Photo by Jacob Drabik

The Lens

The Lens is the FotoFocus editorial platform, highlighting our programming and featuring in-depth conversations on photography and the moving image drawn from perspectives and insights in our community, throughout our region, and around the globe.


Dayton Spotlight Weekend (10/25–10/27)

Posted on October 23, 2024

As part of the 2024 Biennial, FotoFocus features Participating Venues in Spotlight Weekends: Opportunities to visit multiple Venues within specific geographic locations where artists and curators are more likely to be on site for talks, tours, special events, and featured programming. This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vibrant energy of the FotoFocus Biennial and map out a plan to get to as many Venues as possible.

Featured here: Dayton; Friday, October 25 – Sunday, October 27, 2024

Continue reading Dayton Spotlight Weekend (10/25–10/27)

Lens-Based Shows To See This Summer

Posted on July 19, 2023

With FotoFocus in a non-Biennial year, you may be wondering how you can get your fix of lens-based shows. The good news? There are several exhibitions in the region you won't want to miss this summer—listed in order of closing date.

Ecologies of Elsewhere, CAC

This group show is curated by Dr. Chandra Frank, an independent curator and Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati, and Dr. Portia Malatjie, Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures at the University of... Continue reading Lens-Based Shows To See This Summer


Seeds, Great Lakes, and Light: Three Ohio Venues Focus on the Environment in Art Photography

Posted on November 5, 2020

In a global pandemic, the interconnected nature of humans and the environment across jurisdictional boundaries and bodies of water is blindingly clear. What's also clear, in the current exhibitions at Dayton Art Institute, Rosewood Arts Centre, and 1628 Ltd., is how enduring, fragile, and essential that ecological connection is.

Archiving Eden: Dornith Doherty PhotographsDayton Art Institute

Since 2008, photographer Dornith Doherty has kept her eye to seed banks around the world, traveling to 18 different vaults and research centers on five continents... Continue reading Seeds, Great Lakes, and Light: Three Ohio Venues Focus on the Environment in Art Photography


Slice of Life: A Grocery Store Deli Serves as a Fount of High-Art Photography

Posted on October 14, 2020

At University of Dayton’s Radial Gallery, Nebraska photographer Ella Weber finds meaning in monotony behind a Midwestern deli counter.

Ham. Honestly, it’s not for everyone. But for Nebraska-based artist Ella Weber, it has been an unlikely vehicle for artistic expression. In her ongoing tenure as a deli clerk at a large grocery store chain, Weber has created photographs about that sometimes surreal experience. In her exhibition This Feels Nice, showing at University of Dayton’s Radial Gallery with The Blue House Arts... Continue reading Slice of Life: A Grocery Store Deli Serves as a Fount of High-Art Photography


FotoFocus in Dayton: Nine Shows You Don’t Want to Miss

Posted on September 6, 2018

Sometimes you need to get out of town, see something fresh, and stretch your brain muscles. And sometimes, that can mean just a short jaunt up I-75. If you’ve got the itch, you’re in luck—FotoFocus has a road trip mapped out for you. This fall, spend a day in Dayton and delve into a fascinating array of photography and lens-based Biennial exhibitions at a host of art havens around the Gem City. There’s the iconic and architecturally beautiful Dayton Art institute showing Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs. You may recognize Thomas, who shows internationally, as the photographer of the first individual Continue reading FotoFocus in Dayton: Nine Shows You Don’t Want to Miss