritage and uncover ancestral roots within blank spaces of her recollection. Last year, Lelekidis was the recipient of a printmaking scholarship from Manhattan Graphics Center and is currently a faculty member at the International Center of Photography. She is based in Queens, New York.
Allen Frame is a photographer and writer, based in New York and represented by Gitterman Gallery. He has released four books of photography: Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2023); Innamorato (Meteoro Editions, 2023); Fever, (Matte Editions, 2021); and Detour, (Kehrer, 2001). Currently, his work appears in the exhibition Mexichrome at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. His two-person exhibition Lost and Found was presented at Soft Network in New York, in November. He is a winner of the 2017/2018 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and CEC Artslink’s Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2019. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Luxe, Calme, Volupte, which he co-curated with Sergio Bessa at Candice Madey Gallery in 2023. He is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts (BFA), the International Center of Photography in New York, and for StrudelmediaLive.
Allen teaches “The Life You’re In: The Joy and Pathos of Autobiography” for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
The Photo Essay: Putting Photos into Words
Some of Stefan’s favorite photography books contain hardly any images: in Ghost Image, Hervé Guibert fantasizes about an unexposed photograph of his mother. Moyra Davey writes her diverse thoughts on such things as photographs, a line of poetry, a ball of thread, and the life of 18th-century women onto index cards, and assembles them into labyrinthine, fascinating essays. And what presentation on the photographic essay would be complete without a sample from Teju Cole?
We’ll look at these books and others, to venture into what has now become it’s own literary genre: The Photographic Essay. We’ll conclude with Ariella Azoulay’s 2008 The Civil Contract of Photography — with the flood of images pouring out of conflict zones, this book has lost none of its immediacy and relevance. Join us for this episode of The Photobook Show — the one with no photographs in it!
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.![For Kids Only: [An Adventure in Reading Without Words] byJesper Høm and Sven Grønlykke](https://strudelmedialive.com/images/uploads/StrudelmediaLive_Vreni-Hockenjos_Hom_Gronlykke_nobg-800px.jpg)
Vantage Points
A New Look at Photobooks for Children
with Vreni Hockenjos
Of the many children’s books published every year, only a small number are illustrated with photographs — and for a long time, those photographic picture books didn’t receive much attention. But this is changing: interest in photobooks for children has recently grown significantly among publishers, creators, and audiences. In this talk you’ll get an introduction to this little-known field, through a selection of fascinating examples from many different countries and a discussion of current trends, historical developments, and the surprising variety of genres and styles found in these books. Photobooks for children often play with and challenge our understanding of how photobooks work in general, and so this talk provides insights and inspiration for all photobook enthusiasts, not just those with an interest in children’s books.
Vreni Hockenjos is a Vienna-based researcher, writer, photobook enthusiast, and mother. Together with Thomas Wiegand, she curated For Kids Only?! Exploring Photobooks for Children, an exhibition at the HEART-Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark). She is a member of Reflektor, a platform for the promotion of self-published photobooks and founder of the Beyond the Margins book club dedicated to photobooks by women. Currently she is in the process of publishing a children’s book on the history of photography. She has a PhD in cinema and media studies from Stockholm University, Sweden.
Vantage Points
Picturing Strangers: Street Portraiture, Connection, and Photography
with James Prochnik, Olga Ginzburg, and Scott Rossi
Making street portraits of strangers can be one of the most intimidating yet rewarding types of photography you will ever try. In this presentation photographers Olga Ginzburg and Scott Rossi share their stories about how they started making street portraits of strangers, how they quickly build connections with strangers to make pictures, and how street portraiture has become a vital part of their personal work and professional practice.
This free talk is co-presented by NYC Photo Community and StrudelmediaLive and was curated by moderator James Prochnik.
Olga Ginzburg is a Belarusian-American photographer based in New York City. With an interest in open-ended narrative and its potential for subtle and layered meaning, her work explores notions of place, identity, home, community, and biculturalism. Olga graduated from the City College of New York, and her work has twice been included in the Triennial of Staten Island Photography at the Alice Austen House Museum (2019 and 2023). Since 2019, Olga’s work has appeared regularly in The New York Times and other leading news outlets and has been featured on ABC’s Eyewitness News 7 in New York City.
Scott Rossi is a photographer based in New York who is originally from Canada. His work captures the poetic nuances of daily life and the complex relationship between people and their environment. Rossi is a Documentary Practices and Visual Journalism program graduate from the International Center of Photography (ICP) and holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Victoria. Following his move to New York City in 2020, he began his project, Common Place, a visual meditation on Central Park, resulting in his first monograph. His work has been featured in or commissioned by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Vogue, and the British Journal of Photography, among others. He has exhibited internationally at the Rotterdam Photo Festival, The International Center of Photography, and Photo 2022 in Melbourne.
