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Society for Photographic Education

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Society for Photographic Education

SPE is the leading worldwide membership-based organization and forum for fostering understanding of photography

Although the majority of its 2000+ members are fine art photographers and educators, curators, critics, historians, and artists are also members. SPE is an international nonprofit organization that seeks to promote a wider understanding of photography in all of its forms and to foster the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship, and critical analysis. SPE is headquartered in Cleveland, OH, and the archives are maintained at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ.

10/12/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Rachel Cox, presenting “Portrait of a Woman: reproductive agency through photography.”

“My current work examines the personal and cultural stigmas associated with female infertility while also raising awareness for the millions of people who seek to build their families though assisted reproductive technologies (ART). This narrative is told through the photographic lens of my own experience with miscarriage, abortion, in vitro fertilization, and eventual birth of my daughter via a donor egg.”

About the Presenter

Rachel Cox holds an MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico. Her work has been featured widely in the U.S. and abroad with recent exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Joslyn Art Museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, and the Des Moines Art Center. Cox’s prints are included in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Des Moines Arts Center, The Southeast Museum of Photography, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Musee de l'Elysee, and The University of North Texas.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Rachel explore infertility, reproductive agency, motherhood, bodily autonomy, and the role of photography in advocacy and community building.

10/11/2026

SPE Board of Directors Elections Are Open!

SPE members, it's time to cast your vote!

The SPE Board of Directors plays an important role in guiding the organization's future, supporting photographic education, and strengthening our creative community.

As an SPE member, you have an opportunity to help shape the organization's leadership. Take a moment to review the candidates and cast your ballot!

Voting closes October 31, 2026, at 11:59 PM EST.

LINK IN BIO

10/10/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Jingyin Che, presenting “Harmless: To Be Proven — Staged Photography, Suspicion, and Conditional Belonging.”

“Harmless: To Be Proven is a staged photographic project about Chinese and Chinese American scholars in the United States working within an atmosphere of political suspicion. The work does not center on one case or event. It looks at how mistrust settles into academic life: into classrooms, laboratories, offices, routines, gestures, and silence.”

About the Presenter

Jingyin Che is a lens-based interdisciplinary artist from Yangzhou, China, and a recent MFA graduate in Photography from Indiana University. He received a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Studio Art from The Ohio State University in 2023. His work has been exhibited in the United States, China, and Japan. Through staged photography and installation, Che examines institutional space, migration, and geopolitical tension, often using cinematic scenarios and dark absurdity to explore how political anxiety shapes visibility, belonging, and lived experience.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Jingyin explore staged photography, political suspicion, migration, and the complex relationship between visibility and belonging.

10/08/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Justin A. Carney, presenting “Those Left Behind: Grief and Family After a Loss.”

“Those Left Behind questions what bonds keep a family together and what drives them to separate after the death of a loved one. After my grandmother passed, the center of my family's world, the dynamics of my family shifted. It changed how often people gathered and the ways in which they showed up. Grief reshaped those bonds and connections.”

About the Presenter

Justin A. Carney (he/they) is a photographic artist and educator whose work explores family history, grief, memory, and inherited identity through portraiture, landscape, archival research, and material experimentation. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Photo London, the Exposure Photography Festival, Candela Gallery, and Aurora PhotoCenter. Carney's work has received recognition through Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 200, the Beckmann Emerging Artist Fellowship, and LenCulture's First Place Single Image Award for the LensCulture Art Photography Awards.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Justin explore grief, family, memory, and how photography can create space for vulnerability, remembrance, and connection.

10/06/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Lindsay Buchman, presenting “Picturing Belonging: On Invisible Narratives.”

“What happens when subjecthood is invisible, beyond image, language, and the ability to picture a narrative? When DNA is absent, material history is non-existent, and archival referents can't form a clear lineage. 'Picturing Belonging: On Invisible Narratives' presents Lindsay Buchman's seven-year project, 'Everything I've Ever Loved,' a multimedia autoethnography that considers Orange County, California's history of landholdings, power, and injustice through her lens as a Chicana and transracial adoptee.”

About the Presenter

Lindsay Buchman is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn (NY), whose work explores image-making and writing through print and lens-based media. Recent exhibitions include the Penumbra Foundation (NY), Center for Photography at Woodstock (NY), and the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art (CA). Her work is included in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and SFMOMA. She has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work and TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image. Buchman holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from California State University, Long Beach.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Lindsay explore photography, identity, belonging, and the ways place and history shape the narratives we construct.

