benhoffman

Artist Bio

I am an American photographer and filmmaker who has dedicated more than four decades to the practice, study, and exploration of photography. From the days of being a kid with a camera to years as a professional black and white darkroom printer to the present, photography has never been a hobby or an interest. It has always been the deepest part of who I am. More natural to me than anything else I have ever done, photography is inseparable from my life. It is not just something I make, it is my blood, my language, my DNA.

My work is driven by an obsession with light, color, shape, and framing. And when I photograph people, it becomes an obsession with how light reacts to a smile, with the eyes, with the shadows that can suddenly darken them. It is the joy of seeing a human being reveal themselves in their environment, in their body language, in their heart. I have had the incredible honor of living inside people’s eyes and within the gaze of my subjects for much of my life. The intimacy I have shared is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

Today, living and working in Ukraine, I create images that confront both beauty and struggle. My photographs move between landscapes, people, and the daily textures of life here. Some are quiet, some are brutal, some are tender, but all are attempts to reveal resilience in its rawest forms. In this way my practice is both aesthetic and ethical, to see, to witness, to translate, and to honor.

Photo by Yuliana Symchych