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84 Ludlow Entrance

Photography Lives Here

The International Center of Photography is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Through exhibitions, education programs, community outreach, and public programs, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the power of the image, and is a gathering place for the photography community to meet, exchange ideas, and support one another.

The School at ICP

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Ethan hill

Ethan Hill

ICP Faculty
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Ian Lewandowski

Ian Lewandowski

ICP Faculty
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Jon Henry Picture

Jon Henry

ICP Faculty
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Sarah_Blesener

Sarah Blesener

ICP Faculty
Applications Open for Fall 2026 Full-time Programs

The School at ICP was established in 1977 and services more than 3,500 adult and teen students annually.

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Matthew Septimus for ICP.

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Your donation enables us to continue to champion concerned photography as a reflection of our world. With your support, we can stage world-class exhibitions and activate the communities around us through engaging public programs. Thank you!  

Upcoming Events

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Yves Saint Laurent and Photography
Yves Saint Laurent Vintage Pop-Up
To mark the closing of the Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition on September 28, join us for a special Yves Saint Laurent vintage pop-up market. The event will bring together a select group of vintage fashion dealers specializing in archival Yves Saint Laurent pieces, each presenting a carefully curated selection of fashion and accessories. The Yves Saint Laurent Vintage Pop-Up will take place in the ICP Café from 11 AM—6 PM. No admission required. Make a day of it with Cameras and Coffee from 11 AM–1 PM, featuring a Fujifilm showcase presented by K&M and a free Street Portrait Pop-Up with photographers Jessica Neves and Jassia Ahmad. Meet The VendorsANCIENManifold VintageRaleigh VintageSPRL Header image: Ensemble worn by Edia Vairelli, Haute Couture Spring/Summer 1982 collection, 5 Avenue Marceau, Paris, January 1982. Polaroid by fashion house staff © All rights reserved © Yves Saint Laurent; Tailored suit worn by Anna Karin, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 1991 collection, 5 Avenue Marceau, Paris, July 1991. Polaroid by fashion house staff © All rights reserved © Yves Saint Laurent Special Thanks Lead support for Yves Saint Laurent and Photography is provided by Saint Laurent. This exhibition is also made possible by the Exhibition Leadership Council, with generous contributions from Charles Burdick, Michael Clinton, Caryl Englander, Renee Harbers Liddell, Almudena Legorreta, Jessica Nagle, Ken Nicholson, Jeffrey and Marjorie Rosen, and Stefano Tonchi, as well as by the ICP Exhibitions Committee members: Luana Alesio, Deborah Brown, Marnie Gelfman, Almudena Legorreta, Vasant Nayak, Elizabeth Rea, Benita Sakin and Helena Sokoloff. Exhibitions at ICP are supported, in part, by Michael Clinton, Caryl Englander, Renee Harbers Liddell, Almudena Legorreta, Jessica Nagle, Ken Nicholson, Jeffrey Rosen, the ICP Board of Trustees, the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Exhibition Partners Exhibition organized in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent. This exhibition was originated by the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and co-produced with the Rencontres d’Arles in 2025
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Cameras and Coffee: Fujifilm Showcase and Street Portrait Pop-Up — Community Meet-Up (September 2026)
Connect with ICP's community during our monthly Cameras and Coffee social meet-up for photographers, collectors, and camera enthusiasts! During this session, explore Fujifilm equipment and an information table co-presented by local Lower East Side Camera store, K&M, and Fujifilm. Then strike a pose at the Street Portrait Pop-Up by still-life and fashion photographer, Jessica Neves and Jassia Ahmad.Stay later to shop at Yves Saint Laurent Vintage Pop-Up in ICP’s cafe, and get a ticket to visit Yves Saint Laurent and Photography and Photobooks USA, 2000-25, on view only until September 28.Freshly brewed coffee by Deadbeat Club and pastries are available for purchase in the ICP café.This session of Cameras and Coffee will be hosted outdoors with sidewalk seating available. About the ArtistJessica Neves is a Brazilian photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work focuses on fashion, still life, and portrait photography, blending visual storytelling with a strong attention to detail and composition. Currently pursuing a degree in Photography and Related Media at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Jessica blends her fashion background with a contemporary photographic approach. Her still-life work explores the beauty and symbolism of everyday objects, while her fashion imagery emphasizes individuality, style, and narrative.Jassia Ahmad is a Pakistani American photographer based in New York City. Her work explores emotions and relationships primarily through still life photography, focusing on how objects can evoke human presence even in its absence. With a background in psychology, her practice is informed by an interest in how people form attachments and assign meaning to the world around them. Special thanks to K&M for the generous public programs support.For over 50 years, K&M Camera has proudly served New York City's photography community as a trusted, family-owned camera store. Located in the Lower East Side, we offer an extensive selection of photo, video, audio, and production equipment, along with the city's largest collection of vintage cameras. We're committed to making the Lower East Side a vibrant hub for photography, creativity, and visual storytelling. Image by Sara Konradi
