Due to the Pandemic, The Fair and in-person events were cancelled. PPF chose to run a series of free, virtual events.

PPF also paired up with Pittsburgh’s Small Mall to run a series of virtual talks with Pittsburgh Photographers. View those here.

SPEAKER SERIES 2020 videos

ReBecca Senf, Curator,
The Center for Creative Photography and the Phoenix Museum of Art

In partnership with Silver Eye and Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures

Rebecca Senf is the Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography. Between 2007 and 2015 she curated thirty two exhibitions at the Phoenix Art Museum. Senf grew up in Tucson and went to undergraduate school at the University of Arizona, studying the History of Photography.  She spent ten years in Boston, Massachusetts where she earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Art History at Boston University.  In Boston she worked on the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s major exhibition Ansel Adams from The Lane Collection, for which she also co-authored the exhibition catalogue.  In October of 2012 her book Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe was released by University of California Press. 

Senf has an active role in the photographic community, frequently participating in portfolio reviews (such as Review Santa Fe, Photo Lucida, Photo NOLA, Houston FotoFest, and Medium); convening panels and presenting papers at conferences and professional meetings (such as College Art Association, the Southwest Art History Association, Society for Photographic Education, Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, and FOCUS); jurying exhibitions (including for the Center for Fine Art Photography, Art Intersection, and the Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition at Texas Woman’s University); and speaking at museums (such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Honolulu Museum of Art). 

Esa Epstein, Executive Director of sepia eye Gallery

Esa Epstein is the Executive Director of sepiaEYE Gallery. She was the Executive Director and Curator of SEPIA International and The Alkazi Collection from 1995-2009. Esa has published eight titles on modern and contemporary photography including Atul Bhalla: Yamuna Walk (sepiaEYE & UW Press, 2011), Jungjin Lee: Wind, essays by Eugenia Parry and Vicki Goldberg (Aperture/SEPIA, 2009); Ketaki Sheth: Bombay Mix, preface by Suketu Mehta (Dewi Lewis/SEPIA, 2007); and Vivan Sundaram: Re-take of Amrita, essays by Vivan Sundaram and Wu Hung (SEPIA, 2006). Esa Epstein has helped build an impressive collection of Indian photography and, along the way, has offered her expertise to both private and public collections.

Michael Hawley, Collector

Michael Hawley has a background in the fields of publishing, film, and online media. He is a writer who has been creating content for the Internet since the mid-1990s for outlets from People magazine online to e-commerce sites. He currently creates websites for major studio films and has won numerous awards for this online work, including Cleo Key Art, W3, and Webby Awards, among others.  

Michael is the head of the Photographs Council at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and a founding board member and Chairman of the Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles. His eclectic photography collection has been growing since the early 1990s and includes classic twentieth-century works, but is ever leaning toward contemporary photography. He has served as a guest curator and as a judge for various photography awards over the past several years.  

Michael was raised outside the United States in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East and is a graduate of Stanford University. 

SPECIAL EVENT

Collector’s show and tell

This event included a panel of speakers, each sharing the story of a favorite photograph they own in 3 minutes or less. Featured collectors included (in presenting order): Evan Mirapaul, Fred Bidwell, Ellen Kessler, Peter Cohen, Cynthia Cable, Ken Chute, Steve Schlick, and Tim Gyves.