Past. Present. Seen.

Past. Present. Seen. 2025

Past. Present. Seen., judged by Jennifer McClure, PWP members were invited to submit pairs of photographs: one created in the past and another within the last three years. Displayed side by side, the works highlight both continuity and transformation in the photographers’ artistic journeys, illuminating how personal vision evolves while remaining deeply rooted in individual perspective.

The exhibition took place September 16-27, 2025, at the Salmagundi Club, NYC.

Images

Linda Buongermino | I matched my pair by the interesting Light & Shadow and the angles which it created. The light and shadow are the essence of the photos, the subject of the photos. The texture created by the brick walls was also important in creating commonality to the pair of photos.

Angela Cino| Chicky always prays to Jesus Christ before she shoots up. She lives a life of chaos and despair. By keeping her faith, beauty can and will emerge from her most challenging circumstances. The disorder of the palm tree leaves with pink flowers evoke a feeling of delight in the midst of a mess.

Li Colberg | My paired Grey Glacier photographs from 2022 and 2025 trace multiple shifts: the glacier’s subtle retreat reveals nature’s restless transformation, my switch from a Sony to a Nikon camera captures sharper detail and symbolizes personal growth, and my evolving engagement with Professional Women Photographers has deepened my artistic vision. Together, these images reflect how time reshapes landscapes, tools and communities, weaving past and present into a shared narrative.

Kim Considine | “Gettin’ There”… The photos illustrate that we are always on our path, navigating through life on a continuous journey. There is no judgment or perfection, just encouragement to keep moving forward.

Sharron Crocker | These images are part of an ongoing project that started with walking the city with a 24-105 lens and mostly shooting the window reflections head on. This morphed into my current method which involves carrying a 100mm-500mm lens and intentionally looking for unusual reflections. This usually requires shooting from different angles in order to see the reflections I want. The colors and reflections are real and change according to angle and time of day.

Claude De Backer | One November morning, 2012, the fog outside was lingering in slow ribbons seemingly in anticipation of my mother’s passing. This pre-mortem image was exhibited in 2014, as I was attending to her funeral. Curious synchronicity. In 2022, miles away, I remember the distance there was between us and the one I still feel from residual grief.

Elisa Decker | Hot Sauce’s dreamlike quality comes from Halloween night. The scene viewed from a bus is awash in painterly chiaroscuro: a food vendor seen from the back, his head turned sideways, reaches for hot sauce; his costumed customer appears shrouded in smoke. Paired with Hot Sauce is a recent portrait of a food cart vendor taken in broad daylight. While similar in subject matter and color bursts of yellow and red, their contrasting moods jumped out.

Beth Diviney | The Pair of Images to reflect on my artistic evolution: “Deep Roots, 2014”. A glorious tree of roots and grandeur caught my eye in one of Hawaii’s tropical rainforests. “Transient Roots, 2022”. I watched this Great Blue Heron stroll in the marshes before taking flight on the west coast of Florida.

Stephanie Duprie Routh | “Seducing the Seducer” and “The Holy Trinity: Past, Present, and Future” intertwine as meditations on time’s fluidity—how desire, identity, and perception shift across eras. Together, they blur linear chronology, suggesting time is a construct shaped by emotion, myth, and memory. Each image seduces the other across continuums, collapsing boundaries between now, then, and what might be.

Laura Dwight | “Home Day Care in Maine, 1979” from my first documentary project, shaped my identity as a photographer. I was drawn to photographing children and continued that work, focusing on developmental photos for textbooks and children’s books. “Celebrating the Culture of South Korea, 2025” shows the joy of a family at a celebration of cultures at The Bloomingdale Family Program, a Head Start preschool in Manhattan Valley. I have been close to them since the 1990s.

Adele Epstein | The color blue in all its variations has been used by artists since time immemorial. For me, blue represents the ocean and the sky and the world in between – it is calm, and yet mystical. When I see blue, I use my images to encourage viewers to explore the mood created. Please look at these images and reflect on the mood it stirs in you.

Patricia Garbarini | Nature is my passion. Initially, I was drawn to the beauty of its richest, most vivid colors in each season. Gradually, I became interested in more subtle expressions of nature settings as dreamlike sanctuaries, places of stillness and tranquility. I now often use the technique of layering two images together to enhance the dreamlike quality and complexity of my nature scenes.

Fredda Gordon | • 4/23/22: I’m going gray. It sounds so simple, but it isn’t. People ask, “Are you sure?” My answer: “No, I’m not…” • 5/25/22: From unsuccessfully veiled looks of disapproval to indifference, the grays feel like they are ablaze and and my self-consciousness weighs heavily. • 1/18/24: I did it! My hair is gray. I’m getting more compliments than ever before. Maybe there is something to living naturally. • You can see the project, including commentary and time-lapse video: www.freddaphotography.com/hair

Megan Green | In 1993, I took a day off to walk around with my Yashica Mat 124G. I only took 6 frames of the theater marquees serving as Jenny Holzer installations before many of them were demolished for “development”. I went back to the same spot in 2025 with my Yashica. I shot one roll and serendipitously took this photo with a very similar car in frame.

