AC Stills Portfolio 2025: Places
The first of three collections showcasing outstanding photography by Society members.
Now in its fifth edition since its introduction in 2021, AC’s annual Stills Issue has showcased Society members’ photographs in a forum that remains fluid and changing, as the works it curates and the artists who produce them remain fresh and ever-evolving. ASC Vice President and Photo Gallery Committee Chair Charlie Lieberman, who hands off each year’s new batch of images to AC’s editors to conduct their selection process, notes that “when this project began, AC started out with galleries of ‘Places,’ ‘People’ and ‘Landscapes.’ But last year, it suddenly came about that there was a new subject, ‘Still Life.’ And this year, ‘People’ became ‘People and Faces’ — because some of the faces in those photographs were non-human, or even inanimate. When we receive submissions, it often becomes apparent that new types of photographs should be collected, and viewed, together.”
Yet, in gathering works for consideration, Lieberman has observed at least one kind of connective tissue between each of this issue’s clearly defined categories. “The one thing that’s eternal is that many of our members shoot pictures that contain a non-verbal story,” he says. “My hope is that viewers can ‘write’ their own story based on the picture they’re looking at, and that that story could be ‘written’ in a way that echoes what’s there in the photograph.”
This sense of participatory engagement reverberates through the “Places” collection that follows. Here, spaces familiar, foreign and liminal are opened to exploratory viewers — and, in some instances, echo cinematic worlds that film-lovers may have previously visited. “In these images’ ‘stories,’ there may be a hallway, a road, a path, a view into or out from a window… anything that makes you wonder about who might move through that environment,” Lieberman says. “That’s what makes a photo ever more interesting: It allows you to imagine the movie playing out within the moment it captures.”
— Max Weinstein
M. David Mullen, ASC
Disappearing Act • 2024
Nikon Z6 +
Nikkor Z 40mm f/2
Shana Hagan, ASC
Winter’s First Light • Homer Glen, Illinois • 2024
iPhone 15 Pro
James Neihouse, ASC
Crossing Paths • 2023
Canon EOS 1D X Mark II + EF 800mm f/5.6
Antonio Calvache, ASC
Rainbow • Spain • 2017
Sony NEX-6 +
18-55mm f/3.5 (shot at 18mm f/8)
Infrared converted
Ravi Varman, ASC
Every Soul Needs the Sun to Rise • 2023
iPhone 13 Pro
Peter Deming, ASC
Aprés Midi • 2023
iPhone 14
Peter Levy, ASC, ACS
Foggy Night • 2024
iPhone 15 Pro
Gavin Kelly, ASC
Raʻiātea • 2024
FujiFilm GFX 100S + GF 55mm f/1.7
Nancy Schreiber, ASC
Dusk’s Magical Embrace • 2022
iPhone 11 Pro
Eben Bolter, ASC, BSC
Menorca • 2017
Leica Q + 28mm Summilux
Mihai Mălaimare Jr., ASC
Rome • 2009
Voigtlander Bessa R3M + 40mm Nokton
Charlie Lieberman, ASC
Malibu Creek State Park • 2024
Leica M11 + 35mm Summicron
John Conroy, ASC
Far From the Short Grass • Hungary • 2016
iPhone 6
Shelly Johnson, ASC
Joshua Tree National Park • New Year’s Eve, 2013
Sony a7M + Zeiss FE 16-35mm f/4
Anastas Michos, ASC, GSC
Pickup Truck • 2024
iPhone 14 Pro
Richard Crudo, ASC
Pacific Palisades • Feb. 2, 2025
iPhone 12 Pro
Ernest Holzman, ASC
Walk Bridge • Pikeville, Kentucky • 1970
Nikon F + Nikkor 35mm
Jaron Presant, ASC
Manhattan • 2024
iPhone 13 Pro
Roberto Schaefer, ASC, AIC
After Hopper • 2020
Sony A7SII
Eagle Egilsson, ASC
Grit • 2024
iPhone 16 Pro
This year's AC Stills Portfolio originally appeared in our May 2025 issue. Learn more here about how to subscribe to the industry's leading journal of motion-picture production techniques.
