Conversation

This discussion on the public and personal in smartphone photography brings together visual strategist Stephen Mayes and photographers Danny Ghitis, Henry Jacobson, Kerry Payne, and Mark Peterson. With more than one billion images uploaded every day, the smartphone seems to have opened the door to visual creativity for nearly half the world’s population. But what are we saying, and what does it mean, when the smartphone doesn’t only provide the pictures but knows more about them than we do— when the instrument joins the conversation as cocreator and publisher? Technology and psychology commingle as we venture into a world of unknown opportunity as well as risk. The discussion opens new perspectives on the seemingly innocent simplicity of our visual lives online.

Danny Ghitis is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn. His clients include Adbusters, AFAR, Bon Appétit, Billboard, Bloomberg Businessweek, BUST, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, CNN, Global Strategy Group, Gothamist, Maclean’s, the New York Times, Newsday, Rolling Stone, Stern, and TIME. Ghitis has been recognized by American Photography 29, the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward competition, the Hearst Photojournalism Championship, College Photographer of the Year, the National Press Photographers Association, and University of Florida’s Scholars Program. Ghitis was also nominated for UNICEF Photo of the Year and participated in the Eddie Adams Workshop.

Stephen Mayes is a New York-based creative director, CEO, and ambassador for the medium of photography. For over twenty-five years, Mayes has managed the work and careers of top-level photographers and artists such as Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, and Richard Misrach, and has also represented the archives of Robert Mapplethorpe, Steven Meisel, and David LaChapelle. From 2004 to 2012 he took an annual assignment as secretary to the World Press Photo competition in Amsterdam. He was SVP and group creative director for Getty Images, and has also served as the director of Network Photographers in London. Mayes was the CEO of VII Photo, New York, and is now the executive director of the Tim Hetherington Trust.

Henry Jacobson is a photographer and filmmaker based in New York and Washington, D.C. He is the cinematographer, director, and producer of Mind Hive Films and began his film career in 2011 with the award-winning documentary feature Fambul Tok. He has since shot, directed, and produced many documentary features, narrative and experimental shorts, music videos, and fashion films, including Folk, Truth in Translation, After the War, Sound and Vision, Brawley, and Persistence Hunt. His experimental and fashion work has been exhibited internationally and has been published by the New York Times, Marie Claire Italy, PDN, Visura, Untitled, and Filler, among others.

Kerry Payne is an Australian photographer based in New York City. She has studied photography, documentary filmmaking, and writing at the International Center of Photography, School of Visual Arts, and New York University. Her work has been published worldwide by publications such as Marie Claire, Esquire.com, the Sydney Morning Herald, Revista Photo Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Burn Magazine. Payne has participated in several group projections and exhibitions and is the senior fellow of #instacorp and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She is cofounder of Principa, a consulting network delivering business development technology, marketing strategy, and profit-boosting tools to small and mid-sized businesses worldwide.

Mark Peterson is a photographer based in New York City. His work has been published nationally and internationally in publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, TIME, New York, ESPN The Magazine, and Geo. He has received several awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Support Grant and the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography. His book, Acts of Charity, was published in 2004. Peterson is represented by Redux Pictures.

The Space Between is presented by Aperture Foundation and the Center for Photography at Woodstock in partnership with the Photography Department at Parsons The New School for Design and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the board and Members of Aperture Foundation.