Best Photo Picks March 2026

By Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy

Another day, another war. This time in one of the most volatile regions of the world. It is horrible, spreading despondency, dread and depression as we helplessly witness more death and destruction from afar. In our March Best Photo Picks, we offer a small antidote – expressions of creativity that flow from the arts – to help us cling to a sense of humanity. In our monthly selection of the most intriguing photography exhibits and events around metro Boston and New England, we hope you will find some semblance of hope. As always, we invite you to check back throughout the month for updates and additions.

BOSTON PROPER

Krakow Witkin Gallery – Abelardo Morell’s solo exhibition Ideas of Order features a range of captivating work from the last six years. Viewers are offered a rare throughline of Morell’s innovative practice, one that “shows things from an angle so that the subject can remain mysterious but in the clearest and most beautiful way possible.” On view from March 21st – May 9th, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception with the artist on Saturday, March 21st from 3:00 – 5:00pm.

NOTE: Artist talks are planned for Saturday, April 25th at 10:30am and 2:00pm. RSVP required.

For more information and/or to RSVP for Artist Talks, go to: https://www.krakowwitkingallery.com/exhibition/abelardo-morell/

 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – “Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography” presents a five-decade global slice of street photography that brings us up to the present. This gem-like show features the images of twenty-five photographers drawn from the museum’s collection. Their viewpoints illuminate individual and collective responses to socio-political changes, but also the ways in which people’s attitudes and gestures remain familiar over time. On view in the Herb Ritts Gallery through July 26th, 2026. 

To read our review: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/faces-in-the-crowd-street-photography-at-museum-of-fine-arts-boston/

For more information, go to: https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/faces-in-the-crowd-street-photography

Leica Gallery Boston – In her solo exhibit, “Ephemeral Field Journal,” Sarah Schorr, photographer and Visual Artist-in-Residence at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR), presents work initiated in Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, France, in Aarhus, Denmark and on Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Her images in the series “Peace Studies” reflect the evanescent nature of temperature shifts, water clarity, plant life, and environmental disturbances in elegant composite photographs of flowers from Monet’s Garden with site specific watercolors. Her series “The Color of Water” and “Skywater”  are meditations on the transient essence of water as a metaphor for life. On view through March 22nd, 2026. 

NOTE: There will be a closing ceremony and exhibit walk-through with the artist on Saturday, March 21st, 2026 from 12:00 – 2:00pm.

To read our review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/sarah-schorr-ephemeral-field-journal-skywater-and-the-color-of-water-at-leica-gallery-boston-ma/

For more information, go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com/exhibitions/

Coming next to Leica Gallery Boston – As war in the Middle East rages anew, Lebanese-American photographer Rania Matar’s solo exhibit Where Do I Go? rings timely and profound, nuanced and declarative. Her arresting, collaborative environmental portraits of young Lebanese women (facing circumstances similar to Matar’s during the Lebanese Civil War 50 years ago) embody remarkable grace and strength as they struggle to find a way forward. On view from March 27th – May 31st, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception with the artist on Thursday, April 9th from 6:00 – 8:00pm.

To read our review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/rania-matar-where-do-i-go-photo-exhibit-at-leica-gallery-boston-and-book-from-kaph/

For more information, go to: https://leicagalleryboston.com/exhibitions/

 

Panopticon Gallery – The gallery’s annual juried show, First Look 2026, features short portfolios of current work by five photographers whose images delve into cultural, environmental and personal realms. This year, the exhibit includes captivating photographs from Donna Garcia’s “Indian Land For Sale,” Josh Aronson’s “Florida Boys” (above), Anastasia Sierra’s “The Witching Hour,” Kevin Williamson’s “Hudson Valley,” and Laura Ritch’s “find the light.” Presented alongside is First Look: A Second Glance, displayed on The Wall at Panopticon Gallery. This selection of small-scale, unframed prints offers a place for compelling additional submissions. On view through April 27th, 2026.

To read our review: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/first-look-2026-group-photo-show-at-panopticon-gallery-boston-ma/

For more information, go to: https://www.panopticongallery.com/first-look-2026-1

 

Pucker Gallery – In a tribute to the late photographer Tony King (1934-2017), “A Singular Journey” celebrates his graceful and precise imagery across genres, not only capturing a moment but reflecting the attentive and empathetic eye of this prolific artist. LAST CHANCE! On view through March 8th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://www.puckergallery.com/

Coming next to Pucker Gallery  – “People and Places: The Photography of Bill Aron” is a career retrospective featuring moving and incisive work by this chronicler of Jewish communities throughout the world: “a panorama of faces, rituals, artifacts and landscapes that together speak to the experiences of millions of people over centuries.” On view from March 14th – April 26th, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception with the artist on Saturday, March 14th from 3:00 – 6:00pm and an Artist Talk on Sunday, March 15th from 2:00 – 4:00pm.

