LENSCRATCH - Fine Art Photography Daily

Jonathan Silbert: Insights by Bryan WhitneyFebruary 19, 2026

Artist/educator Bryan Whitney is this week’s guest editor on LENSCRATCH. Over the next four days, he introduces the work of four of his past students at the International Center of Photography whose practices revolve around spirituality, inner-life, and the natural world.

Concerning the Spiritual in Photography is a course I have taught for many years at the International Center of Photography. The class explores spirituality within the creative process and considers how we can consciously cultivate it in our work. We study influential writings on the subject—from Kandinsky to Minor White—and discuss the rich cross-pollination between art and spirituality. Participants integrate these ideas with their own insights through exercises such as “Create Your Own Ritual,” “Body and Soul,” “Memento Mori,” and “Image Duet.” Leading this class with such a dynamic group of photographers has been profoundly rewarding, and I am delighted that Lenscratch is featuring several of these talented artists.

Each of these artists, working with the medium of light and shadow, has created deeply personal and distinctly spiritual work. Juliette Ludeker’s painterly, storm-tossed underwater worlds are awe-inspiring scenes, captured in a humble backyard stream. Olga Fried’s large-format paper negative images evoke an otherworldly terrain, their barren beauty illuminated by vast, star-filled skies. Anne Earden McDonald’s abstract scrolls are masterworks of alchemical symbolism and chemical process, where the elements themselves become image- makers. Jonathan Silbert’s sly, haunting abstractions both surprise and unsettle, challenging our perceptions of body and soul.

As the third installment of this week, we present Johnathan Ludeker’s project, Somewhere You Can Never Go. An interview with the artist follows.

Jonathan Silbert has pursued image making in a variety of mediums, including clay, metal and paper, with photography always being present, but like a cousin at holiday meals. Motivating these efforts has been a poetic exploration with intention to express the ineffable nature of identity in the context of the superficial. He works as a graphic designer and lives Philadelphia.

Insights

These photographs arise from a prompt to present how our bodies exist in the world. As I don’t love to stand in front of the camera, I turned to abstraction as a way of moving beyond the literal, opening a more poetic point of reflection.

The resulting images bring me to the hard-to-name; the mysterious in-the-dark, that which is lingering in the shadows – are all compelling. Though these spaces may feel unsettling and off-putting, the presence in the depths of shadows has always been a rich field, a resource for understanding, if we have the courage to look deeply and meet what is otherwise ominous and vague. Shadows do not exist without context. A light source is needed, as is an object which blocks that light, whether the object is seen or not and then, a receptive plane. But when the shadow becomes the both object and the subject, what are the implications for identity?

In approaching these abstractions, I think of Nietzsche’s admonition about gazing long in to the abyss. I’ve long found that in dreams, the monsters that we may be inclined to fight are best dealt with directly, not in combat and supremacy, but intimately seen in the light of understanding. In my experience, turning to look at what is frightening has proved more rewarding than trying to dominate. While these images may not be as potent as dreams that scare you awake, there does seem to be some element of the fearful unknown with implicit foreboding or an unfathomable presence which may at once be threatening and rewarding.

How does your work reflect themes of spirituality and inner life?

This work, my work broadly, may be approached through a spiritual lens if desired and if it suits your inner process. This being an essentially abstract series, meaning is left very much to the viewer’s experience and frame of expectation. If someone comes to these images with an openness to inner reflection, there is a chance they may find a useful mirror and a tool to explore their state of being.

In your practice, are there any rituals, photographic or otherwise, that guide your photography?

If there’s a ritual of photography that I employ is to respond to the impulse to make photographs. Often this is while I’m walking or waiting. I love to capture images found incidentally and make compositions abstracted, extracted from the narrative of place and setting. I have places and sources that I look to for these extractions – in cities and industrial spaces as well as in nature and I don’t usually arrange elements into compositions, I tend to narrow in on existing elemental relationships. Otherwise, my photos are guided by basic principals of composition and elements of design, used in a way that delight me.

Have there been any mentors, thinkers or artists whose works have influenced your own photography or spirituality?

In my early years, I stumbled upon and was deeply moved by the ceramic sculptures of Jack Earl. His sculptural finesse, storytelling through poetic, rambling titles, subjects and situations and seeming surrealism all coalesce to make striking works with quiet haunting presence. These showed me how a humble medium like clay could be used to great effect, beyond expectation and gave me a sense of wonder and empowered possibilities.

How did taking the class: “Concerning the Spiritual in Photography” at ICP influence your work and/or was there an assignment that particularly inspired you?

I found the class — and Bryan’s teaching in particular — both inspiring and deeply motivating. It opened up new ways of considering image-making, inviting us to engage with varied perspectives, themes, and stylistic approaches. The assignment encouraged a deeper level of inquiry, in part because of its immediacy and accessibility — centering on our own bodies — while also creating a space where unconventional and exploratory responses felt not only welcomed, but entirely appropriate.

What are you currently working on, and what’s in store for you?

I am working on a sculptural series of low relief paper pieces describing the life cycle of a society and incidental achievements of culture.

Bryan Whitney is a photographer and artist in New York City whose work involves experimental imaging techniques including x-rays, lensless imaging and alternative processes such as cyanotype. Whitney holds an MFA in Photography from the Tyler School of Art and a BA in the Psychology of Art from University of Michigan. He has taught photography at Rutgers University and currently teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City and the New York Botanical Garden. A recipient of a Fulbright Grant for lectures on American Photography he has exhibited across the United States and internationally. His work has appeared in magazines such as Harpers Bazaar, Fortune, the New York Times, as well as being featured in books, posters and billboards. His X-ray botanical images have recently been acquired as a stamp designs by the US Postal Service.

Follow Bryan Whitney on Instagram: @bryanwhitney.art

Tags: Bryan Whitney, ICP, International Center of Photography, Jonathan Silbert