Lange in Verona
The underground vaulted halls of the Scavi Scaligeri in Verona now house around 200 Dorothea Lange photographs, running through 1 November 2026.
Week of 2 August 2026
A major Dorothea Lange retrospective opened in Verona at the end of July, bringing around 200 photographs to an unusual setting — the underground Roman archaeological halls of the Scavi Scaligeri, where ancient stonework serves as an unlikely but compelling backdrop for her documentation of Depression-era America. Elsewhere, Rencontres d'Arles enters its second month with the main programme running strongly through October, while the photobook world produced several announcements worth attention, including an unexpected contribution from a rock musician with a four-decade archive of unseen images.
The Photographic Arts
From 30 July to 1 November 2026, the Centro Internazionale di Fotografia at the Scavi Scaligeri in Verona hosts a large retrospective dedicated to Dorothea Lange (1895–1965), organised by the City of Verona and produced by CAMERA — the Italian Centre for Photography in Turin. The curators are Walter Guadagnini and Monica Poggi.
The show brings together approximately 200 photographs and takes in the full range of Lange's documentary practice: the Great Depression and her work for the Farm Security Administration, the wartime internment of Japanese-American citizens, migration and displacement, social inequality, and environmental crisis. The celebrated *Migrant Mother* (1936) is included, alongside work that is considerably less well known outside specialist circles. The setting — the atmospheric underground halls beneath the Roman archaeological site — gives the exhibition a distinctive physical character that a conventional white-cube gallery would not.
CAMERA Turin has a well-established record of producing major photography retrospectives for Italian institutions; previous subjects have included Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Vivian Maier. Full admission and opening times are available via the Scavi Scaligeri website.
Rencontres d'Arles 2026 runs through 4 October across more than 40 exhibitions in 26 venues. August brings the programme into full summer swing.
Rencontres d'Arles 2026 — Into the Second Month
The 57th edition of Rencontres d'Arles runs until 4 October 2026, with the programme now settled into its summer rhythm across more than 40 exhibitions in 26 venues. Several shows have attracted particular attention in coverage published this week.
The work of Ming Smith — a figure central to African-American photography since the 1970s and the first woman to have work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art — is presented at the Église Sainte-Anne, her images described in *Le Monde* as "pleines de nuit": nocturnal in mood and technique, formally experimental, and largely unknown to European audiences. Martin Parr's *A Sense of Place* at Luma Arles gathers urban wanderings from across his career, opening 6 July. At the same vast Luma complex, Patti Smith's *Correspondences* runs through 4 November — a body of work that extends her long practice of combining photography with writing. Gerhard Richter's *Overpainted Photographs* occupies an adjacent hall through January.
The dual exhibition *From Our Windows*, presenting the work of Rinko Kawauchi and Tokuko Ushioda in dialogue, brings together two photographers from different generations of Japanese photography in a conversation around domestic space, light and the frame. Alessandra Chiericato's *L'image cannibale* — which emerged from her winning the Rencontres curatorial prize — approaches photography as an entity that consumes the world rather than merely recording it. The festival's full programme, including the independent OFF circuit of galleries, bookshops and self-organised projects, runs until 4 October. Detailed listings are at rencontres-arles.com.
World Press Photo Exhibition 2026 — Ballarat and Montréal
The World Press Photo Exhibition 2026 continues its global tour, with two notable upcoming stops. The Art Gallery of Ballarat brings the exhibition to Victoria, Australia for the first time in a decade, showing from 8 August to 20 September at the Ballarat Mining Exchange (free entry) — a change of venue due to building works at the gallery itself. In Canada, the exhibition opens at Marche Bonsecours in Montréal from 26 August to 12 October. The 2026 contest drew 57,376 photographs from 3,747 photographers across 141 countries; the World Press Photo of the Year was Saber Nuraldin's *Aid Emergency in Gaza* for EPA Images. The exhibition remains one of the most widely seen photojournalism showcases in the world, with over 80 venues on the 2026 tour.
The photobook continues to consolidate its place as one of photography's most considered forms — this week brings prize results from PHotoESPAÑA and a major exhibition at ICP New York.
