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Penumbra Foundation Penumbra Foundation is a non profit photographic arts and education organization devoted to teaching

Tomorrow! Join us for the first lecture of our Fall 2026 Artist Series with Carlos Motta (Carlos Alejandro Motta)! Combi...
10/13/2026

Tomorrow! Join us for the first lecture of our Fall 2026 Artist Series with Carlos Motta (Carlos Alejandro Motta)!

Combining historical research and collaborative practice, Motta explores sexuality, gender, and power, challenging normative discourses through acts of self-representation. Motta’s works span a variety of media, including video, installation, sculpture, drawing, web-based projects, performance, and symposia.

This lecture is free to the public and will be held in Penumbra Foundation’s Highlight Studios on Wednesday, October 14th, at 7pm.

To RSVP, please click the link in bio.⁠

Penumbra Foundation’s Artist Series brings to life the work of featured photographers and other notable guest artists and scholars, offering a unique opportunity to engage with them in an intimate setting as they discuss their work and process. The Fall 2026 Series is co-organized by Artist and Educator .

Images © Carlos Motta

From waste neutralization to chemistry made from backyard weeds—there are many ways photographic artists can build a saf...
10/11/2026

From waste neutralization to chemistry made from backyard weeds—there are many ways photographic artists can build a safer, more eco-friendly practice! 🌎

Next month, Anne Eder (Anne Eder) will be teaching two workshops on more sustainable ways of working—a two-day, in-person class on the plant-based, phytogram process and a 4-week online course on lower impact darkroom practices and alternatives to silver, iron, and gum printing.

Swipe for class details 👉

✶ Phytograms with Anne Eder

In this weekend workshop, participants will create phytograms—cameraless images on film—using plant-based developers. By placing plant materials in direct contact with film and processing them with homemade solutions, participants will achieve beautiful, unexpected, and often vibrant results similar to lumen prints. 

Due to their transparency, phytograms offer a range of creative possibilities, from hand-coloring and gold leafing to light box presentation, reprinting, or film splicing for video works. The process draws on phenols naturally found in plants, activated by a washing soda/vitamin C solution and enhanced by sunlight or UV light. Other plant compounds introduce subtle color variations, with results varying by film type.

Saturday & Sunday, November 7 & 8 | 10am-6pm

✶ Sustainable Photographic Practices with Anne Eder

This four-week online course introduces participants to approaches for building a safer, more eco-friendly photographic practice.

Through lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on experimentation, participants will explore processes that are naturally less harmful as well as substitutions for hazardous chemicals. Topics include personal safety in the lab, waste neutralization and disposal, metal salt recovery, homemade developers, and the use of unconventional light sensitizing agents. The first class introduces participants to sustainable practices and ideas. The following 3 weeks are dedicated to learning best practices and alternatives for silver-based processes, iron-based processes, and gum printing/ dichromates. Between class sessions, participants will gain practical experience making work using these alternative chemicals and processes before

🍂 Next month, our portrait booth will be back at Michael Arenella’s Autumn edition on Governors Island! We’ll have gift ...
10/10/2026

🍂 Next month, our portrait booth will be back at Michael Arenella’s Autumn edition on Governors Island!

We’ll have gift cards, 4x5, and 5x7 plates at our discounted festival pricing—all proceeds supporting Penumbra’s public programs and offerings.

🗓️ Saturday & Sunday, November 7th & 8th
📍Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governors Island

Fall 2026 curriculum: Half & One-Day Workshops Swipe through for course details in the captions + a guide for selecting ...
10/08/2026

Fall 2026 curriculum: Half & One-Day Workshops

Swipe through for course details in the captions + a guide for selecting tuition at the end.

Just two spots left in next week’s Mini Series: Kallitype workshop with Jarrett Esaw (Jarrett Tyler Esaw)!

Patented in 1889, the kallitype is made by coating paper with a ferric oxalate and silver nitrate solution, producing images with remarkable depth and detail. Developing solutions can be used to achieve different colors, including brown, sepia, blue, maroon, or black.

In this 3-hour workshop, participants will gain a basic understanding of the kallitype process. Through demonstration and hands-on learning, students will learn how to make digital negatives, coat paper, and process prints.

Wednesday, October 14 | 6-9pm

Zines offer an opportunity to put into the hands of the producer the power to tell their own story.

This one day zine-making session with is intended to act as an approachable workshop that touches upon important historical and theoretical aspects of zine-making and zine culture. With an emphasis on the conceptual and critical language of zines, culminating in taking practical steps to create your own zines, this workshop is aimed at both teenagers and adults with a desire to learn the basics for creating their own tangible self-published works.

During this workshop, students will consider visual flow, question how images can complement or detract from one another, experiment with layout and sequencing content in varying size, number, and spatial layouts, while developing a narrative and having a clear outcome for their work and how they wish to tell their story. Using simple tools such as a bone folder, scissors, a blade, needle and thread, and a stapler – at the end of this workshop, the participants know the basics of how to fold, collate, and bind with various rudimentary techniques allowing them to take mockups and maquettes to be replicated for a future of zine-making explorations in their own practice.