Scott teaches photographing strangers for StrudelmediaLive.
James Prochnik is a Brooklyn-based photographer who uses photography as a means to explore the world outside, focusing on people, place, memory and the poetry of the everyday. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, Vice Media, Lenscratch, USA Today, and Shots Magazine and have been exhibited in galleries around the country. In 2019, James launched NYC Photo Community — a weekly newsletter listing photography events, workshops, exhibitions, and opportunities for photographers everywhere. James has been a regular guest lecturer on ethics and aesthetics in street photography at the University of Vermont.
James teaches street photography, poems and pictures, richness of light, and more for StrudelmediaLive.
Vantage Points
Allen Frame: Whereupon
with Phil Taylor
Allen Frame discusses his newly published photobook Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2024) with Phil Taylor, Associate Curator in the George Eastman Museum’s Department of Photography.
Whereupon is a collection of color and black-and-white images from the late 70s to the early 90s that expands the premise of Fever — Allen’s 2021 book of color photographs taken in 1981 — to show a broader time period with the same subject: his artist friends in their apartments and lofts and on the streets of New York.
Allen and Phil will talk about the new book, and the 1980s in New York, what it was like to be an artist photographing other artists, the photography world of that period, the influences on the work — particularly in film and photography — and more.
Allen Frame is a photographer and writer, based in New York and represented by Gitterman Gallery. He has released four books of photography: Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2023); Innamorato (Meteoro Editions, 2023); Fever, (Matte Editions, 2021); and Detour, (Kehrer, 2001). Currently, his work appears in the exhibition Mexichrome at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. His two-person exhibition Lost and Found was presented at Soft Network in New York, in November. He is a winner of the 2017/2018 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and CEC Artslink’s Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2019. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including Luxe, Calme, Volupte, which he co-curated with Sergio Bessa at Candice Madey Gallery in 2023. He is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts (BFA), the International Center of Photography in New York, and for StrudelmediaLive.
Allen teaches “The Life You’re In: The Joy and Pathos of Autobiography” for StrudelmediaLive.
Phil Taylor’s research focuses on photography’s place within 20th-century avant-garde art, Surrealism, and global modern and contemporary art. In January 2022 he joined the George Eastman Museum as a New York City-based curator. At the Eastman Museum, Phil has organized recent and forthcoming exhibitions of the work of Liz Deschenes, Gregory Halpern, and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, as well as New Directions: Recent Acquisitions, co-curated with Louis Chavez.
Previously Phil was a curatorial assistant in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, where he organized several exhibitions of work from the collection and assisted Roxana Marcoci on the 2022 retrospective and catalogue Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear. With Marcoci, he co-edited Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader. Previously an active critic for Artforum, among other publications, Phil has published recent essays on the work of Lucas Blalock, Dora Maar, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
Presenting Work
Sharing the Process: Projects by photographers studying with StrudelmediaLive
Three photographers studying with StrudelmediaLive come together — from Stockholm, Greece (by way of Berlin), and Ukraine (by way of Kiel, Germany) — to each present projects that they began and developed in one of our classes. Photographer and educator Anja Hitzenberger moderates this presentation by Maryna Shtanko, Ulla Duell, and Eugenia Patsouri as they share their diverse work and the process of developing these projects.
We thank Heather Mattera for generously funding our StrudelmediaLive Opportunity Scholarship!
Maryna Shtanko is a visual artist and photographer born in Poltava, Ukraine. She has a Master’s degree in German Language and Literature and is currently based in Kiel, Germany, where she studies photography at Muthesius Academy of Art. In her artistic practice, Maryna questions memory, phobias, mythology, migration and attachment to specific places. She mostly works with analog photography but also explores bookmaking, textiles, embroidery, and text. Maryna’s work has been exhibited in Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria, the USA, Lithuania, Germany, and Slovenia. Instagram / Website
Ulla Duell is a photographer based in Stockholm. She grew up in a small town in northern Sweden and has spent a large portion of her adult life traveling extensively, and has lived in Vietnam, Laos, and the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa. Before retiring she worked with and wrote several books on management practices in central government, agencies, and foreign aid. Now she devotes her time to dance and to her photographic practice. Her photography focuses on exploring identity and aging. Instagram / Website
Eugenia Patsouri is a Greek photographer, researcher and neuroscientist based in Berlin who is fascinated by vision — photography allows her to explore the subjective sight and perception of the world. Her artistic practice focuses on process photography with an output that includes photobooks and printmaking. Instagram
StrudelmediaLive Community Gallery Walk in New York City
In-Person Get-Together in New York City with Anja
We would like to invite you to an in-person StrudelmediaLive gallery tour and get-together in New York City! Please join us for a curated gallery tour and get-together with others from the StrudelmediaLive community. We’ll meet in a gallery in Chelsea at 2pm, take a stroll through the neighborhood, and then visit a few other selected galleries. Afterward, we’ll go discuss and socialize at an outdoor cafe. Bring your camera!