To read our review, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/photographer-bill-aron-people-and-places-solo-show-at-pucker-gallery-boston/

For more information, go to: https://www.puckergallery.com/

 

Griffin Museum at Lafayette City Center (LCC) – “As Above, So Below” features the work of two photographers: Jessica Hays’ (above) series The Sun Sets Midafternoon – Wildfires in the America West is an exploration of the immediate aftermath of megafires on surrounding communities, interweaving narratives to describe their ecological devastation and emotional trauma. Melinda Hurst Frye’s (below) series Regeneration investigates ecological cycles of the understory of the Pacific Northwest, often near ground level and below, employing a flatbed scanner as a camera to discover vestiges of regenerative growth following wildfires. On view from through March 30th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://griffinmuseum.org/show/as-above-so-below/

 

SOWA – Boston’s South End Arts District

ShowUp Gallery – Guest curated by Cassandra Klos, the group show “Reciprocal Ecology” explores diverse ways that photographers engage in reciprocal relationships with nature. Featuring imagery by Kelly Burgess, Daesha Devón Harris (above), Jodie Goodnough, Billy Hickey, Alexandra Ionescu, Camilla Jerome, Jordanna Kalman, Vanessa Leroy, Chris Maliga, Owen McCarter, Lisa McCarty, JaLeel Porcha, Sandra Stark and John Tully. On view from from March 6th – April 26th, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception with many of the artists on First Friday, March 6th from 5:00 – 8:00pm.

For more information, go to: https://www.showupinc.org/reciprocal-ecology

 

Gallery Very – Kevin Foley and Lee Wormald: Islands showcases black and white pictures that treat landscape not as a backdrop but as psychological structure. While Kevin Foley’s formal compositions of infrastructure contemplate the symbolic terrain of worksites, Lee Wormald’s images of Flores in the Azores explore how the insularity of an island defines both its territory and its temperament. An Opening Reception is planned from 5 to 9pm on Saturday, March 7th and a conversation with the artists will take place from 2:15 to 3:15pm on Saturday, March 14th.  On view from March 7th through April 4th, 2026. 

For more information: https://www.galleryvery.com

 

CAMBRIDGE

Bridge Gallery – The gallery is hosting Witness, a group exhibit of photographs from the Social Documentary Network’s (SDN) 2026 ZEKE Awards. Stirring images from 20 first place and honorable mention winners span the globe from Ukraine to Uganda to the US, bringing us compelling stories by documentary photographers who find it increasingly dangerous to bear witness in these turbulent times. On view from March 28th – April 18th, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception on Saturday, March 28th from 5:00 – 8:00pm.

For more information about the exhibit and the gallery’s hour of operation, go to: https://www.bridge.photos/contact

AND

https://www.socialdocumentary.net/cms/witness-bridge-gallery-2026

 

Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, Cambridge – Castaway: The Afterlife of Plastic presents work by Mexican artists Ilana Boltvinik and Rodrigo Viñas, who together form the collective TRES, recipients of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography. The bilingual photographic exhibition documents their 2016 journey along the beaches of Queensland, Western Australia, and Tasmania, where they collected and photographed varied debris that had washed up from places as far away as China. Their images, many presented in macro scale, evoke archaeology, marine biology, and cartography, inviting viewers to ponder the natural landscapes and the stark, unnatural objects scattered across them. Exhibit curator Ilisa Barbash emphasizes that “rather than producing a simple diatribe about the environment, TRES plays with the sizes, shapes, and colors of familiar castaway items, inviting us to see their beauty and attempt to make sense of them.” On view through April 6th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://peabody.harvard.edu/castaway-afterlife-plastic

 

THE BURBS

Danforth Art Museum and Art School, Framingham – A lot of photography goodness is gracing the walls at the Danforth in three exhibitions: Memory is a Verb is a collective of ten photographers probing issues of memory, loss and self, with images by Elizabeth Bailey, Annette LeMay Burke, Dena Elisabeth Eber, Sarah Hadley, Diane Hemingway, Susan Lapides, Lori Ordover, Jennifer Pritchard, Rosalie Rosenthal, and Aline Smithson. Memento Mori features William Betcher’s haunting meditations on death, memory and history. Quarantine Islands presents Rachel Loischild’s affecting landscapes exploring past policies on immigration and public health. On view through May 24th, 2026.