Debbie Teicholz Guedalia | Standing at Iguazu Falls, Argentina, one of the Seven Wonders of Nature, hearing the awesome, raging water, I looked up for a moment to see a perfect rainbow in the sky, that seemed to arc over the waterfall. In Acadia, Maine, the rainbow street is painted on a popular cross walk, causing pedestrians to look down at their feet crossing the rainbow. Looking up and looking down, both rainbows symbolize awe, happiness, and hope.

Renee Harper | *People's Choice Award* | These images converse across time — the past whispering in grain and shadow, the present unfolding in the quiet stride of students. Together they chart my evolution, showing how each frame holds echoes of where I began and visions of where I am now. In their pairing, past and present are not separate chapters, but a single story — always seen, always becoming.

Sureita Hockley | Fishing is an important source of food, nutrition, employment and income generation, and is deeply embedded in the fabric of Indian society. Coastal communities, (of which there are many) have developed distinct cultures, rituals, and traditions centered around fishing. In both past and present, my intention is to highlight traditional fishing methods. These works are part of a larger body of work focused around local life within various communities in India.

Jane Hoffer| What struck me in both scenes was the sensation of movement forward. In one case it is the light shining through the subway tracks above, in the other the tracks moving off into the distance. I am always attracted to imagery that has a strong sense of historical period.

Linda Jacobs | *Judge's First Choice* | Amid the bustle of the city, moments of solitude offer space for reflection. In Istanbul, the historic Hagia Sophia sets the stage for a quiet study of a chestnut vendor working late into the evening. In contrast, the modern geometry of the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the WTC Memorial in NY frames a fleeting glimpse of a working man heading home.

Nancy La Lanne | A blaze of bronze and gold, these two portraits honor the strength, grace, and radiance of Black women—past, present, and seen. Cloaked in metallic light, they speak a shared language of power and luxury. Each presence tells a story of resilience, beauty, and self-possession, weaving a vision of individuality and sisterhood, a shimmering testament to confidence and the unapologetic art of being seen.

Nancy Langer | I felt this pairing captured the timeless presence of Buddhist monks across cultures and contexts. The first image, taken in Myanmar in 2015, shows the quiet dignity of monastic life in its traditional setting. The second, from New York City in 2021, presents a striking contrast—modern urbanity (a statue of Diane Arbus) meets ancient tradition. Together, the photographs reflect continuity, resilience, and the universality of spiritual practice across geography and time.

Susan Ledwith | These images represent my continued interest in capturing the natural environment. In the past and present, I have been drawn to gardens and other natural settings. I like to observe and capture scenery in different seasons. These images represent my personal vision and have a timeless beauty. I have a deep appreciation for the natural world. I hope these images inspire others to connect with and protect our planet.

Barbara Leven | In the past, I would literally find an abstract image in the street, such as the signage on a diner, and photograph it as such. In the present, I am more likely to take a representational image like that of a neon sign found on the street, photograph it as such, then transform it into a metaphorical abstract using software. A literal past becoming a figurative present.

Louise Mason | I matched this pair of images to show how the loss of someone that champions a person can affect that individual even almost a decade later. It doesn’t really matter where you are because the grief travels with you.

Elaine Norman | As a frequent visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I also love to observe the surrounding public in attendance, including artists who have come to sketch. In this pair, both artists are at work, one inside and one outside, with the museum’s distinctive architecture as an elegant backdrop.

Maria Passannante-Derr | The inspiration in “Arches, Past, 2017“ are the ever-changing shadows from a single source of light. The inspiration in “Arches, Present, 2024“ are the ever-changing shadows from multiple sources of light.

Mariette Pathy Allen | Delia Wolfe and I met at a transgender conference in 1986. Delia, creative and playful, had fun wearing her red sequin dress in the midday sun. When we met again, in 2021, she still had her beloved red sequin dress. With a bit of a struggle, Delia was able to fit into it! These photographs offer continuity and nostalgia. Delia has gone through hard times and survived, fashionably.

Sheila Phalon | The way the light danced across these objects intrigued me. The light and the shadows bring a depth to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and this foundation in Portugal.

Sandra Pike | This pool sits below the 9th floor window of my apartment. Its rectangular shape, together with the lines of the ladder rails and awning frame, is beautiful to me. In winter, the pool is graced with sweeps of snowfall and shadow. On summer nights, it’s enlivened with the figures of swimmers and the glow of the pool lights.