This is a free event for our community, but you must RSVP below — space is very limited. We’ll email you the exact meeting location shortly beforehand.
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan. Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
The Photographer’s Eye: Learning Photography from Books
What is there to learn in photography beyond how to use your camera and some basic knowledge of optics? In the world of photography education, there is a fundamental belief that the ability to “see” can be trained and educated — and is what lies behind many books designed to help you learn to take great photographs. In this episode, we’ll be showing you some classics (e.g., John Szarkowski’s The Photographer’s Eye), some that are more specialized (Jörg Colberg’s Understanding Photobooks), and some that are more fun to read (David Campany’s On Photographs). Looking through these books will not immediately make you take better pictures, but they will certainly give you some guidance and encouragement along your journey as a photographer.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Trent Parke: A Monumental Photobook
The first edition of Australian Magnum photographer Trent Parke’s Monument sold out only seven hours after it was released. This 300-page photobook has now been published by Stanley/Barker in a lavishly produced second edition. Usually in The Photobook Show we look at a couple of books, looking for connecting themes and how different photographers approach a topic. This time, though, we’re going to look in depth at this single (though monumental) book, examining its photographic language, how it is truly unique and inventive, and how it pays homage to Magnum’s long history of documentary photography.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
Free Event
Office Hours with Anja
Anja Hitzenberger, founder of StrudelmediaLive, is offering free office hours to provide 15-minute consultations to photographers.
This is an opportunity to
- have your photography portfolio reviewed,
- get advice on what upcoming classes and teachers fit you best,
- get feedback on your work,
- get to know more about StrudelmediaLive’s photography offerings.
There are nine 15-minute slots available — registration is first come, first served: reserve your time slot here. Participants will receive a 10% discount code for any StrudelmediaLive class that they register for by September 16
Anja Hitzenberger is a photographer, filmmaker, consultant, and educator. She is the founder of StrudelmediaLive, an educational platform that offers live online photography classes and more to people around the world. Anja studied in the Creative Practice full-time program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City, and has been on the faculty there since 2009. She is dedicated to working with people from different cultures across the globe.
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, film festivals, and on theater stages throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia. Her photography has been published internationally and is a part of both private and institutional collections, including the International Center of Photography. She has received numerous artistic grants and has been awarded residencies in Rome, Paris, Warsaw, Beijing, and Tainan (Taiwan). A focus of her activities has been working with live performance, including producing a multimedia piece that toured in New York City, Austria, and Korea.
Anja has been teaching live online photography classes since 2015, as well as in-person workshops in New York, Europe, China, and Taiwan. Originally from Salzburg, Austria, she divides her time between New York and Vienna.
Photobooks
The Photobook Show
Photography and Painting: Examples of an Intricate Relationship
Registration for this event is closed, but you can join our mailing list if you'd like to be informed of the next section of this class.
When photography came into being, painters feared that their trade would become obsolete; but this is not entirely what happened. Work for realistic painters definitely dropped off, but other painters felt freed from having to faithfully represent reality and so developed their art into abstraction and more. Over time, the relationship between photography and painting took on many different forms, and in this episode we’ll be looking not at photography books, but instead books with paintings that have a special relationship with photography. Join Stefan for an exploration of this intriguing relationship with books by James White, Gerhard Richter and Michael Schmidt, and Lucas Blalock.
Stefan Frank is a photographer and writer, working from Heidelberg, Germany. Way before he came to photography, he studied mathematics and philosophy at Ruhr Universität Bochum and worked as an IT specialist. He studied at Atelier Smedsby with JH Engström and Margot Wallard in Paris in 2017, before he eventually began studying photography at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin, with Peter Bialobrzeski. He graduated in 2023 with the work Irgendwo (“Anywhere”), a project dealing with politically motivated crime and the terror-spree of the far right in Germany. He has been teaching with StrudelmediaLive since 2020, giving courses on surrealism, poetics of space, gestalt theory for photographers, and more. His work has been exhibited in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, and Berlin.
Stefan teaches the poetics of space, nighttime photography, and much more — including presenting The Photobook Show — for StrudelmediaLive.