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ICP x ROAR: Reimagining the Image in Fashion and Beauty
For decades, fashion and beauty photography set the terms for who counted as desirable, current and worth looking at. For just as long, those terms had an expiration date. That cultural paradigm is changing. As the longevity movement reshapes ideas of vitality and style, the fastest-growing, most commercially powerful segment of the fashion and beauty market is one the industry spent generations photographing out of the frame: women and men over fifty. This salon discussion brings together the people rewriting that story for a candid look at how editorial, advertising and branding are being remade in real time. Held inside ICP's museum in tandem with the Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition in the second-floor galleries, this evening pairs sharp industry insight with a rare, close-up view of images already changing the picture. About the SpeakersCary Leitzes is the Founder of LEITZES&CO, a creative partnerships agency that specializes in helping Fortune 500 companies, innovative retailers, and forward-thinking brands bring blockbuster partnerships to life. The mastermind behind collaborations from Missoni for Target to Gaga’s Workshop at Barneys New York and Moschino for Sephora, her resume includes internationally recognized collaborations with Estée Lauder, J Brand Jeans, Netflix, Tiffany & Co., Karl Lagerfeld, DreamWorks, Coca-Cola, and Jimmy Choo.Prior to LEITZES&CO, Cary was a publishing veteran and the youngest ever Director of Photography for Harper’s Bazaar. Bill Gibbons is a former journalist, editor, and media marketer. Over the course of his career, he has held senior positions in newspapers, magazines, digital media, and streaming video. His experience includes senior editorial roles and marketing positions at CBS News Digital, CBS All Access (Paramount+), Hearst Magazines Digital Media, and magazine brands such as Town & Country, Travel + Leisure, Forbes, and GQ.Bill is currently Chief Content Director at ROAR Forward, where he oversees all content – including the quarterly ROAR Report, twice monthly ROAR Bulletins and custom content for clients. He is a graduate of Syracuse University, where he studied Journalism and English Literature. Nicola Casey is the Vice President of Global Marketing Brand Activations at Estée Lauder Brand. Prior to this she served as the Marketing Director for Estée Lauder in the UK and Ireland. Nicola is responsible for elevating and amplifying Estée Lauder brand globally, delivering consumer-centric marketing excellence, disruptive and culturally relevant brand activations, as well as leading their Global Social Strategy and Platforms.In January 2025 the brand welcomed back original 80’s spokesmodel Paulina Porizkova in a new partnership, with the shared mission to redefine standards of beauty—inspiring and empowering women to value and celebrate their beauty at any age with the movement Because of My Age. Nicola continues to evolve and amplify the mission for the Brand. About the ModeratorCarolyn Mair is a Chartered Psychologist and award-winning educator specializing in the psychology of fashion, identity, and human behavior. Known for making complex psychological and neuroscientific concepts accessible to diverse audiences, she formerly served as Professor of Psychology for Fashion at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. There, she established the university’s Psychology Department and created the world’s first degree program which applied psychology to fashion.Carolyn advises organizations on consumer behavior, wellbeing, sustainability, leadership, and positive change. She is the author of The Psychology of Fashion (Routledge, second edition 2025) and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, an MSc in Research Methods, and a BSc (Hons) in Applied Psychology and Computing. Program6–6:30 PM Reception, drinks and canapés6:30–7:10 PM Salon-style dialogue on creativity and longevity7:10–7:30 PM Q&A7:30–8 PM Freeform discussion with speakers, social interaction, networking, view exhibition in program area. About the SeriesICP x ROAR, a new four-part salon series presented in partnership with ROAR Forward, the Hearst-backed business intelligence and community platform founded by author, photographer, and longevity expert Michael Clinton.The series will convene thought leaders, creative innovators, and industry experts for conversations that explore photography, creativity, entrepreneurship, legacy, and the evolving opportunities of longer lives.Learn More TicketsTickets are available to the general public at $85 per session and $65 for ICP Members. The four-session package is $289 for the general public and $240 for ICP Members. ICP Faculty receive 50% off the September 14 event and 25% off each of the remaining three events.The event is free for the ROAR community and ICP Trustees.
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Image courtesy of Farah Al Qasimi
“Photobooks USA” In Conversation – Hello Future & #nyc
