An Afternoon with the Artist: Martha Casanave

Join artist Martha Casanave for a behind-the-scenes look at her exhibition Martha Casanave: EXPLORATIONS. Learn about the optics and characteristics of pinhole photography, how the artist employed the technique underwater, and enhanced the works with hand-coloring.

Martha Casanave has been a working, teaching, exhibiting, and award-winning photographer for 45 years. She taught photography at Monterey Peninsula College and Cabrillo College for thirty years, until the 2020 pandemic induced retirement. Four monographs of her work have been published: Past Lives, Photographs by Martha Casanave (Godine, 1991), Beware of Dog (Center for Photographic Art, 2002) Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline (Hudson Hills Press, 2006) and Trajectories, A Half Century of Portraits (Image Continuum Press, 2013).

Casanave’s photographs are included in many major collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Cantor Arts Center (Stanford), the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the Museum of the History of Photography, St. Petersburg, Russia.