The 2024 Lenscratch Staff Favorites
©Aline Smithson, Favorite Condiment
Every year we compile a list of Staff Favorites. We try to avoid “Best Of” lists as appreciation for the arts is so subjective and eveyone has a different opinion. The wide variety of selections featured today speaks to books, exhibitions, and artists (and a few recipes) that have resonated with our amazing staff.
I am so grateful to this wonderful collection of editors (and photographic artists) who give back to the photo community by shining a light on others. So in my list of favorite things, it would certainly be the tireless staff who I am constantly inspired by and so appreciative of.
Founder, Editor in Chief
Instagram: @alinesmithson
The Cedar Lodge by Maya Meissner, published by Zatara Press
My Favorite Creative Book Design of 2024: The Cedar Lodge by Maya Meissner, published by Zatara Press.
At first I was drawn to the creative book design and way the artist uses the imagery, but then reading the text brought back a floodgate of memories about a true event that happened in Yosemite that I well remember.
©Joan Haseltine, Bluest Bruise
My Favorite Artist Book of 2024: Joan Haseltine, Bluest Bruise. This is an exquisite artist book, created in conjunction with For the Birds Trapped in Airports. Every inch perfection, all pages hand printed by the artist with design elements that beautifully enhance the text and images. Created in an edition of 5 and now sold out.
©Ed Ruscha
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: Ed Ruscha has been one of my art heroes since college, so experiencing his massive retrospective (complete with the chocolate room) at the Los Angeles County Art Museum was a highlight. ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN “included his early works produced while traveling through Europe, his installations—such as the Chocolate Room and the Course of Empire presented at the Venice Biennale in 1970 and 2005, respectively—and his ceaseless photographic documentation of the streets of Los Angeles beginning in 1965.”
My Favorite Discovery of 2024: I admit, I’ve known about this incredible dip before this year, but have to share the wonders of Muhammara. I tend to get obsessed by flavors and this Lebanese dip has an incredible combination of pomegranate molasses, walnuts, roasted red peppers and more. Always a hit!
Lenscratch Art and Science Editor
Instagram: @lindaalterwitz
My Favorite Book of 2024: The Last Firefly by Elijah Gowin
Gowin photographs the world of both darkness and light, from macro to micro, from abstraction to realism, to offer a unique perspective that leads us to consider the fragility of human’s future on earth.
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: PST ART: Art & Science Collide, “The Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees” presented at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, CA.
©Mark Chen, from Pilgrimage of Light
My Favorite New Discovery: Mark Chen
Mark Chen was one of many extraordinary submissions to the 2024 Art + Science Competition. I am intrigued with his series Pilgrimage of Light. His process in creating these photographs is shown in this video:
I wonder if alien beings were able to “see” this work, might they able to recognize any of the galaxies that are projected onto the earth?
Lenscratch European Content Editor
Instagram: @michaelhoneggerphotos
Epitome by Vic Bakin
My Favorite Book of 2024: Epitome by Vic Bakin published by Void
Vic Bakin is a young Ukrainian self-taught photographer whose new monograph, Epitome, turns a laser focus upon a generation of young Ukrainian men who are either waiting for
the fates to determine their future, fighting to defend Ukraine or who have left the country in the face of the conflict. In any case, Bakin has managed to capture the inherent tragedy of war with touching artfulness and care.
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024 :
Sophie Calle’s stunning exhibition in the bowels of the Hotel de Ville of Arles during the 2024 Rencontres d’Arles was a remarkable presentation of the ephemeral nature of the photograph as well as the fading memories a photograph provokes. According to Calle, ” I want my photos to finish decomposing here and for the words I collected from each of the men and women I
interviewed on the theme of beauty to sink into the bedrock of the city.”
Favorite New Discovery: Christian Patterson’s Gong Co.
Awaiting receipt of Christian Patterson’s latest effort, Gong, Co., the “monumental memento mori to the decline and decay of a family-owned grocery store in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, from which the book takes its name.”
Lenscratch South American Content Editor
Instagram: @analealphoto
My Favorite Book of 2024: Mountain Deck Taro by Bea Nettles
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: AAmelia Toledo at MUBE
©Daniela Balestrin
My Favorite Discovery of 2024: Daniela Balestrin
©Paula Aranoa
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram: @deannadikeman
Silence is a Gift by Ciro Battiloro published by Chose Commune 2024
My Favorite Book of 2024: Silence is a Gift by Ciro Battiloro published by Chose Commune 2024
Lee Shulman & The Anonymous Project at Galerie Binome booth Paris Photo November 2024
Wandering through the maze of galleries in Paris Photo, I found this Totem (2023) by Lee Shulman and The Anonymous Project. It was irresistible. I spent a long time, on two days, peering at the 1,798 original Kodachrome slides on both sides of this large light box. I wished there was a bench so I could sit down and study the bottom rows better. I found people and pets and houses and landscapes. With no way to know what really happened, you could invent 1,798 stories, one for each slide. I loved it.
