Kenneth Josephson was among the first generation of photographers to graduate with a master’s degree in photography from the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he studied with Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan; he then taught photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for over 35 years. Josephson often layers pictures within pictures, focusing on the act of image-making and investigating how a photograph differs from reality. Here, his son Matthew holds a Polaroid print of himself upside down; his finger is positioned as if he is about to click the shutter of an imaginary camera. The Polaroid in this picture reflects the photographic process—how, in a camera, an image passing through a lens is projected upside down onto the film—as well as Josephson’s interest in underscoring the photographic image as a depiction of, not a window onto, the physical world.
