Cost: FREE

***This event has been postponed due to road and building closures. Please check back for updates***

Photographer Harvey Finkle presents a free, all-ages drop-in workshop in conjunction with Library Card Sign Up Month. Finkle will lead participants in a small group discussion of his photographs of readers. These black and white images, which span four decades and include dynamic scenes in Philadelphia, show the immersive act of reading and celebrate the freedoms that come with access to the printed word. Participants will also have an opportunity, which will build towards an upcoming exhibition at the Free Library, to engage in a photographic portrait session led by Finkle that focuses on the unique relationships we each have with library resources and services.

Harvey Finkle has focused on a happenstance so commonplace that most people are inured to the sight and has created a series of images that demonstrate how a quiet, ordinary subject can be very compelling. The reading series displays a fine eye and sure compositional sense. This collection also illustrates something often missing in modern photography, a sense of sympathy and humor. “

−Steve Mulligan
Camera and Darkroom Magazine

About the Photographer:

Harvey Finkle is a documentary still photographer who has produced a substantial body of work concerned with social, political and cultural issues. His work has been extensively exhibited and published, including four books. Works in progress are about the new wave of immigrant and refugee families who have settled in urban areas and the evolving transgender communities. Finkle's ongoing work includes documenting the activities of many progressive organizations including a death penalty abolitionist group, ACT-UP, disability rights activists ADAPT, KWRU, and other groups concerned with housing and homelessness. His work also includes an extensive inventory of images depicting all aspects of life in Deaf culture, plus a substantial collection of photos dealing with education. 

This program is part of a month-long series of free arts programs in libraries, presented by the Philadelphia Folklore Project. To learn more, visit www.folkloreproject.org. 

This project is made possible in part by federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Office of Commonwealth Libraries. 

This program was supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.