To read our review of “Quarantine Islands”, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/quarantine-islands-by-rachel-loischild-at-danforth-art/

To read our review of “Memento Mori”, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/memento-mori-photo-exhibit-by-william-betcher-at-danforth-art-framingham-ma/

To read our review of “Memory is a Verb,” go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/memory-is-a-verb-group-photo-show-at-danfoth-art-museum-in-framingham-ma/

For more information: https://danforth.framingham.edu

 

Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester – To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States, the museum is planning a year-long series of four exhibitions called State of the Union. They begin with Manifest Destiny, addressing the 18th and 19th century notion of our inevitable expansion into a vast “empty” western terrain. Reinterpreted through contemporary sensibilities, the Main Gallery show features landscape photographs by Craig Easton, Drew Leventhal (above), Lisa Elmaleh, Rich Frishman, Scott Conarroe and Victoria Sambunaris. Expanding this theme are solo shows by John Willis from his series View from the Reservation and Mni Wiconi in the Griffin Gallery and Austin Bryant’s Where They Still Remain in the Griffin Atelier Gallery. On view through March 15th, 2026. 

To read our review of the Main Gallery exhibit, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/manifest-destiny-scott-conarroe-craig-easton-lisa-elmaleh-rich-frishman-drew-leventhal-victoria-sambunaris-griffin-msueum-of-photography-winchester-ma/

To read our review of the Atelier Gallery and Griffin Gallery exhibits, go to: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/who-is-american-austin-bryant-john-willis-in-manifest-destiny-griffin-museum-of-photography-winchester-ma/

For more information: https://griffinmuseum.org

Coming next to the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester – Laborers are the salt of earth, and also the subject of the second in a series of exhibitions to commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States. Curated by Carl Corey, Labor Daily: American Working Class features photography by Corey, Chris Aluka Barry, Daniel Overturf, Inna Valin, Julie Dermansky, Terry Evans and Xavier Tavera. Edward Boches’ Labors of Love: Illuminating the Archive will be featured in the Founders Gallery. An artist panel from 3 to 4:30pm precedes a reception from 5 to 7pm on April 17th, and the shows are view from March 21st through May 24th, 2026. 

For more information: https://griffinmuseum.org

 

DeMenil Gallery, Groton School, Groton, MA – From 2020 through 2024, photographer Deborah Bai-Lannon served as a volunteer photo documentarian for the Home Base Veterans and Family Program (Charlestown, MA) during its “Respite Weekends” at Harvard University’s Polo Farm in Hamilton, MA. The weekends offer veterans recovering from PTSD a temporary reprieve from the intensity of clinical treatment in Boston by placing them in a tranquil rural environment. Bai-Lannon photographed the activities of more than two hundred participants from all branches of the service. Her black and white photographs in Aftermath consider recovery not as a definitive endpoint, but as an evolving process shaped by time, environment, and human connection. On view through April 29th, 2026.

For more information: https://www.groton.org/arts/galleries

 

Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley – Ilse Bing came to prominence during a seminal time in the development of the history of photography, with the rise of 35mm photography, which exerted a powerful impact on the photo-essay and introduced groundbreaking surrealist works made through solarization and photograms. The World’s of Ilse Bing, curated by Dr. Carrie Cushman, Director of the Bates College Museum of Art, and Curatorial Fellow Linda Wyatt Gruber (Wellesley ’66), is organized geographically according to the three cities where Bing lived. It brings her work into conversation with her creative influences and with those who she influenced in the worlds of modern art.  On view through May 24th, 2026.

For more information: https://www1.wellesley.edu/davismuseum

 

Nesto Gallery at Milton Academy, Milton – Renowned Boston-based photographer Lou Jones has not only photographed people and cultures all over the globe in both the fine art and commercial realms, but he has mentored many students and interns who have gone on to great careers of their own. The group show Influence is a family reunion of sorts, with exceptional images curated by Lou Jones in a gathering of the artists who have gleaned his guidance in their photographic journeys. LAST CHANCE! On view through March 4th, 2026. 

For more information, go to: https://www.milton.edu/arts/nesto-gallery/

 

New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford – The exhibition, Look Pleasant, Please, debuts a collection of archival photographic portraits reflecting historical and cultural changes in New Bedford as it transformed from a whaling town to a textiles center. Over 300 portraits from 1839 to 1900 feature examples of Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, carte-de-visites, cabinet cards, gelatin silver prints and albums. On view through September 7th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/look-pleasant-please-early-portrait-photography-in-new-bedford/

 

CENTRAL AND WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg – Good news: the museum now offers free admission! And after  a three month hiatus this past fall to prepare for a centennial celebration, they have re-opned with the ongoing show on view through May 24th, 2026. 

