This year, the Atlanta Photography Group’s (APG) annual APG > Airport Exhibition juror is Dr. Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings, New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). He has selected 28 photographs to exhibit in the central atrium of the world’s busiest airport: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). ATL has an average of 275,000 visitors per day, making this an opportunity to have their photographs seen by literally millions of travelers from all over the world.

Things are going well at the airport when they go as we expect them to, and the monotony becomes kind of the point. Check-in, security, waiting, drinks and snacks, waiting, board the plane, waiting, and thankful arrival. Photographs can reinforce that repetitive familiarity, with images like blurred human forms hustling down escalators, postcard-perfect vacation destinations, and smiling reunited families. Part of photography’s power, however, lies in its ability to convey something unexpected, new, or even jarring, through a unique viewpoint, juxtaposition, or representation. The 2023 Atlanta Photography Group exhibition, then, seems like a wonderful chance to (safely) introduce something a little unexpected into the experience of traveling through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The artists collected here approach photography through a myriad of styles and artistic practices, and their focus lands on an equally broad range of subjects. Through genres that include landscape, still-life, portraiture, fashion, and photojournalism, these photographers consider themes like family-life, pleasure, history, geography, home, climate change, and, yes, travel. In each of these photographs, my hope is that you find something a little different from the rest of the photography you might encounter on your journey – perhaps unexpected – that helps you to see things in a new way.