Nothing about cameras, lenses, or framing. The First Tuesday Salon on April 7 in Peekskill will be a photography talk that begins elsewhere: with humanity. With what is seen when one looks directly. With what unsettles. With what does not always enter the frame, yet sustains the image.
Two photographers will lead the event at BeanRunner Café, from 6 to 8 p.m. The community space, located at 201 S Division St, will exhibit the work of Ryan Persinger, whose focus is on what often goes unnoticed. People who do not make headlines. Scenes that do not ask permission.
Alongside him, Andrew Courtney. Photographer, artist, activist. He has spent decades traveling the world. His work does not seek distance. On the contrary. It brings closer. Courtney’s photographs are capable of reducing the distance between the viewer and the subject. In his images there is presence. There is responsibility.
The salon next Tuesday will not be a class. Nor a silent exhibition. It will be a conversation. The two photographers will share a common axis: truth, not as an abstract concept, but as a daily decision. All of this to explain where to stand, when to shoot, and also when not to.
Persinger will bring recent images. Protests. Streets. Social movements in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. His archive is close, immediate. It is a living city. It is tension. Criticism consistently notes that his work, beyond documenting, questions, moves, and transforms.
Courtney, by contrast, brings time and trajectory. His lens has crossed geographies and contexts. Yet the impulse is the same. His work is subtle and capable of seeing without exploiting, of recording without appropriating.
The First Tuesday Salon is organized by artist Carla Rae Johnson, who explains that the initiative repeats each month with the same formula: a free, intimate, accessible, and safe space. Without filters and without barriers that divert its purpose: bringing the community together through art.
Johnson adds that no photography background is required. In fact, that is the point. The invitation is open to the general public, to those who want to listen and to those who ask what it means to truly see another. Although admission is free, the artist recommends reserving in advance due to limited space. For more information, call 914-737-1701.
