Altoona Virtual Lecture Series: Manipulation

This virtual lecture series is designed to present the artworks of the contemporary artists while highlighting the importance of the two galleries of permanent collection pieces. These scholarly conversations will explore the medium of photography through its history, contemporary uses, and its possible future. 

Photography’s literal translation is “light writing” or “drawing with light” relies on light and capturing device. What is used to capture light is often a camera or light sensitive material. With the advent of digital photography, the medium has blended the traditional processes with digital ones. Artists Zeshan Ahmed and Laura Krasnow both use a combination of digital and analog

processes to create their artistic works. In using the traditional chemical based approach, these artists celebrate the burning of light onto paper and then they manipulate these images through digital software.This talk will include information about their artistic practice, the future of photography, and a discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of digital and analog photography. This event will last one hour and is free to the public. Participants may join using the link provided in the reminder email one day before the event. 

Zeshan Ahmed is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Born and raised in old Delhi, India, his prints draw from a breadth of philosophical and personal references. Interior and contemplative, Ahmed abstractions forego specificity in favor of a wandering, poetic ambiguity, a strategic opacity abetted by his deconstructive erasure of color. His practice dwells in using photography

not just as a tool but subject matter. Ahmed most recently exhibited his work in, Live Arts, New York, Pennsylvania, Auckland, Pingyao, Nanjing, Hyderabad and Mumbai. He is the recipient of Provost scholarship for his MFA in photography and related media at Parsons School of Design, The New School and The JN Tata Endowment Scholarship for the Higher Education of Indians and was awarded NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program for Visual & Multidisciplinary Artists, New York 2020.

Laura Krasnow , born in New York City, has lived and traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. In addition to being a freelance photographer, she has worked as an assistant editor in feature films, and been trained in film preservation and restoration. Her artwork has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, and is in the permanent

collection of The Museum of Modern Art, and The Brooklyn Museum. Her passion is art, science and technology. After obtaining an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she returned to school to study math, physics and computer science. Laura has attended seminars at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, and the Centre for Brain and Mind, both in

Canada.