10/04/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Lynn Bierbaum, presenting “Reframing the Photographic Object: Historic Process in Contemporary Form.”

“My artist talk traces the evolution of sculptural photography from its early material experiments to its contemporary resurgence, where image-making expands beyond the flat plane and into physical space. Historically, artists have pushed photography toward objecthood—through photograms and early cameraless techniques—laying the groundwork for today’s hybrid practices.”

About the Presenter

Lynn Bierbaum is a photographer and glass artist currently residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She believes that her interest in the art making process stems not only from viewing the world through the lens of a camera, but rather embracing the origin of the word photography, meaning “painting with light”. Her sculptural photographic work combines darkroom techniques in conjunction with blown glass, in order to warp and bend light to convey her personal perception of time and memory.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Lynn explore the intersection of sculptural form, historic photographic processes, blown glass, and contemporary technologies.

10/02/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Ashley Beatty, presenting “Forest Activism: The Lorax Speaks.”

“This photographic and installation work investigates forests as living, communicating systems—an urgent counter to the Anthropocene’s extractive logic. Bridging scientific research, metaphysical inquiry, and Indigenous knowledge traditions, it reframes the human–forest relationship by treating the landscape not as backdrop but as an active participant.”

About the Presenter

Ashley Beatty is a photographer, installation artist, and educator whose research-driven practice explores ecofeminism and human–arboreal entanglements through photography and installation. Beatty holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2019). Beatty is full-time photography faculty at Bowling Green State University. Upcoming projects include a residency at the Peanut Factory (NC) and, with photographer/educator Sarah Thomas, a two-person exhibition at the University of Saint Francis (Fort Wayne, IN) in dialogue with an Edward Burtynsky exhibition (FA 26)

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Ashley explore the relationship between forests, climate, ecofeminism, and the human infrastructures that shape the natural world.

09/30/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Gabrielle Jade Barnett, presenting “To Be Looked At (or Not): Fat Visibility and the Politics of Looking.”

“This presentation examines the politics of looking at fat bodies through lens-based practices that center visibility, discomfort, and control. Drawing from my research and studio work, I approach looking as an active, charged exchange—one shaped by fatphobia, cultural conditioning, and expectations surrounding desirability and motherhood.”

About the Presenter

Gabrielle Jade Barnett is a lens-based artist working in photography and video whose practice explores fatness, motherhood, and the politics of visibility. Her work examines how bodies are shaped by societal expectations, centering desire, vulnerability, and resistance. She holds an MFA in Photography from the University of Georgia and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Barnett currently teaches photography and video, encouraging students to connect technical skills with critical inquiry and personal experience.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Gabrielle explore visibility, the politics of looking, and the power dynamics that shape how bodies are seen.

09/28/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to introduce Christine Alexander of Santa Fe Workshops, presenting "Addressing AI in the Creative Classroom: Strategies for Arts Educators"

“As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the photographic landscape, educators are being asked to respond in real time, often without clear standards or established best practices. Facilitated by the team at Santa Fe Workshops, this session seeks to provide photography educators with an array of resources to address AI holistically and responsibly in the classroom.”

About the Presenter

Christine Alexander is the Operations Manager for the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and oversees the curriculum development and production of all in-person workshops in Santa Fe, New York, and LA. She has also managed the Santa Fe Workshops Digital Lab since 2021. She has taught the fine-art digital printmaking process extensively, supporting a diverse range of artists and educators along the way. Christine is in process of developing a community printing program, wherein local New Mexico youth and artists can come experience the Digital Lab firsthand.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference to hear Christine share resources and strategies for navigating AI’s rapidly evolving role in photography education.

09/27/2026

Meet the presenters of SPE’s 2027 Annual Conference!

We’re excited to begin introducing this year’s presenters with Mahsa Alafar, presenting "Preserving Counter-Histories through Archiving".

“This presentation explores the role of archiving fragile internet materials as a means of shaping subaltern narratives and preserving counter-histories. In an era where digital content is both abundant and precarious, subject to deletion, censorship, and algorithmic marginalization, archival practices can function as acts of resistance.”

About the Presenter

Mahsa Alafar's practice centers on the body as a site of resistance. Through photography and archival materials, She uses image-making as a methodology to resist disappearance and erasure. As an Iranian female artist and former actress, She chose voluntary exile as a way to reclaim agency and to amplify her own voice alongside those of others unheard in her community.

Join us at the 2027 SPE Annual Conference, March 11-14, 2027

Address

Cleveland, OH

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 4pm
Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm

Telephone

+1 216-622-2733

Website

http://www.spenational.org/

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