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Joni Sternbach

{{Short description|American photographer}}

Joni Sternbach (born 1953) is an American photographer whose large-format camera images employ early photographic processes, including tintype and collodion. Using an 8×10 Deardorff large format camera, Sternbach focuses on in situ portraits of surfers. Sternbach's photographs are particularly notable for highlighting women surfers and surf culture,{{Cite book|title=Surfer Girls in the New World Order|last=Comer|first=Krista|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8223-4805-4|location=Durham, NC}}{{Cite book|title=Stories of surfing Surfing, space and subjectivity/intersectionality, in Surfing, Sex, Genders and Sexualities, ed. Lisa Hunter|last1=Olive|first1=Rebecca|last2=Roy|first2=Georgina|last3=Wheaton|first3=Belinda|date=2018-04-27|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-20123-8|location=London, UK|pages=chapter 8|language=en|doi=10.4324/9781315201238}} and for her ethnographic rather than action approach.{{Cite web|url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/finding-stillness-in-surfer-portraits/|title=Capturing the Stillness of Surfers in Portraits|last=Cardwell|first=Diane|date=July 20, 2015|website=New York Times|access-date=March 10, 2020}}

Early life

Sternbach was born in the Bronx, New York in 1953. She received her M.A. in photography from the International Center for Photography at NYU in 1987.{{Cite web|url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/about/photographs-collection/photographers-in-focus/photographer-in-focus-joni-sternbach|title=Photographer in Focus: Joni Sternbach - National Portrait Gallery|website=www.npg.org.uk|access-date=2020-02-08}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.lensculture.com/jsternbach|title=Joni Sternbach|last=LensCulture|first=Joni Sternbach {{!}}|website=LensCulture|access-date=2020-02-08}} She has also taught photography at New York University and the International Center of Photography and Cooper Union.

Work

In a National Geographic profile, Sternbach describes her relation to using early photographic processes as deploying a medium in need of an appropriate subject matter, one that she gradually found surfers to fulfill quite by accident: "Once I understood the limitations of the process, I realized that it was more of a question of finding a subject matter to suit the medium, not the other way around."{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2016/06/sternbach-old-fashioned-surfer-tintypes/#close|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611080237/http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2016/06/sternbach-old-fashioned-surfer-tintypes#close|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 11, 2016|title=Old-Fashioned Photos Reveal the Passion and Grit of Surfers|last=Dotschkal|first=Janna|date=7 June 2016|website=National Geographic|access-date=3 February 2020}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/joni-sternbach/|title=Joni Sternbach - Primordial Portraits|date=2016-09-14|website=Huck Magazine|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-05}} Indeed, Sternbach is regarded as a master and pioneer of the 20th-21st-century revival of early analog processes.{{Cite book|title=Experimental Photography A Handbook of Techniques|last=Bendandi|first=Luca|publisher=Thames & Hudson|year=2015|location=London}}{{Cite book|title=Photographs not taken|others=Steacy, Will, 1980-, Rexer, Lyle|isbn=978-0-9832316-1-5|location=[New York]|oclc=772499880|year = 2012}}

Photographs in Sternbach's 2009 book Surfland are described by The New York Times as "a kind of ethnographic study in stillness, silvery portraits of a tribe united by a sense of adventure, the love of a sport and a connection to the ocean."{{Cite web|url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/finding-stillness-in-surfer-portraits/|title=Capturing the Stillness of Surfers in Portraits|last=Cardwell|first=Diane|date=2015-07-20|website=New York Times|access-date=2020-02-03}} Sternbach's "16.02.20 #1 Thea+Maxwell" from the series Surfland was awarded second place in the 2016 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Sternbach has been recognized for her work as a female surf photographer.{{Cite news|url=https://www.surfer.com/features/12-female-surf-photographers-you-should-be-following-right-now/|title=12 Female Surf Photographers You Should Be Following Right Now|date=2020-03-16|newspaper=Surfer|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-23}}

Collections

Books

  • Surfland (2009), Photolucida{{Cite web|url=http://www.larissaleclair.com/photography/tag/surfland/|title=Larissa Leclair - Surfland|language=en|access-date=2020-02-08}}
  • Surf Site Tin Type (2014), Damiani Editore{{Cite web|url=https://www.damianieditore.com/en-US/product/467|title=Surf Site Tin Type Joni Sternbach - 9788862083805|website=www.damianieditore.com|access-date=2020-02-08}}
  • Surfboard (2020), self published
  • Kissing a Stranger (2021), Dürer Editions

References

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Category:American contemporary artists

Category:New York University alumni

Category:Surf culture

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American women photographers

Category:20th-century American photographers

Category:1953 births

Category:21st-century American women photographers

Category:21st-century American photographers

Category:Photographers from the Bronx

Category:New York University faculty

Category:Cooper Union faculty