Ackerman takes pictures of outsiders, darkness, light within darkness, death, and death and time together. All of his burry and mysterious images, which exert a hypnotic pull on the viewer, are not still scenes hung in the wall; rather the scenes that are happening at this moment in front of viewers. Black and white in the images does not only represent black and white in negative films, but also represent black and white of society, black and white of experience.

Although Michael Ackerman captures images through camera, he prefers to call them pictures to photographs. Perhaps, his images accomplished a remarkable transformation from a purpose of traditional camera that records information or facts to one that records emotions. It is not the matter of what, when, or who he captures. What is important to him is the moment he feels, he captures the perfect moment happened by accident with his rough and delicate sensation. Romantic but heart-breaking solitude; his incredible ability unites two opposite feelings together.

When he captures an image, there is a very small amount of physical light; however, the light within the image is extremely powerful. With his distinctive blurry focus, he does not focus on capturing a subject through a viewfinder, but evokes the subject’s spirit. As people from India believe that one’s spirit gets taken away while he or she is photographed, he finds a way of meeting spirits through photographs. The portraits of people we do not know, perhaps even Ackerman does not know… the reason his images intimately appeal to us is because those people are portraits of ourselves.

Sarah Moon, a good friend of Ackerman and a photographer, observed that Ackerman always takes a picture at a different moment. Ackerman never intends to have the “decisive moment” like other photographers. Because he captures between a moment and a moment and between time and time, things we do not see but feel, the moment unexpected entity appears and transform. Ackerman’s works are always astonishing and impressive to the audiences.

Michael Ackerman was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1967. His family emigrated to America and settled in Queens, New York when he was seven. He might have graduated in Communication from State University of New York in Albany unless he immersed in photograph just before a few months graduation. He became known to the photographic world with his book and exhibit End Time City, all shot in Benares, India. In 1997, he won the prestigious Infinity Award of the International Center for Photograph and in 1999 the Nadar prize for the book, End time City. His work has been published on Aperture, French Photo, New York Times and Granta. His last book, Fiction, was published in October 2001. He works repeatedly in various cities, like Naples, Paris, Havana, and New York. Currently, Galerie VU represents his work.

Michael Ackerman. (untitled). 2001. Gelatin silver print.




Michael Ackerman. Tuscan, Italy. 2000. Gelatin silver print.




Michael Ackerman. (untitled). 2000. Gelatin silver print.




Michael Ackerman. (untitled). 2001. Gelatin silver print.



Michael Ackerman. Atlanta. 1997. Gelatin silver print.