Best Photo Picks October 2025

By Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy

Photography has long taken the pulse of the times and today is no exception. Regional exhibitions focusing on past and present create interactions that offer insightful perspectives. Whether you engage with art as a powerful salve or a form of resistance to cultural dissonance, you will find October in New England is a particularly fruitful time for viewing photography. As always, we organize our monthly listings geographically for your planning convenience, and invite you to consult our regular updates throughout the month.

BOSTON PROPER

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – “Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography” features vintage works by such notables as Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, Dawoud Bey and Yolanda Andrade, alongside more contemporary practitioners such as Luc Delahaye, Katy Grannan, Amani Willett, Zoe Strauss and Martin Parr. The exhibition aims to show the dynamic cultural and societal changes that are manifested in urban settings through the decades. On view in the Herb Ritts Gallery from October 11th, 2025 – 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 show Greetings from Niagara, award-winning documentary photographer Natalia Neuhaus explores the consequences of a long-hidden radioactive uranium contamination around Niagara Falls, New York, once known as the world’s “Honeymoon Capital.” On view through November 2nd, 2025

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

 

Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)/Boston – Yorgos Efthymiadis, one of four winners of the 2025 James and Audrey Foster Prize, is exhibiting photographs from “The Lighthouse Keepers” project and his newest portrait series exploring the personal lives of Boston area Union members in and around their homes. Established to “nurture and recognize exceptional Boston-area artists,” the Foster Prize celebrates recipients with this annual ICA/Boston exhibition. An opening reception is planned for Tuesday, October 7th;  on view through January 19th, 2026.

For more information, go to: https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/2025-james-and-audrey-foster-prize/

 

Panopticon Gallery – In his solo show and recently published book Grace, Scott Offen collaborates with his longtime partner of the same name to examine the dynamics of their relationship “at the intersection of the real, the symbolic, and the psychological.” Functioning as a character in the work, scenes are set in the natural landscape of rural New England. On view through December 2nd, 2025.

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

To read our review with Offen’s book: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/book-reviews-dona-ann-mcadams-black-box-a-photographic-memoir-nancy-richards-farese-i-still-speak-southern-in-my-head-scott-offen-grace/

 

SOWA – Boston’s South End Arts District

Abakus Projects – Feda Eid: Made in USA, صنع في أمريكا features imagery with a bold use of color, textiles, adornment, and pop culture, linking past and present in the Lebanese-American’s exploration of  “heritage, culture, identity and the often tense but beautiful space between what is said, what is felt, and and what is lost in translation.” On view through Sunday, October 26th. 

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

 

Kingston Gallery – Mary Lang: Entanglement features cacophonous landscapes formed through a web of vines, twigs or leaves that function as metaphor for the complex nature of our current cultural ethos. Also on view in the project space, a selection of photographs from the series Waterland by Hilary Tolan.  An opening reception is planned for Friday, October 3rd from 5 to 8pm, and on view from October 2nd through November 3rd, 2025

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

 

CAMBRIDGE

Bridge Gallery – Employing a method of focus stacking, graphic designer Lance Hidy creates extraordinarily detailed images of tiny trout flies in Hidden Art: The Trout Flies of V.S. Hidy. Each image contains as many as 80 to 150 pictures that have been layered and digitally rendered to reveal the exquisite elements of these minute objects that were created by his father. An opening reception is planned for Saturday October 4th from 5:00 to 9:00pm, on view from October 4th – November 2nd, 2025. A Closing reception is planned for November 2nd from 2 to 5pm. 

For more information: https://www.bridge.photos

 

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

 

Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge – In Memoriam: Rebecca Horn (1944–2024) pays tribute to the German multi-media artist whose tactile, surreal work explored relationships between the human body and its surroundings, animate and inanimate objects, and external and interior spaces. LAST CHANCE!  On view in Gallery 1100 (Modern and Contemporary Art) through October 5th, 2025.

