Ritchin, a prominent figure in visual journalism, explores how photojournalists and visual storytellers need to rethink authenticity through new ethical frameworks, transparency standards, and contextual tools that help maintain credibility in an age where images can be created, not just captured. Moderator: Professor Ken Light.

Fred Ritchin. Photo: Ports Bishop.

Fred Ritchin is Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography where he had founded the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography educational program in 1983. He was also professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University from 1991-2014. Previously Ritchin served as picture editor of the New York Times Magazine (1978-82) and executive editor of Camera Arts magazine (1982-83). He created the first multimedia version of the New York Times newspaper in 1994-95, and then conceived and edited the Times’s first non-linear online documentary project, “Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace,” nominated in 1997 for a Pulitzer Prize in public service. He also created the Four Corners Project, an open-source software to provide context for photographs, and co-founded the current Writing with Light campaign that focuses upon the integrity of the photographer as an author.

His books on the future of imaging include In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (Aperture, 1990), After Photography (W.W. Norton, 2008), and Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen (Aperture, 2013). His newest book is The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025. He has curated numerous exhibitions around the world, including “An Uncertain Grace: The Photographs of Sebastiāo Salgado” and, as co-curator, “Mexico Through Foreign Eyes” and “In Ukraine,” and worked on various human rights campaigns, including at the United Nations to end polio globally and another in support of the Millennium Development Goals. He continues to teach, write, and lecture widely, including a column on Substack, “Notes of a MetaPhotographer.”