Join us at ICP for a conversation between artists Jeff Mermelstein and Farah Al Qasimi on the occasion of our latest exhibition, Photobooks USA: 2000-25, discussing their respective photobooks, Hello Future and #nyc. Mermelstein and Al Qasimi will delve into the processes of translating their work to book form and what keeps them inspired, followed by a Q&A. About the BooksImage: Farah Al Qasimi, Lunch, 2018, from Hello Future Hello Future Shortlisted for the Aperture-Paris Photo Photobook of the Year 2021, Hello Future is a culmination of Farah Al Qasimi’s (born 1991) photographic, performance and film practice, unified within her keen focus on surface and texture, and the revealing visual influences of the splashy and florid. Al Qasimi examines postcolonial structures of power, gender and aesthetics in the Persian Gulf states and global cultural confluence and migration at large. #nyc#nyc is Jeff Mermelstein's multifarious, comic and heartbreaking survey of contemporary life as learned through overseen text messages. Written in the new language of acronym and initialism, truncation and cipher wordplay, interrupted by the occasional longueur, people appear to have few inhibitions when faced only with their own reflection in a phone screen, such that they pour their heart-felt desire and lust and hate and vitriol in unfettered streams of text consciousness. Chaucerian in its breadth and humor, this project reveals the complex inner lives of the city’s residents, and the intriguing richness of emotion that exists within the most innocuous moments of everyday life: on the train, a park bench, or in the street. Here, a short history of New York unfolds, as told directly by one resident to another. About the SpeakersFarah Al Qasimi makes photographs, films and music. Often working with large-scale vinyl imagery and a multiplicity of photographic prints and screens, she is interested in the internet and its hierarchies of information and emotion. Al Qasimi loves the complexity of storytelling and value-building in children's cartoons, and many of her video works include primary narrators who are anthropomorphized. Through a highly collaborative practice, she has worked with hand-sewn puppets, falcons, African Land Snails, exorcists, and most recently, a Jack Sparrow impersonator. Her work is in the collections of MoMA New York, Tate Modern, Guggenheim New York and Abu Dhabi, and she has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, Delfina Foundation in London, and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa. Jeff Mermelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, was born in 1957 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1978 with a B.A. in Biology and moved to New York City the same year for a one-year internship at the International Center of Photography, where he has been on the teaching faculty since 1987. Mermelstein was awarded an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant (1991) and the European Publishers Award for Photography (1999). His photographs are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Art Institute of Chicago; and the International Center of Photography, New York. His editorial work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Life, The New Yorker, New York, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, Time, Vanity Fair, and many others.Mermelstein's monographs include 'Sidewalk' (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1999), 'No Title Here' (powerHouse Books, 2003), 'Twirl / Run' (powerHouse Books, 2009), 'Arena' (TBW Books, 2019), 'Hardened' (Mörel Books, 2019), and '#nyc' (MACK, 2020).
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Meet Our Alum—Documentary Practice: Visual Storytelling Online
Join us online to learn more about ICP’s One-Year Certificate Program in Documentary Practice: Visual Storytelling Online, led by a 2025 alum and our admissions Team.The alum will share their personal experiences in the overview of the curriculum, structure, admissions process, and application steps. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions directly to the alum and the Admissions Team.For the online One-Year Certificate program, the application for the program and Scholarships is currently open for the 2027 academic year. The priority deadline for the admission and merit-based scholarship consideration is October 18, 2026. ICP’s Online One-Year Certificate Programs begin in mid-January 2027.About the Event Format This is an online event held via Zoom. Please register in advance for this free event. ZOOM LINK HereIf you have questions about the event, please contact [email protected]. Image © Kristina Cordon (DOC Online '25)
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zine workshop with Kelly Luu
ICP Family Art Hour: Communal Braiding (September 2026)
Make art inspired by photographic techniques during ICP’s monthly Family Art Hour. Each session features a hand-on activity inspired by ICP's exhibitions or collection. This session of Family Art Hour is hosted by educator and artist Cassandra Mayela Allen. Inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition, bring discarded fabric or used clothes that you want to repurpose for a communal braiding workshop held in ICP's gallery.Tickets for this program are included with Museum admission (free for kids ages 14 and under) and materials are provided. Come early or stay after to explore our current exhibition, Yves Saint Laurent and Photography and Photobooks USA 2000–25, with complimentary Yves Saint Laurent and Photography Kids’ Guide available at the admission desk.Families with children ages 4 and up of all abilities are welcome. Parents