For more information, go to: https://harvardartmuseums.org/visit/floor-plan/1/1100

 

Photographic Resource Center, Cambridge – EXPOSURE 2025, the 29th Annual Members’ Juried Exhibition features Steven Crawford, Todd Danforth, Andrew Foster, Suzi Grossman, Eric T. Kunsman, Allison Plass (photo), Josie Rybczyk, Mari Saxon, Glen Sheffer, Quincey Spagnoletti, Samantha Vandeman, and Suzanne Theodora White selected by guest juror Conor Moynihan, Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the RISD Museum in Providence, RI. LAST CHANCE! On view in the VanDernoot Gallery at Lesley University through October 4th, 2025. 

For more information, go to: https://www.prcboston.org/exhibitions/

 

THE BURBS

Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester – The year 2020 marked the centennial of the 19th amendment to the Constitution giving (most) women the right to vote. In the 19th century, women wearing yellow roses in Tennessee awaited the roll call to hear men cast a vote in favor of or against the right for women to vote. It would, of course, take longer for women of color to earn that same right. To commemorate this centennial, artists Meg Griffiths and Frances Jakubek invited over one hundred photographers from across the country to respond, reflect and react to this important milestone. This collaborative effort known as A Yellow Rose Project will be installed in all three galleries of the museum and a robust series of programs are planned. A reception with the artists is planned for October 9th from 6 to 8pm, and the show is on view from October 2nd through November 30th, 2025. 

For more information and related programing: https://griffinmuseum.org/show/ayrp/

 

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover – Tommy Kha is the second recipient of the biannual Bartlett H. Hayes Jr. Prize in support of living artists. In their first solo museum show, Tommy Kha: Other Things Uttered, they pay homage to the Korean-American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha who, like Kha, explores themes of translation and mistranslation in the sometimes fragmented identities of immigrants. On view through January 25th, 2026.

For more information: https://addison.andover.edu/exhibition/hayes-prize-2025-tommy-kha/

 

Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham – With the largest concentration of people from Cape Verde in Brockton, Massachusetts, photographer Sonya Tanae Fort has probed her familial connections to the island nation from her home near Boston, while also exploring the islands of Maio and Fogo. Her soulful black and white images resonate with deep kinship and abiding love. Sonya Tanae Fort: I See You will be on view through January 11th, 2026.

For more information: https://danforth.framingham.edu/exhibition/sonya-tanae-fort-i-see-you/

RSM Art Gallery at Bentley Library, Bentley University, Waltham – Joetta Maue’s The Gleanings weaves photography, installation and embroidery in homage to the everyday details where transcendent meanings hide in plain sight. Maue seeks to find the rhymes of life through light, simple gestures and quiet contemplation. Opens with an artist talk at 5pm followed by a reception from 5:30 to 7:00pm on October 16th, and will be on view through November 25th.

For more information: https://www.bentley.edu/library/art-gallery

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 December 14th, 2025. 

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

 

Peabody Esssex Museum (PEM), Salem – As part of their summer Korean art bonanza, PEM presents Building Dreams, South Korean artist Jung Yeondoo’s photographic and video examinations of his people’s dreams and aspirations. In his series Bewitched, subjects pose identically in side-by-side scenes picturing what they do versus what they want to do. In the series Evergreen Towers, Yeondoo observes the individuality and personalities of families living in identical units of generic high rise buildings. On view through January 25th, 2026.

To read our review: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/korean-photographer-jung-yeondoo-building-dreams-show-at-peabody-essex-museum-salem-ma/

For more information, go to: https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/jung-yeondoo-building-dreams

 

CENTRAL AND WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

The Clark, Williamstown – Berenice Abbot’s Modern Lens celebrates the photographer’s best known work documenting the evolving urban landscapes of New York City in the late 1930’s. After living in France and being influenced by Man Ray, Abbot’s compositions of cavernous structures and towering skyscrapers are as surreal as they are concrete. LAST CHANCE! On view through October 5th, 2025.