Beth Portnoi Shaw | Once you receive a cancer diagnosis, it never really leaves you. It is always in the back of your mind. I faced every day in my new world through my camera. Serving as my protector, it shielded me from the harsh realities of what I was going through, while providing a physical glass and metal barrier between me and this new reality. I hope this series helps someone else on their unchosen journey.

Ann Rosen | My social justice photography highlights diverse family structures and amplifies women from marginalized communities silenced by the mainstream. In the Presence of Family: Brooklyn Portraits documented multifaceted families across Brooklyn in the early 2000s, revealing connections beyond traditional definitions. My current project, Being Seen, offers workshops that empower women to reclaim their identities and stories through art, portrait photography, and writing, and create space for visibility, self-determination, and collective resilience.ghts diverse family structures and amplifies women from marginalized communities silenced by the mainstream. In the Presence of Family: Brooklyn Portraits documented multifaceted families across Brooklyn in the early 2000s, revealing connections beyond traditional definitions. My current project, Being Seen, offers workshops that empower women to reclaim their identities and stories through art, portrait photography, and writing, and create space for visibility, self-determination, and collective resilience.

Jini Sachse | Early in the pandemic of 2020, I began to walk all over Manhattan to photograph the somber emptiness of the streets and well-known sites. Five years later, I revisited and re-photographed some of those same places. The Oculus is vast, and never really looks full of people, but in 2020 it was eerily silent and cavernous. The resilience of New York City after 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the pandemic is quintessentially NYC.

Lianne Schoenwiesner | I’m a big fan of repeating patterns. They show up frequently in my work although I rarely set out intending to photograph them. I paired these 2 because “Lines and Shadows” has lots of straight lines and a few lollipop curves and “Curves and Reflections” is mostly curves with a few straight lines (if you look carefully).

Nancy Sirkis | “Havana Courtyard” was taken in 2001. I was working with film I made 3 exposures of 20 images, in order to expose correctly for shadow and highlight. Each image was then merged. Then the 20 were made into digital files and composited to make an image that showed an approximately 300 degree view of the courtyard. In 2025 I was shooting digitally with an iPhone. This time I shot in raw and then composited the images, enabling me to show a good part of a very narrow alley. I paired these because they were both small enclosed exterior images.

Marilyn Thypin | After examining my Lightroom pictures, I am amazed about the amount of pictures I have taken of fields. Being an urban dweller, many of us, and a nature lover, I have been attracted to nature in its glory. Additionally, some of my best rural scenes to my desire have been shot in the Middle East.

Alexa Van de Walle | *Honorable Mention* | Island and Brighton Beach are a street photographer’s paradise. I frequently walk from the amusement park to the end of the boardwalk. These photos talk to each other: an older woman and four younger women; one taken in summer and quiet, the other in winter and active. The harmony of the primary colors of the one piece with the bikinis of the polar plungers tie them together not only thematically but visually.

Emily Chaya Weinstein | These iconoclastic women, photographed 25 years apart, are intuitively one and the same. Yet, the younger woman in the T-shirt is now 15 years older than the woman with the purple hair. The latter would have been 7 years old when the first image was taken. Did they know each other in a past life? Do they pass each other in the street without a second glance? Or are they somehow related, and is it I who is at the center of this paradox?

Margit Zsedely | Fifty years ago some brave women let the world know that their photography can’t be restricted in showing their works. Fifty years later we see the emerging power of the Professional Women Photographers. This was my inspiration to select a comparison between “Emerging” and “In the Museum” in the history of Women Photographers.

Joan Cavanaugh

Elizabeth Currier | Relating to Edward S. Curtis’s Navajo-given name of Shadow Catcher, I’m of the tribe of those who stalk the light and the dark. Although I hadn’t considered myself a “street photographer,” the more compelling works over the years have most often been taken on the street, whether in a Mayan Market in Chichicastanega, or in Willets Point, Queens, NY.

Alice Dana | In these informal portraits the past mingles with the present. It is a conversation without words, a quiet exchange between photographer and subject, a shared moment in time.

Kaddy Tsang | Branches of Time captures nature’s quiet transformation across time and place. Winter’s Memory was taken during a cross-country ski trip in Vermont, where bare trees stood still under a deep blue sky. Summer’s Breath was made during a visit to Hawaii, revealing a vibrant green canopy. Together, they reflect how familiar landscapes shift with the seasons, offering new perspectives with each return.

Regina Wypych | “Self Portrait, 2009” pursue my dream photography full time professionally. Graduate who completed two master’s, opened a business and went to New York to develop further talent in creating and working what I love the most. A distant dream to have my atelier where I can paint, it took me years to achieve this goal, my dreams to finally blossom within me and now I am here 2025 I fulfilled another dream in my artistic work.

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