There are as many ways to record the world as there are ways to perceive it.
My work explores photography as an expanded indexical medium. Since its invention, photography has been understood as a record made through light, a direct trace of the visible world. Today, as artificial intelligence increasingly reproduces that optical model, I find myself asking what other forms a photograph might take. Rather than relying solely on the camera, I investigate image-making through direct relationships between materials, chemistry, time, and place.
Working with locally gathered botanicals, I create camera-less photographic works in which the plants themselves become collaborators in the formation of the image. Through heat, pressure, water, and naturally occurring chemical reactions, their pigments and tannins permanently inscribe themselves into the fibers of the paper. The resulting images are both precise and unpredictable, shaped as much by the chemistry of the landscape as by my own intentions.
Photography has always occupied a space between science and wonder. I am drawn to that intersection where measurable chemical processes give rise to images that feel both technical and spiritual, works that carry the physical evidence of their making while suggesting forms of perception beyond the merely visible. Like the earliest analog photographic images, each print retains an element of discovery that cannot be fully controlled or repeated.
Across my practice, I am interested in the photograph not simply as a representation of the world, but as a material event, an index of contact, transformation, and lived experience. Whether working with botanical chemistry, abstraction, or constructed color, I seek images that reveal how the world records itself. Each work becomes a collaboration between intention and chance, where the visible and invisible, the scientific and the poetic, coexist within the same surface.
Rebecca Michaels is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice expands the language of photography through material processes, abstraction, and camera-less image making. Working at the intersection of photography, printmaking, and book arts, she investigates how chemistry, color, and natural materials can function as indexical records of the world.
Michaels is Professor Emerita of Photography at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, where she taught photography, color theory, and photographic bookmaking for more than two decades. Throughout her career, she has explored the evolving relationship between photographic technologies and human perception, from analog processes to artificial intelligence.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in public and private collections. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Photo Review and continues to develop projects that examine photography as both a material object and a philosophical inquiry into seeing.
Temple University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA
Academic Appointments
• Associate Professor, Emerita, 2026
• Associate Professor, Non-Tenure Track, 2004 - 2026
• Photography Area Head, 2021–2023 and 2010 - 2012
• Adjunct Associate Professor, Photography, 1998 - 2004
• Assistant Professor, Photography, 1984 - 1986
• Instructor, Photography, 1983 - 1984
• Graduate Teaching Fellow, 1981 - 1983
University Leadership and Service
• Photography Area Head
• Writing Intensive curriculum development and course recertification
• Graduate thesis and critique committees across disciplines
• Senior capstone mentoring and exhibition advising
• Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) Faculty Fellow, 2021
• Fulbright Applicant Reader and Mentor
• CARAS Grant Mentor
• Diamond Peer Teacher Mentor
• Curated and coordinated student exhibitions and program gallery installations
• Assisted in curriculum planning, scheduling, and program development within Photography
Arcadia University formerly Beaver College, Glenside, PA
Assistant Professor, Art Department, 1986–1995
• Courses taught included Photography, Drawing, Typography, Graphic Design, and 2D Foundations
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
Visiting Faculty, Photography Area, 1989 - 1990
• Courses taught included Advanced Black & White Photography, Photo Chemistry, and Offset Printing
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Visiting Faculty, Photography, 1988 - 1989
• Courses taught included Black & White Photography, Visual Books, Non-Silver Processes, and Offset Printing
Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA
Instructor, Continuing Education Department, 1997
• Altos de Chavón Bookbinding Workshop, Dominican Republic, 2001 - 2003
ISCC Color Impact Conference - Presenter, The Art of RGB
Center for the Book Arts, New York - Invitational Lecture
Chicago Center for Book Arts - Exhibition
Sam Scorer Gallery, Lincoln, England - Exhibition and Lecture
SPE Regional Conferences - Presentations and Portfolio Reviews
Queensland College of Art, Brisbane - Cast by the Sun
The Print Center, Philadelphia - Coordinates of Knowledge
Tyler School of Art - Points of View: Educators Trip to China
Black Box Gallery, Chicago - Color Space: Contemporary Photography
The Art Institute of Chicago, Betty Rymer Gallery
Artemisia Gallery, Chicago - Critical Messages (traveling exhibition)
Museum and university faculty exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally
Museum of Modern Art Book Collection, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art Rare Books Collection, New York
New York Public Library Rare Books Collection
The Art Institute of Chicago Rare Books Collection
Cleveland Museum of Art
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Harvard University Houghton Library Rare Books Collection
University of Iowa Book Collection
Washington University Rare Books Collection
Dallas Public Library Rare Books Collection
Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Master of Fine Arts (MFA), 1983
Yale Summer Program in Graphic Design with Armin Hofmann, Richard Sapper, Paul Rand Switzerland 1987
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), 1978
kuronen + michaels, Glenside, PA
• Freelance Graphic Design and Offset Printing Services, 1978 - present
• Provided design and printing services for educational, cultural, and nonprofit organizations including American
• Express Corporation, U.S. Postal Service, Arcadia University, and arts-related organizations
HAYWARD BLAKE & CO., Evanston, IL
• Graphic Designer, 1979 - 1981
A SPACE GALLERY @ CHICAGO BOOKS, Chicago, IL
• Gallery Director and Offset Printer, 1978 - 1980
• Managed alternative exhibition space and artists’ book production program