Saturday, October 24 | 10am-6pm

Learn to identify and distinguish a variety of historic 19th-century photographic processes, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes,

Chemigrams are a cameraless silver gelatin process that relies on light, chemistry, and substances applied to the paper ...
10/04/2026

Chemigrams are a cameraless silver gelatin process that relies on light, chemistry, and substances applied to the paper surface (resists) that can produce a plethora of abstract and non-objective results. ⁠
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Chemigrams: Composition and Concept with is an online course designed for artists and photographers eager to explore experimental darkroom techniques at home and improve their compositions and ideas. Through lectures, demonstrations, assignments completed outside of class time, and group critiques, students will experiment with different resists, refine their compositions, and learn to connect abstraction with concept. ⁠
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By the end of the course, students will have the skills to confidently create chemigrams, assess and adjust their process to achieve desired colors and values in their final prints, and understand the historical and contemporary significance of cameraless photography. ⁠
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Wednesdays, October 28 - December 9* | 6-8pm EST ⁠
*Please note that class will not meet on November 25 for Thanksgiving⁠
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More info at the Online Learning link in bio.

On view in our Exhibition Space: In the Fold | Special Presentations ✶ 2026 Dummy Award in collaboration with The PhotoB...
10/02/2026

On view in our Exhibition Space: In the Fold | Special Presentations

✶ 2026 Dummy Award in collaboration with The PhotoBookMuseum / Dummy Award
The Dummy Award is an international open call for the best unpublished photobook dummies of the year. A total of 325 books from over 45 countries were submitted for the 2026 Dummy Award. The shortlist selection this year resulted in 48 photobooks that are part of a world-wide traveling exhibition now on view in Penumbra’s Exhibition Space.

✶ 2026 Susan McLaughlin Risograph Photobook Award Shortlist and Featured Publications
The inaugural Susan McLaughlin Risograph Photobook Award supports the work of artists, printers, and publishers in working with the risograph process. One publication will be selected to receive a $5,000 award. Seven publications were selected by Miwa Susuda (Dashwood Books) from the close to 150 submissions received from every continent. Six additional publications were selected by Penumbra Foundation for special feature in the Exhibition Space.

✶ Mango Season by Jenia Fridlyand (Jenia Fridlyand)
Visiting Cuba in the second decade of the 21st century, then, felt like an uncanny homecoming. While both tangible and familiar, the grim fabric of the communist quotidian kept unraveling for Fridlyand under the bright, tropical sun. With a large format camera and a photographic practice rooted in the American tradition, Fridlyand traveled around the island during several extended trips. She intuitively trained her lens on moments and scenes with the potential of holding both the known and the novel—from a pair of donkeys silhouetted against hilltops, a customer at a barber shop and a pair of rocking chairs seen through an open door, to drops of sweat on a man’s curved back and sweet fruit hanging ripe on a tree.

✶ Publications by the Agency (the Agency)
John Gossage (John Gossage), , and Jenia Fridlyand (Jenia Fridlyand) present their books recently published by the Agency, an imprint project co-founded by Gossage and Fridlyand, and produced in collaboration with Steidl.

Come browse the special presentations through Thursday, October 15th! More info at the link in profile.

Our Project Space hosts the editorial work of innovative photobook publishers through presentations of books from their ...
10/02/2026

Our Project Space hosts the editorial work of innovative photobook publishers through presentations of books from their catalogues, making their projects available to all in a reading room style environment. Additionally, the Project Space is home to photobook resources such as the Penumbra Foundation Risograph Photobook Collection, book dummies from the Long Term Program: The Photobook, and special editions and collections from artists and publishers.

Currently on view through December 2026 is The , a Dutch studio for book design and an independent publisher, focused on contemporary storytelling at the intersection of photography, research, and writing.

We are pleased to have acquired over 130 titles by The Eriskay Connection, representing the most complete collection of their editorial work available to the public.

Come browse titles by The Eriskay Connection and more in our Project Space, open to the public Monday-Friday, from 2-6pm!

More info at the link in bio.

We are delighted to announce the guest speakers of our Fall 2026 Artist Series, co-organized by Artist and Educator Mila...
09/30/2026

We are delighted to announce the guest speakers of our Fall 2026 Artist Series, co-organized by Artist and Educator Milagros de la Torre (Milagros de la Torre)!
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✶ Carlos Motta — Wednesday, October 14 | 7pm⁠
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✶ Sara Greenberger Rafferty — Wednesday, October 21 | 7pm⁠
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✶ Christian Patterson — Wednesday, November 4 | 7pm⁠
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✶ Helina Metaferia — Monday, November 16 | 7pm⁠
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✶ Fia Backström — Wednesday, December 2 | 7pm⁠
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All lectures are free to the public and will be held in Penumbra’s Highlight Studios. To RSVP, please click the link in bio.⁠
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Cover © Christian Patterson.

Registration for Albumen with Jarrett Esaw (Jarrett Esaw) closes this Friday, 10/2! Albumen printing was the dominant me...
09/27/2026

Registration for Albumen with Jarrett Esaw (Jarrett Esaw) closes this Friday, 10/2!

Albumen printing was the dominant method for producing photographic prints in the late 19th century, enabling mass production and accessibility in photography. Made from a mixture of egg whites and salts, this process yields prints with beautiful tones and a glossy finish. In this weekend workshop, students will learn how to mix chemistry, coat paper, tone prints, and all the best practices for using this process. Students will leave this workshop with a collection of albumen prints made from their digital photographs and the knowledge to continue printing on their own.

Saturday & Sunday, October 10 & 11 | 10am-6pm

Address

36 E 30th Street
New York, NY
10016

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

+19172880343

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