How do you Read a Photograph?

Tamir Kalifa

Images are everywhere, all the time — informing us, entertaining us, selling to us. How often do you make the effort to not just look at a photo, but rather look into it, asking yourself, “What is this photo doing, and how is it doing it?” This exhibition provides tools and questions to better understand photographs by engaging in this type of close reading. Photojournalists use cameras to record and relay newsworthy events to the public. Whether it’s at someone’s home, a public sidewalk, a state capitol, or a conflict zone, photojournalists encounter a range of situations for which they must immediately decide what to include and exclude in a photograph. Every photo offers a multitude of details that can be investigated with a close read.

We asked two recent CHF awardees, Tamir Kalifa and Kasia Strek, to share a series of their own images with these viewer questions in mind:

What is happening in the photo?
If there were no written captions, what would you be able to understand about the scene from the image alone?
What is the photo showing that words cannot convey?
What non-human objects, details, or artifacts are in the photo, and what do they suggest about the story or the people they belong to?
Is the scene in the photo indoors or outdoors? Can the setting be interpreted as symbolic in the context of the story (e.g., enclosed, trapped, open, free)?
How is human connection portrayed in the photo? Do the depictions of proximity, intimacy, and touch change your preconceptions of potentially vulnerable people?
Does the photo include people in positions of authority (e.g., police officers, politicians, CEOs)? If the photo also includes other people who are subject to that authority, what is being said by each person’s body language?

As photographs become ever more powerful, expressive, and crucial to the way we absorb information, we hope you’ll employ questions like these as critical tools for a close reading of photographs wherever you encounter them.

Artist Bios

Chris Hondros

Two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Getty Images photojournalist Chris Hondros covered most of the world’s major conflicts and disasters since the late 1990s, including work in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the West Bank, Iraq, Haiti, Liberia, Egypt, and Libya. Hondros was not just a front-line war photographer—he was a committed observer and witness. His work humanizes complex world events and brings to light shared human experiences. Evident in his writings, interspersed throughout, Hondros was determined to broaden our understanding of war and its consequences.
Tamir Kalifa

Tamir Ben Kalifa is a visual journalist with over a decade of experience working in the U.S., Israel and beyond. He is passionate about human rights, social justice and environmental issues and believes responsible visual story-telling can raise questions that lead to a better understanding of ourselves and one another. Tamir is the recipient of the 2022 CHF & Getty Images Award honoring his distinctive ability to connect audiences through his storytelling and compassion.
Kasia Strek

Kasia Strek is a Polish photojournalist documenting worldwide news and broader consequences of unfolding events on communities that were directly impacted by them. Her personal work focuses on subjects related to social inequalities, environmental issues, and women’s rights. Kasia is the recipient of the Hondros Fellow Award celebrating her commitment to documenting a visual history of news events.

Organizations

Chris Hondros Fund

The Chris Hondros Fund was established to honor two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Getty Images photojournalist Chris Hondros, killed on April 20, 2011 while on assignment in Misurata, Libya. The fund’s purpose is to honor Hondros’s legacy by highlighting the ways in which photojournalism brings to light shared human experiences which might otherwise go unreported or unnoticed. As part of the fund’s Education and Awareness program, we support photography and visual education for youth—particularly in underserved communities in New York City. We support individual photographers, students of photography, and nonprofits.

archive : 2023

Featuring: Chris Hondros Tamir Kalifa Kasia Strek

Curated by: Ryan Christopher Jones Christina Piaia

Presented by: Chris Hondros Fund

Locations

ON VIEW AT: Photocube 48

View Location Details Download a detailed map of this location Brooklyn Bridge Park – Emily Warren Roebling Plaza

1 Water St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Number 1 on the official photoville map Click to download this year's map

This location is part of Brooklyn Bridge Park
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