Lesly Deschler Canossi

Lesly Deschler Canossi is a photographer, photography educator, and cultural producer. She holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and is a faculty member at the International Center of Photography. She has taught at Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Lamar Dodd School of Art, Cortona, Italy.

In 2016, she and Zoraida Lopez-Diago co-created Women Picturing Revolution — an organization dedicated to female photographers who have documented conflicts, crises, and revolutions in private realms and public spaces. WPR presented for Fast Forward: Women in Photography at the Tate Modern on the topic of their forthcoming book Representations of Black Motherhood and Photography, Leuven University Press: Spring, 2021.

Deschler Canossi recently created the panel, Urgent Pictures! Photographs of Unrest Reconsidered, Focus on the Story photography festival. Her ongoing personal photographic project Domestic Negotiations explores autonomy, partnership, and the role of the mother as artist.

Lesly’s Classes

  • Lesly teaches photographing domestic life for StrudelmediaLive.
Lesly is an amazing teacher and human being. She helped me a lot throughout this process of being a new mother. I hope I’ll keep photographing at home for a long-term project, documenting my son’s life and my motherhood experience.
—Cris (Florida)
Lesly's class was great, very inspiring and gave my daily life and family pictures a real purpose. I see the photos in a more artistic way now rather than just being there to document our life and family, and it feels good!
—Lara (France)