Five photography exhibits to see now

Are you the type who’s drawn to those boxes of anonymous black-and-whites at antique shops? This exhibit represents the crème de la crème of the old-timey family-album set, culled from vernacular-photo collector Robert E. Jackson’s treasure trove of 11,000 amateur shots. “Snap Noir” arranges a selection of these ephemeral images into a series of cobbled-together narratives.

Irish photographer Andrew McConnell traveled to eight cities for this portrait series, done in cooperation with the International Rescue Committee. Displaced people carving out new lives in major cities are portrayed in near-darkness, signifying their relative invisibility in their surroundings. For more, read our Q&A with photographer Andrew McConnell.

Taking its title from the ubiquitous Instagram tag, “No Filter” features the work of NYC high-schoolers who participated in “Expanding the Walls,” the Studio Museum’s annual photography-education program. The digital shots on display represent the students’ frank and often surprising perspectives on the world around them.

Arguably the grand dame of portrait photography, this 19th-century legend is getting her first dedicated NYC-area retrospective in decades. Her intimate works, which look so loose and alive that they could have been taken in the 1960s rather than the 1860s, are of both everyday people and Cameron’s high-profile contemporaries, including Virginia Woolf and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

With digital long having replaced film as the principal photographic method, the ICP turns it focus toward artists who grew up with and work in the pixelated form. Images by 28 photogs from across the globe are featured, exploring both the possibilities and the limitations of digital photography.