Looking, and trusting in that act alone, Mishka Henner explores photography as an appropriation artist.

After years of frustration with traditional documentary photography, he discovered what he believes is "real documentary."

Today Henner works with images that have already been produced by machines and satellites.

Henner uses Google Street View's surveillance element and Google Maps' satellite view in search of pure material that simply captures what is there. Using those images he raises questions while inspecting issues such as politicians' roles in the government, street-side prostitution, the meat industry, the act of winning, oil fields in the U.S. and the enormity of space.

Fearlessly, he challenges some of the most fundamental building blocks of photography, including Robert Frank's 1958 classic, Les Americains. In his latest book, Henner used Photoshop to erase half of Frank's images, leaving behind chairs, hats and shirts.

Through new and alternative technology, Henner continues to inspect art from the past while innovating in the present.

His work has been published, reviewed and featured in Time, The New York Times, The Guardian, Photography Now, Else, De Volkskrant, Liberation and Frieze d/e, among others.

Webby
Year: 2014
Place: Winner
Category: Documentary: Series

NPPA's Best of Photojournalism
Year: 2014
Place: Honorable Mention
Category: Visual Column

Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

Harbers Studios commissioned MediaStorm, on behalf of ICP, to create a short film about each of the recipients to screen at the awards ceremony and to later remain online. The films serve as an introduction of the recipients to the audience as well as a showcase of their work, highlighting the motivations for honoring them with Infinity Awards.

Mishka Henner is a creative guy. A lot of his thoughts, theories and philosophies are controversial and question the structures of journalism, storytelling and ownership. He sparked a lot of conversations for us as we were producing this piece and we wanted to include that element of controversy for viewers.

However, most of Henner's images are project specific and did not work over unrelated narrative. We did not want the visuals to feel random, yet we wanted to include some of his fascinating ideas.

Another challenge we faced was the use of Robert Frank's images. Henner created a book called Less Américains, in which he digitally erased eighty-three images from Robert Frank's classic photo book, The Americans. Emailing Frank to ask for the rights to use his images in this project felt hopeless. But we knew the section with Henner's images would not make sense without the comparison to Frank's original images.

For the sake of the story and flow of the piece, we cut a lot of interesting narrative. In some situations we found places where we could interweave Henner's radical ideas with specific pieces of work.

In the end the film needed to work as a whole and, although we let go of a lot of great pieces of narrative, we believe the overall piece flows better visually and narratively without them.

We asked nicely and Robert Frank let us use two of his images. It was a miracle.

MediaStorm interviewed the recipients and gathered images to create stories about each of their careers. The resulting eight short films serve individually as biographical glimpses into the recipients’ work and collectively as a portrait of some of the important contributors to photography today.

This film was a collaboration with Harbers Studio and the International Center of Photography.

Harbers Studios turbocharges the efforts of charitable entrepreneurs by helping them tell their stories. Our goal is to help them articulate and share the value of the work they do so they can inspire others to help them do it. Working with some of the best filmmaking talent in the world, we create compelling visual narratives that enhance the endeavors of organizations working to make the world a better place.

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography and the reproduced image in all its forms. Through our exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, we offer an open forum for dialogue about the role images play in our culture. Since our founding, we have presented more than 500 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes, providing instruction at every level. ICP is a center where photographers and artists, students and scholars can create and interpret the world of the image within our comprehensive educational facilities and archive.

As a privately funded nonprofit arts and education organization, ICP depends in large part on friends such as you for support. Your generosity is vital to ICP as it continues to grow and succeed in its mission: to present photography's extraordinary power to the public.

There are many ways to give to ICP: Donate to the Annual Fund, create a scholarship, sponsor exhibitions and education programs, contribute to the Collection, or make a planned gift.

Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

Harbers Studios commissioned MediaStorm, on behalf of ICP, to create a short film about each of the recipients to screen at the awards ceremony and to display online. The films pay tribute to the contributions of each artist to the craft and field of photography and demonstrate ICP's commitment to them.