Henry Horenstein is a photographer, teacher, and author. He studied history at the University of Chicago and earned his BFA and MFA at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he has held the position of Professor of Photography since the 1970s. A student of photographers including Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Minor White, Horenstein cites these figures in encouraging his compelling approach to composition and subject matter. At RISD, Callahan advised Horenstein, ‘Photograph what you love. Even if you make bad pictures, you’ll at least have a good time.’ This approach served Horenstein well for the foreseeable decades, infusing his diverse body of work with an energy of constant curiosity.
Describing himself as a documentary photographer, Horenstein’s work largely concerns fringe, working-class, and under-recognised communities. Focused on themes of heritage and storytelling, series such as Honky Tonk and Speedway 72 offer intimate and exciting glimpses into the 1970s. Horenstein concerns himself with the experience of bluegrass pickers, race car drivers, and legendary country venues such as Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville and the Hillbilly Ranch in Boston. Horenstein has also photographed extensively outside of America including El Malecón in 2001, a series capturing the street life of the famed eight kilometre coastal street of Havana, Cuba.
Horenstein goes a long way to build trust amongst his sitters, but in his series Animalia, made between 1995 and 2001, he was confronted with a ‘wilder’ subject, his images paying detailed attention to the unique strangeness found in the animal kingdom. Recounting the difficulties encountered by wildlife photographers, Horenstein jokes: ‘So, I took the path of least resistance and shot only in zoos and aquariums. For a while I billed myself as The Jewish Wildlife Photographer. I never shot in a jungle or underwater. Only where there was a food court, bathrooms, and WiFi.’
His work is collected and exhibited internationally and he has published over thirty books, including two instructional texts used by hundreds of thousands of photography students over the past 40 years. In recent years, Horenstein has been working on short documentary films. Horenstein has also published several monographs of his own work, including Shoot What You Love, Histories: Tales from the 70s, Show, Honky Tonk, Animalia, Humans, Racing Days, Close Relations, and many others. Horenstein's legendary work has been widely recognised, the Smithsonian Institute listing him as one of the ten defining figures in the history of photography alongside icons like Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothea Lange and Richard Avedon. Horenstein lives in Boston.
