Joseph Lopez

Joseph Michael Lopez (b. 1973) is a photographer born in New York City to a Puerto Rican father and a mother who escaped the Cuban revolution in 1967. He began his career as an analog cinematographer on the critically acclaimed Bruce Weber film, Chop Suey (2001), and was an autodidact until 2009, when he approached Columbia University without an undergraduate degree and was accepted as a MFA candidate based on the merit of his documentary portfolio. He completed his MFA in 2011. Currently, Joseph divides his time between long-form projects, teaching, and commercial work. His photographs have appeared on the covers of M, The Magazine for Leica M Photography, Leica Fotografie International, The Sunday Review of The New York Times, New York magazine and The New Yorker, among others.

Joseph’s photographs were recently on exhibit in Cuban Photography after 1980: Selections from the Museum’s Collection, at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In 2016, a commissioned series of his photographs of New York neighborhoods, New York at Its Core: Future City Lab, was permanently installed at The Museum of the City of New York. Images from Dear New Yorker, the series from which this commission originated, have also been published in the books Bystander: A History of Street Photography, by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz.

2011 Master of Fine Arts, Visual Arts – Photography, Columbia University, New York City