Emabalabala © Vuyo Mabheka
My Favorite discovery of 2024: the artist Vuyo Mabheka
Vuyo Mabheka was born and lives in South Africa. His series Popihuise explores the artist’s lived experience with cut out pictures from his childhood, drawings, and photocollage. He received the 2023/2024 Images Vevey Special Jury Prize. Mabheka is represented by Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram: @sarabennettbrooklyn
Day Jobs Book Cover, published by Radius Books
My favorite book of 2024: DAY JOBS, edited by Veronica Roberts is the catalog accompanying the Day Jobs exhibition which opened at the Blanton Museum of Arts in Austin, Texas in 2022 and was on view at the Cantor Museum of Arts at Stanford University in 2024. (Full disclosure: I have an essay in the catalog and my work was in the exhibition.) The catalog, published by Radius, has 24 interviews or essays by the artists from the exhibition about the impact of their day jobs on their artistic practice, and I read the book cover to cover. It is also beautifully produced.
Silhouette of Sara at the Day Jobs Exhibition
DAY JOBS was also my favorite exhibition of the year. Breaking down barriers within the art world, the exhibition featured work of such luminaries as Andy Warhol, Sol Lewitt, and Barbara Kruger alongside many artists new to me including @lenkaclaytonstudio and @skinny aliens.
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024: I never knew that I could get a MOMA library card, ask for books to be pulled, and then go sit in the quiet library and take as much time with the books as I wanted. I also discovered that many of the other museums do the exact same thing. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re looking at a lot of photo books and don’t want to purchase all of them.
Book Cover of Josephine Halvorson, published by James Fuentes Press
My favorite book of 2024: Josephine Halvorson,– a book produced by James Fuentes Press that coincides with her solo exhibition in LA. The book accumulates documentation of her paintings, writing, and Polaroid photographs to highlight the earnestness and discipline of her craft as an artist.
©Barbara Bosworth, The Meadow
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: “Barbara Bosworth: The Meadow” at the MFA Boston. The large-format photographs of simple landscapes and still lives are incredible because of their careful eye for light and form. Barbara Bosworth is a photographer who makes me want to drop everything I am working on and sit in the woods.
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024: the podcast Talk Art. I find it comforting to unplug from current events and listen to artists I admire ramble about process and inspiration.
https://www.instagram.com/talkart/?hl=en
Lenscratch Environmental Editor
Instagram: @michaelosnyder
©Kate Medley, Cover of Thank You Please Come Again
My Favorite Book of 2024: Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South, by Kate Medley, published by Bitter Southerner Press.
©Dawoud Bey, A Young Woman Waiting for the Bus, Syracuse, New York, 1985
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: Dawoud Bey at Light Work, Syracuse NY.
©Jeff Bridges
My New Discovery of 2024: The photography of Jeff Bridges.
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram: @epiphanysk
My Favorite book of 2024: Why am I Sad by Dana Stirling
I’ve been a fan of Dana’s work since I found it in graduate school. As someone with mental health diagnoses, I find a lot of solace in these images.
Off-Spring at the 21C in Chicago
Before Yesterday We Could Fly at the Metropolitan Museum, New York City
My Favorite exhibitions of 2024: Off-Spring at the 21C in Chicago and Before Yesterday We Could Fly at the Metropolitan Museum, New York I was lucky to visit many exhibitions this year, but these two really stuck with me in exploring our histories.
Portrait of Chappell Roan
My Favorite new discovery: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan
Finding great music and podcasts while I’m working is essential, and I cannot think of anything that’s played in my studio as much as this album this year!
Lenscratch Submissions Editor and Content Editor
Instagram: @danielgeorgephoto
My Favorite book of 2024: We Are Carver by Jessica Ingram focuses on the student cadets of the George Washington Carver High School (Columbus, GA) JROTC program. The images and interviews consider a future that is uncertain, yet desirably optimistic. I was a fan of this work when I saw it initially online, but getting the book in hand was a different experience. The quality and feel of the materials, and the design, allude to the vernacular of a high-school yearbook. It all makes sense and feels familiar. It takes me back to being a teenager and having thoughts like those expressed by one of the book’s interviewees, “I’m kind of unsure of whether I’m going to make it to be somebody, and that’s kind of scary.” The future is scary, but I hope for all these kids.
