The Power of Photography: Two incredible photography exhibits ending this month

September 2022—Through September 25, Selby Gardens’ summer exhibition, Flora Imaginaria: The Flower in Contemporary Photography, features spectacular flower imagery from many different genres of photography, produced from 1990 – 2020.

More than 70 prints by 50 photographers from around the globe capture the beauty and diversity of flowers. They are displayed in Selby’s Museum of Botany & the Arts, and outside in the Gardens. Many of the images have never been featured in a major exhibition.

This innovative indoor/outdoor show was developed by Selby Gardens in partnership with the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP), an independent nonprofit organization that produces museum-quality photography exhibitions circulated around the world.

The show is curated by international photography experts William Ewing and Danaé Panchaud, working under the direction of Todd Brandow, who founded the FEP in 2003.

Flora Imaginaria: The Flower in Contemporary Photography is sponsored by Isabel A. Becker.

More than any other visual medium, women have played vital and sustained roles in the making and advancement of photography since its invention. Their contribution to this medium has been greatly underemphasized.

Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg exhibition, Women’s Work: A Survey of Female Photographers, thankfully answers the call to recognize female contributors in this fabulous collection of works.

Rich in examples of innovative, courageous, and talented women photographers from the earlier days of the medium to contemporary times, this exhibition examines the rich visual testimony that contributed to the emergence of women as a driving force in modern photography.

Featured photographers include Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879), Gertrude Käsebier, one of the premier portraitists at the turn of the century (1852–1934), Margaret Bourke-White, the first woman hired at Life Magazine, and the first woman to fly combat missions during WWII (1904–1971), Diane Arbus (1923–1971), Sally Mann (b. 1951), and Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), as well as lesser-known figures in the field.

“From their rise as professional photographers at the dawn of the twentieth century to the pioneers of today, women have consistently and persistently overcome sexism and societal constraints to become driving forces in the development of the medium. More than revealing the particularities of womanhood, these photographers have added their own nuances to a visual language which in turn, has greatly enriched the medium.”

—MFA curator Jane Aspinwall