Artist’s Statement Steven Kushner I am a retired Reform rabbi. For over forty years my life was spent immersed with words. I read. I wrote. I spoke. (Occasionally I listened.) But all along I increasingly became aware that — to paraphrase Peter Sellers in the movie “Being There” — I liked to look. While I have been taking pictures since childhood, it wasn’t until 2017, in anticipation of retirement, that I made a conscious decision to explore the camera as a form of self-discovery. I always liked cameras, but it was only when I started to do photography seriously that I realized I had a deep need to be creative. And while for most of my adult life I exercised my creative instincts with words, when I took a camera in hand I came to appreciate that I had harbored a life-long affection for the visual. For me, the art of “making” (as opposed to taking) photographs has been a process of becoming. Put another way, my images say more about me than they do about the subjects of my photographs. My photographs have been accepted in Jersey City’s “Cathedral Arts Festival,” Studio Montclair’s “Inspired by an OBJECT” juried exhibition, and the annual “Photography Exhibition” of the Belmar Arts Council, where I have been the recipient of the “Merit Award in Black and White Photography” (2019) and the “Merit Award in Photojournalism” (2020). Additionally, I have had several images selected by the editorial staff of Leica Fotografie International, including the prestigious “Leica Master Shots” collection. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I shot a series of images of businesses which have been shuttered both before and as a consequence of the Coronavirus. You may see the pictures on my website (www.stevenkushnerphotography.com) as well as on Steve Bennett’s “Pandemic Lens” blog (www.pandemiclens.com/author/skushner/) I have also published several of those photographs in a book entitled “Suburban Decay.” I shoot Leica and Sony digital mirrorless cameras. Steven Kushner  |  June 2022