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram: @elizabethstonevisualartist
My Favorite Book of 2024 : This Earthen Door: Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium by Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey
My Favorite Exhibition: Blue by Heather Evans Smith
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024: Gisoo Kim
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram @galinakurlat
©Chris McCaw, Marking Time
My Favorite Book of 2024: In his much-awaited book from Datz Press, photographer Chris McCaw compiles a diverse selection of his analog images, including the series “Sunburn,” “Heliograph,” “Poly-Optic,” “Cirkut,” and “Tidal.” Marking Time, is a thoughtful curation of over twenty years of McCaw’s meticulous exploration of the sun’s effect on vintage photographic paper.
My Favorite exhibition of 2024: White Shoes by Nona Faustine
I visited the Brooklyn Museum in the spring to view Nona Faustine’s influential exhibition, White Shoes. In her striking images, she places her body into sites in New York City built on the legacies of enslavement, sometimes wearing only a pair of sensible white shoes. From Wall Street to Harlem to Prospect Park, Faustine’s vulnerable yet powerful photographs speak to oppression and colonialism imposed on Black and Indigenous peoples right here in our backyard.
Her book is available here from Mack Books.
©Lauren Oliver
My Favorite new discovery of 2024: Lauren Oliver
Lauren and I were members at the Gowanus Darkroom in Brooklyn for a few years before I became familiar with her photographs and sculptures, which use analog processes to explore identity, resilience, and the body.
©Lauren Oliver
Her book is available here through https://matarileediciones.com<
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram @alaynapernell
©Dana Stirling, why am i sad
My Favorite Book of 2024: why am i sad by Dana Stirling
In this book, Dana does a great job of exploring the complexities of mental health and depression through still lives. It’s approached in a way that’s not too on the nose, and most of the time, to me, feels more meditative which I appreciate. As someone who struggles with the same issues even now, this book and its themes resonated with me heavily this year.
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: Healers and Dreamers at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City, Indiana. As noted by the curator, Whitney, The artworks in Healers and Dreamers provide us with strategies for honoring and caring for ourselves and each other. They encourage grieving and healing the past, creating connection, protection and safety in the present and inspiring dreaming, creative thinking and liberation for the future.” The exhibition features work by Airco Caravan, Noelle Garcia,Tanya Gill, Rita Grendze, Suzanne Kite, Alayna Pernell, Red Line Service, Savneet Talwar, Scheherazade Tillet/A Long Walk Home, Rhonda Wheatley and Alisha Wormsley.
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024: As an archive enthusiast, I am so glad that I came across The Colored Girls Museum. It is a “..memoir museum founded by Vashti Dubois that honors the stories, experiences, and history of the ordinary colored girl”.
Lenscratch Content Editor
Instagram @Katia Dermott
©Chris McCaw, Marking Time
©Chris McCaw, Marking Time
My Favorite Book of 2024: Marking Time by Chris McCaw. Although it was published in 2023, it only reached my eyes when I stumbled upon the book at AIPAD this spring. I’m always drawn to photographic work that pointedly plays with the very makeup of the medium. As a 4×5 camera user myself, I am always excited by others’ use of analog and especially large format in experimental ways. The book itself has stunning design, rich blacks (my favorite), and the multi panel fold outs are a delight.
Human Nature Exhibition, Photo Credit Leandro Justen – Courtesy of Fotografiska New York
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: Human / Nature at Fotografiska, New York. The art itself was fresh and engaging, but the exhibition design from lighting to wall color to sequence within the space was absolutely outstanding. It was a vibrant, experiential show that left me wishing for more exhibitions like this.
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024: Pan fried lemon pepper chicken with crispy prosciutto, blistered cherry tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella, and gnocchi. I’m obsessed.
Lenscratch Content Editor
!nstagram: @jennabanksphoto
Dogbreath by Matthew Genitempo
My Favorite Book of 2024: Dogbreath by Matthew Genitempo published by TRESPASSER
My Favorite Exhibition of 2024: Terra Madre,, Lisa Sorgini, Taranto Città Vecchia (various locations)
Curated by Giovanni Troilo.
My Favorite New Discovery of 2024:
Andriana Nativio‘s Instagram – @andriananphoto
Posts on Lenscratch may not be reproduced without the permission of the Lenscratch staff and the photographer.
Recommended
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The 2024 Lenscratch Staff FavoritesDecember 31st, 2024
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The New Renaissance of Photo BooksDecember 7th, 2024
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Please DONATE!November 22nd, 2024
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The Photography Show presented by AIPADApril 5th, 2024
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2023 in the Rear View MirrorDecember 31st, 2023
