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.


Call for Entry Highlight: Artist Run

Posted on August 28, 2024

For the 2024 iteration, FotoFocus announced a new Biennial initiative: Call for Entry Selections. These six selected projects highlight talent from the region’s artists and curators as part of the first large-scale regional Call for Entry in the Biennial’s history. Each month leading up to the Biennial, a Call for Entry project will be highlighted. Learn more about Artist Run, The Continuing Legacy of Cincinnati’s Artist-Run Spaces.

Artist Run, developed by Britni Bicknaver and Calcagno Cullen, is a photographic archive and audiovisual history tour... Continue reading Call for Entry Highlight: Artist Run


Call for Entry Highlight: Another First Impression

Posted on July 26, 2024

For the 2024 iteration, FotoFocus announced a new Biennial initiative: Call for Entry Selections. These six selected projects highlight talent from the region’s artists and curators as part of the first large-scale regional Call for Entry in the Biennial’s history. Each month leading up to the Biennial, a Call for Entry project will be highlighted. Learn more about Another First Impression, presented by MIDTONES and curated by Asa Featherstone IV. This project will be on view September 27, 2024–November 1, 2024 at Art Academy of Cincinnati: SITE1212.

Continue reading Call for Entry Highlight: Another First Impression

Call for Entry Highlight: More than Meets the Eye

Posted on June 28, 2024

For the 2024 iteration, FotoFocus announced a new Biennial initiative: Call for Entry Selections. These six selected projects highlight talent from the region’s artists and curators as part of the first large-scale regional Call for Entry in the Biennial’s history. Each month leading up to the Biennial, a Call for Entry project will be highlighted. Learn more about More than Meets the Eye: An Immersive Display of Narrative Power through Photos.

From September 13, 2024–November 3, 2024, more than two dozen photographic images, voices, and stories... Continue reading Call for Entry Highlight: More than Meets the Eye


Call for Entry Highlight: The Trail of the Dead

Posted on June 3, 2024

For the 2024 iteration, FotoFocus announced a new Biennial initiative: Call for Entry Selections. These six selected projects highlight talent from the region’s artists and curators as part of the first large-scale regional Call for Entry in the Biennial’s history. Each month leading up to the Biennial, a Call for Entry project will be highlighted. Learn more about The Trail of the Dead, a combination of archival video, large-scale projection, mixed media collages, and photography. This project will be on view September 20–November 3, 2024 at the Continue reading Call for Entry Highlight: The Trail of the Dead


“Revel in it!” An essay by Ariel Goldberg

Posted on May 28, 2024

Ariel Goldberg is a writer, curator, and photographer based in New York City. They are an experienced educator and have taught photography, writing, and contemporary art practices at numerous universities. Goldberg curated the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial exhibition Images on which to build, 1970s–1990s at the Contemporary Arts Center. Since its run in Cincinnati, Images has shown at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY, and is currently on view at the Chicago Cultural Center through August 4, 2024. Goldberg discusses how they rotate between working on traveling Images as an exhibition and research and... Continue reading “Revel in it!” An essay by Ariel Goldberg