To read our review: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/ask-now-the-beasts-tara-sellios-at-fitchburg-art-museum-in-ma/

For more information: https://fitchburgartmuseum.org

 

MASS MoCA, North Adams – Zora J. Murff presents photographs, collages, video and text in RACE/HUSTLE that probes physical, psychological and institutional forms of societal violence. Curated by Terence Washington through MASS MoCA’s Curatorial Exchange Initiative, Murff examines the deleterious effects of institutional racism that have been visually normalized through history and how they manifest in every day culture. Ongoing.

For more information: https://massmoca.org/event/zora-j-murff-race-hustle/

 

ROAD TRIP! 

Rhode Island

Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts (RICPA), Providence – Director’s Choice features “Mastering the Print” with works by RIPCA Executive Director David DeMelim and Reed Pike in a presentation that considers the photographic print as object. On view through March 13th, 2026. 

Opening next at the RICPA, Providence – For the past several years, to honor Women’s History Month, the gallery has showcased women photographers in Behind the Lens: Women in Photography. This year’s exhibit, “The Imogene’s,” features work by Karla Bernstein, Diane Collins, Estelle Dish, Deb Ehrens, Paula Laverty, Lisa Redburn and Jean Schnell. Opens with a reception from 5 to 8pm on March 19th and on view through April 10th, 2026. 

For more information: https://www.riphotocenter.org

 

Connecticut

Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven – The gallery is showing two bodies of work by Sean Kernan: The Missing Pictures embodies the “mood, echoes, chilly air and fading light” during an imaginary journey to an empty rural home, dropping visual clues about the prior lives and possible spirits who inhabit it; No Place…No Date…No Caption is a collection of small prints “reconstructing a pilgrimage across fifty years and thousands of miles that the photographer never even knew he was on” and includes an invitation for viewers to collaborate. On view from March 20th – April 19th, 2026, there will be an Opening Reception with the artist on Sunday March 22nd from 2:00 – 5:00pm with an Artist Talk at 3:00pm.

For more information, go to: https://www.kehlerliddellgallery.com/

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven – One of the most influential photographers, August Sander, is given a comprehensive exhibition of over 600 prints from his magnum opus People of the 20th Century. On view through June 28th, 2026.

For more information: https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/august-sanders-people-20th-century

 

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford – Gerald Incandela uses a unique darkroom process to blend photography, drawing and painting. In Gerald Incandela: Photographic Drawings the artist creates abstract forms, shapes and imagery to create rich and painterly compositions. LAST CHANCE!  On view through March 8th, 2026. 

For more information: https://www.thewadsworth.org/explore/on-view/gerald-incandela/

Also on view at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford –Invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, the Daguerrotype became widely used for portraiture in the 1840’s, but a few early photographic practitioners such as Sam Bemis and James Presley Ball made landscapes with the difficult process. The Scenic Daguerrotype in America 1840-1860 showcases 83 precious examples from a private collection, offering a rare look at the 19th century American landscapes. On view through March 22nd, 2026.

For more information: https://www.thewadsworth.org/explore/on-view/scenic-daguerreotype/

 

Maine

Portland Museum of Art – Tracing the early stages of her career in the 1970’s and ’80’s, Ming Smith: Jazz Requiem-Notations in Blue explores the influence of intuitive expression found in dance and music, particularly jazz, as a throughline in Smith’s innovative artistic vision. On view through June 7th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://www.portlandmuseum.org/magazine/ming-smith-jazz-requiem-notations-in-blue-exhibit

 

Bates Museum of Art at Bates College, Lewiston – “Shelburne Thurber: Full Circle” is a focused retrospective containing threads that are present throughout many of Thurber’s projects spanning from the 1970s to today. The exhibit contextualizes the ways in which Thurber has visualized interior work that is private, domestic, psychological, or insular. On view through March 21st, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://www.bates.edu/museum/shellburne-thurber-full-circle/

 

Vermont

Vermont Center for Photography (VCP), Brattleboro – Each winter, VCP invites an esteemed juror to bring together their annual juried show. This year, Marvin Heiferman proffered the theme “Why We Look: Questioning the World Before Us,” featuring forty photographers. Opens with a reception from 5 to 8pm on March 6th, and on view through April 26th, 2026.

For more information: https://vcphoto.org