and guardians must remain with their children during the activity. About the ArtistCassandra Mayela Allen is a Venezuelan artist based in New York City whose multidisciplinary practice—encompassing mixed media, textiles, installation, and socially engaged projects— examines memory, belonging, active meditation, and labor as tools for self-healing. Rooted in the migrating body and the objects it carries, her work treats personal belongings as living archives: woven, stitched, and suspended, they become material records inseparable from the communal practices that generate them. Allen foregrounds collaboration and encounter, inviting alternative social networks to participate in the making and meaning of each piece. Her work activates art as a relational process rather than a fixed object, centering acts of making as a means of reaching a state of “flow”, reflection, and connection.Mayela Allen is an alumna of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2025) and has participated in residencies including Bolster Arts (2025), Modern Ancient Brown (2024), Pocoapoco (2024), and Campo Garzón (2024). In 2023, she received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She has presented solo exhibitions at Instituto Cervantes, LES Girls Club, Olympia, and JO-HS Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at MOCAD, UNAM, EFA Project Space, Eric Firestone Gallery, V1 Gallery, NADA Miami, and Mama Projects, among others. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, BOMB Magazine, Elephant, American Craft Council, and Vogue México. Image credit: Aquel Amplex, Found fabrics and garments, braided collectively, 2024-2026
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Film Screening—Spirit of the Photobooth
Join ICP on the 100-year anniversary of the opening of the first photobooth studio for a special New York showing of Spirit of the Photobooth, a new documentary that explores the history of the photobooth and the resurgence of classic booths all around the world. After the screening, director Sam Anthony, Sharon Josepho, executive producer and granddaughter of the Photobooth inventor, Anatol Josepho, Bre Conley Saxon, founder of Auto Photo, and Danielle Krasniqi, a photobooth operator and owner, will be joined for a Q&A led by by ICP Creative Director, David Campany. Image: Movie still from Spirit of the Photobooth, written and direct by Sam Anthony About the Film"2026 is the hundredth birthday of the photobooth. A fixture on Main Street, in malls, in the back of bars and in railway stations for decades, this overlooked and unsung part of photographic history looked set to be erased by the advent of the smartphone and The Selfie. But, that’s not the whole story.After all, who would pay and wait four minutes for self-portraits, when they could have as many as they like for free on their phone? For a while it didn’t look good for photobooths. The traditional analog booths, with their distinctive ‘real’ photographs were replaced by digital versions.Thousands of the old analog booths were destroyed or stuck in barns and warehouses.But 100 years after their invention, the ones that survived are now highly prized collectors items, using technology that has hardly changed and which still retains its old magic.Long lines of Gen Z users snake around the block in the world’s hippest cities to use them. And ironically, it’s digital technology and social media—on the face of it the booth’s greatest challenges—that have helped save them. Influencers have supercharged the vintage appeal of photobooths, and digital natives desperate for experiential “realness” have rediscovered the charms of holding four black and white shots in their hand after squeezing into the booth, drawing the curtain, and giving their best self to the camera. And most of them heard about it from some of the world’s biggest online celebrities.So now a new breed of ingenious photographic entrepreneurs have sprung up to service an insatiable demand. They scour the globe for old booths, restoring them to their former glory and spreading the word on Instagram and TikTok, because there’s money to be made: Big money.Truth is, there always was. When immigrant and inventor Anatol Josepho first launched the booth on Broadway in New York City on September 21, 1926, huge crowds gathered immediately, and he sold the patent six months later for an offer he couldn’t refuse.One hundred years later and the long lines have formed again, and the analog photobooth has never been hotter.So this is a film about how and why that happened. The story of the singular man who changed the way we take portraits, and the photobooth’s unique role in everything from the art of 1920s surrealists and Andy Warhol decades later, to the democratization of portraiture which gave the marginalized and overlooked a platform for photography on their own terms.Filmed all over the world, Spirit of the Photobooth is a social and cultural history as seen through the lens of the photobooth itself, and an account of photographic obsession that takes us to meet devotees in Australia, Europe, South Korea, and of course the United States.And it all starts with Anatol Josepho and his invention. A classic and extraordinary rags-to-riches origin story." —Sam Anthony, Writer and Director of Spirit of the Photobooth Image: Movie still from Spirit of the Photobooth, written and direct by Sam Anthony

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ICP's museum, school, bookstore, and café are located at 84 Ludlow St. in New York's historic Lower East Side. 

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