About Steven Kushner
Steven Kushner is a photographer based in New Jersey who focuses his work on the various aspects of observational photography. Working as a congregational rabbi, he has always explored his interest in storytelling and continuously strives to better understand the world around him. In doing so, he seeks beauty and meaning in the mundane, a theme that runs through his street photography. In his works, Kushner is drawn to photographing people interacting with their surroundings as if they were subjects within a scene, using their passive roles as individuals as part of his methodology to contextualize their importance to a larger narrative. He also highlights his keen interest in structure, design, light, and order, citing them as central to his practice since 2017.
Artist Statement
I like to look. And although, as a congregational rabbi, I spent more than half a century devoting myself to the study and articulation of words, I have always been visual. I am also drawn to structure. And design. I’m the one who comes into your home and straightens the pictures on the wall. I look for order.
I have been photographing spaces — both active and static — since 2017. In that time, I have come to appreciate how much I seek order in the world around me. Especially visually. I am fascinated by light and how that light interacts with the things around us. While I tend to lean into (what has been popularized as) street photography, I am particularly drawn to capturing people in relation to their surroundings, often simply as objects in a scene. This is not to dehumanize my subjects but rather to contextualize them as integral elements of something larger.
Truth be told, I am hard-pressed to label my photographic style. But of late, I have been embracing the phrase “observational photography” as the best way to describe what I do with a camera. I take pictures of that which catches my eye. Sometimes it’s the people around me. Sometimes it’s a shadow, or a reflection, or the lines of a building. Sometimes it’s just an object, sitting by itself, alone in an otherwise indifferent environment. But I notice it. Because I like to look. When all is said and done, I am a storyteller. I strive to make sense of the world, to find Meaning and beauty in the banal and the mundane. And my eyes are constantly in search of that story.
Juried Group Exhibitions
Atlantic Highlands Arts Council | 2024
Belmar Arts Council: 13×19 Photography Exhibition | 2019, 2020, 2022-2024
Jersey City Cathedral Arts Festival | 2019, 2024
Montclair Art Museum / Studio Montclair: Inspired By An Object | 2021
Montclair Art Museum / Studio Montclair: Inspired By George Inness | 2022
Museum of International Art / North Jersey Photographers’Exhibition | 2025
New Jersey Arts Council Annual: Exploring Our Connections | 2024
New York Center For Photographic Art: Urban, Suburban, Rural | 2022
New York Center For Photographic Art: Colors of the Commonplace | 2024