For more information: https://www.clarkart.edu/microsites/berenice-abbott/exhibition-overview/about-the-exhibition

 

ROAD TRIP

Rhode Island 

Rhode Island Center for Photographic Art, Providence – The Sixth Annual Juried Spotlight Members’ Exhibition features projects by six members, juried by MFA Boston curator Karen Haas. Exhibiting photographers are Diane Bennett, Richard Cohen, Linda Hammett Ory, Joni Lohr, Gail Samuelson and Kaya Sanan. An opening reception is planned for October 16th from 5 to 8pm, and will be on view from October 16th – November 14th, 2025. 

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

 

Museum of Work and Culture, Woonsocket, RI – Made between 1973 and 1978, photographer Steve Dunwell explored the dying textile mills around New England. Dunwell will give a presentation about the work and the industry it depicts and there will be a screening of the documentary “Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village” by Christian deRezendes. On view through October 24th, 2025. 

For more information: https://www.rihs.org/locations/museum-of-work-culture/

 

Connecticut

Museum of Contemporary Art Connecticut (MoCA CT), Westport – The long time Yale educator Todd Papageorge spent several summers on the beaches in Los Angeles, photographing with medium format camera and black and white film. This retrospective look, Tod Papageorge: At the Beach, is paired with In the Pool: On Influence featuring work from many of his graduate students. Curated by Lisa Kereszi both exhibitions are on view through October 26th, 2025. 

For more information: https://mocact.org/exhibitions/

To read our review: https://www.whatwillyouremember.com/at-the-beach-by-tod-papageorge-at-moca-ct/

 

The 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/

 

New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain – Norman Rockwell: From Camera to Canvas brings together the photographic studies and ephemera that Rockwell referenced for his many illustrations over a forty year career. With over seventy photographs, tear sheets and paintings, visitors will find how this detailed-oriented illustrator used photographs to fine tune the expressive qualities of each painting. On view through February 15th, 2026.

For more information: https://nbmaa.org

 

Maine

Moss Galleries, Falmouth – This exhibition celebrates the launch of a limited edition art book called The Haunted: Contemporary Photography Conjured in New England. Edited by Jocelyn Lee and published by Speedwell Contemporary, it features photography and poetry that responds to themes of place and the spirit of New England. Participating photographers include Tad Beck, Tabitha Bernard, Barbara Bosworth, Neville Caulfield, Caleb Charland, Jed Devine, Smith Galtney, Kate Greene, Pia-Paulina Guilmoth, Tonee Harbert, Cig Harvey, Dylan Hausthor, David Hilliard, Jocelyn Lee, Amanda Marchand, Leah Sobsey, Emily Sheffer, Peter Shellenberger, Wendy Small, Cheryle St. Onge, and Shoshannah White. A panel discussion is planned at the Portland Museum of Art on October 3oth from 6 to 7:30pm, the exhibition will be on view from October 17th – November 29th, 2025. 

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

 

Light Manufacturing, Cassidy Point, Portland – A second exhibition to celebrate The Haunted: Contemporary Photography Conjured in New England will be on view from October 24th – December 1st, 2025 where an opening book launch and party will take place on October 30th from 7pm until midnight. 

For more information: https://www.cassidypoint.com/light-manufacturing-studio

 

Vermont

McCarthy Art Gallery at Saint Michael’s College, Colchester – Rachel Portesi explores the intricacies of mushrooms as symbols for the interconnectedness of all living things in The Nature of Things. Employing early photographic techniques, artificial intelligence and time-lapse photography, Portesi seeks the invisible threads between plants, animals and human beings. On view through October 31st, 2025.

For more information: https://mccarthygallery.smc-artanddesign.space/fa25/rportesi.html 

 

Shelburne Museum, Shelburne – Using a large format camera and the cyanotype process, artist David Sokosh explores the Shelburne’s collection of American ephemera. Honoring the vision of the museum’s founder Electra Havemeyer Webb, Blueprint of a Collection: Cyanotype Photography by David Sokosh presents the collection with his fresh, inventive imagery. On view through October 26th, 2025.

For more information: https://shelburnemuseum.org/exhibition/blueprint-of-a-collection/