Julia Cumes on Uncommon Journeys: Exploring Culture and Place Through Photography

"He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment"--Henri Cartier Bresson

As a photographer, I’ve had the opportunity to travel widely and explore many cultures and communities through my work. Having this unique and privileged access to other lives and cultures, I try to always be respectful in my approach, capturing a sense of place and moment and conveying the humanity of the people I’m photographing. With this presentation—during which I will show work from projects in India, South Africa, Thailand, the United States, Tanzania, Cuba and more—I hope to present viewers with a version of the world they may not otherwise get to see and engage them in dialog about this extraordinary and complex world we live in and the power of photography to, as Cartier Bressson put it, “reach eternity through the moment."

Julia Cumes is a South African-born photographer based on Cape Cod since 2001. As a photographer, she's particularly invested in exploring stories about the struggles women and girls face as well as wildlife conservation and has spent much of her career working on these kinds of projects in Africa and East Asia.

She first fell in love with photography as a teenager in apartheid-era South Africa when she began shooting black and white film and printing her own work. Since then, she's completed a B.A. at Brandeis University, an M.F.A at Cornell University, a Masters in Photojournalism at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and has been working as a photographer ever since.

Over the course of her career, Julia has photographed for a variety of newspapers, magazines, non-profit organizations, businesses and private clients. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, National Geographic, The London Times as well as local publications such as Cape Cod Magazine, South Shore Living and Chatham Magazine.

During the past four winters, Julia spent time teaching photography to children in Rwanda as well as to tribal Samburu Women at the On'gan Women's Cooperative in Kenya. Her work has been exhibited widely on Cape Cod as well as elsewhere and most recently, she received the AFCC visual arts fellowship for her continued exploration of female identity and experience through photography. "I strive to create photographs one can't turn away from--photos that are powerful and capture in a unique way this extraordinary world we live in," she says.