Photobooks — PHotoESPAÑA Awards, ICP Exhibition, and Since Forever
PHotoESPAÑA 2026 announced its Best Book of Photography prize winners this week. In the Creation category, the prize went to Mark Power's *FASHION* (GOST Books) — a project 27 years in the making, documenting production sites across 23 countries: construction sites, quarries, shipyards and recycling plants. The title's deliberate irony sits at the centre of the work. The First Publication prize went to Chiara Calgaro's *Changing Room* (Altana), an exploration of gender identity through the cultural lens of football. The Bibliofilia prize — for the book as physical object — went to Javier Landeras's *Arimotz*, a self-published work responding to a forest reserve in the Basque Country, notable for its use of texture and paper as expressive materials. More detail from 65yMás.
In New York, the International Center of Photography's exhibition *Photobooks USA 2000–25* runs through 28 September. The show is the first to examine 25 years of American photobook production in a single sustained survey, bringing together more than 50 titles — from out-of-print editions to recent landmark publications — including LaToya Ruby Frazier's *The Notion of Family* and Carmen Winant's *The Last Safe Abortion*. The argument implicit in the selection is that the photobook has become one of the medium's most responsive forms: capable of registering social, political and environmental shifts that a single image or gallery show cannot hold. Running alongside at ICP is *Yves Saint Laurent and Photography*, showing how the fashion house engaged with the medium across five decades.
A more unexpected entry into the photobook calendar comes from Jeff Ament, bassist with Pearl Jam, who announced *Since Forever* this week — a hardcover collection of more than 250 black-and-white photographs from the band's formative years between 1990 and 1998. Around 90 per cent of the images have not been seen before. The 9×12-inch volume is accompanied by Ament's own reflections on the period. It publishes on 25 September at selected independent bookstores; the Ament brothers will discuss the book at Pearl Jam's Ohana Festival on the same date.
Photoworks Festival 2026 — Brighton & Hove, October
Photoworks has confirmed the programme for its 2026 biennial festival in Brighton and Hove, with the launch weekend running 2–4 October. The theme — *Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams* — frames the programme around precarity and possibility, with personal and collective geographies as its territory. Exhibitions, talks, workshops and portfolio reviews will take place across venues including Brighton Museums, the University of Brighton and partner spaces. Partners include the Italian Cultural Institute, Arts Council England and Photo Fringe. Full details at photoworks.org.uk.
PCNW Photo Zine and Book Fair — Seattle, 16 August
The Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle holds its annual Photo Zine and Book Fair on Sunday 16 August 2026, from noon to 5pm. Now in its fifth year, the fair brings together artists, collectives and organisations selling photo-based publications — zines, books, magazines and prints — alongside a book-by-donation sale. Details at pcnw.org.
Also This Week
In gear and glass, the most significant development of the week is the continued sharpening of the Fujifilm X-T6 picture. Fujikina Paris has been confirmed for 4–6 September 2026, and multiple sources now converge on 3 September as the announcement date for the X-T6 via an X Summit livestream — with hands-on units available at Fujikina itself. Fujifilm has separately registered the NP-W255 battery (2,550mAh, approximately 16% above the current NP-W235) which points to the X-T6 adopting a new battery platform. Separately, a note of correction from last week's article: the Fujifilm X-T30 III announcement date is now confirmed as 23 October, not November/December as previously reported — a misread of provisional dates.
In film and analogue, the week's most significant news is that Ilford Pan F Plus is now available in sheet film formats for the first time in its history. Both 4×5 and 8×10 sheet sizes are now listed, opening the low-ISO (50 ISO), ultra-fine-grain emulsion to large format photographers who have previously had to use 35mm or 120 roll film. Pan F Plus is a specialist emulsion known for its extreme resolution and contrast — qualities that translate well to large format work where contact printing or large-scale enlargements are the norm. More detail at Fstoppers.
The Digital Darkroom had a quiet week for major releases. The Adobe Lightroom security bulletin for 2026 has been updated but relates to routine security patches rather than feature additions. No significant new versions of independent editing software were announced.
Looking Ahead
The Fujifilm X-T6 announcement on or around 3 September is now the most closely watched date in the photography calendar. The Photoworks Festival in Brighton opens 2 October — full programme details are expected in the coming weeks. The Rencontres d'Arles runs through 4 October, and the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards submission deadline falls on 4 September, with shortlisted books to be exhibited at Paris Photo in November. The Dorothea Lange exhibition in Verona runs through 1 November and is worth the journey for anyone in northern Italy this autumn.
