If you’re looking for photography to crush on this summer, you won’t be disappointed by this photo exhibit list. There’s a multitude of shows opening, and many of them explore themes of love, relationships, and human connection. 

Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy 

Remember mixtapes? This photography exhibitions is organized like one, mashing up images from an international group of more than 15 photographers who have delved into the complexities of love and relationships over the past 70 years. The exhibit runs from June 2 through September 11 at the International Center of Photography in New York. 

[Read: Spring 2023 Photo Exhibits]

New Photography 2023 

This year’s New Photography show at MoMA in New York focuses on work connected to a specific place: Lagos, Nigeria. Seven artists at different stages of their careers explore images as a social medium, taking on everything from daily life and personal experience to history and architecture. Their images will be on view from May 28 through September 16. 

Judith Joy Ross 

Ross has been creating subtle yet revealing portraits of Americans with an 8×10 view camera since the 1980s. You can see about 200 of them in this solo show, running from April 24 through August 16. It’s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, right in the eastern Pennsylvania region where Ross was born and has done much of her work. 

James Barnor: Accra/London 

This retrospective of Barnor’s work over 60 years follows him from Ghana, where he captured a nation on the verge of independence, to London, where he photographed the African diaspora for the South African magazine Drum, and then back to Ghana to work as a portraitist. The photo exhibit runs from May 28 through October 1 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City 

New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer called Hofer “the most famous unknown photographer in America.” Now you can get to know her and the many city dwellers she photographed over her five-decade career as a documentarian. This photo exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta presents over 100 vintage prints and runs through August 13.  

Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue

These two photographers have been having a conversation as friends and colleagues for over 40 years. The topic has often been race, class, and the human condition. Now you get a chance to listen in with these selections from both of their work, produced over a period of dramatic changes in society. The photo exhibit open through July 9 at the Getty in L.A. 

Tim Walker: Wonderful Things 

Walker’s elaborate creations guide you into a fantastical world of conceptual fashion art. It takes a whole team of creative collaborators to construct that world, too, and this photo exhibit highlights the work of Walker’s group of set designers, stylists, makeup artists, and models. It runs from May 2 through August 20 at the Getty in L.A. 

Fashioning Self: The Photography of Everyday Expression 

What happens when fashion and photography meet in the street? This photo exhibit explores that question with 54 images of expressive dressers from the Center for Creative Photography’s collection. It also features a rotating display of social media images, so you can dress to express yourself and take a selfie to join the show. It runs through November 5 at the Phoenix Art Museum. 

Kinship: Photography and Connection 

Six photographers explore subjects they feel a special relationship with in this show. From cousins and parents to animals and ancestors, the figures they connect with through their work navigate the distances and affinities that define relationships. The show runs from May 20 through November 5 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

Shahidul Alam: Singed But Not Burnt 

There’s a major retrospective of the renowned Bangladeshi photographer’s work touring India, but you can see 80 images from it right in Chicago at Wrightwood 659. The photo exhibit features everything from political strife to portraits, with images that mark significant moments in the artist’s life—and that of his young country. It runs through July 15. While you’re there, check out Patric McCoy’s Take My Picture, an exploration of black gay life in 1980s Chicago that runs concurrently. 

Frank Horvat: Paris, the World and Fashion and Johan van der Keuken: The Rhythm of Images 

You can see major exhibitions from two artists who passed away recently after long careers at the Jeu de Paume in Paris this summer. One takes you back to Horvat’s early days shooting fashion and candids in the 1950s and ‘60s, while the other presents photos and films from throughout van der Keuken’s nearly 50-year exploration of movement, rhythm, and deconstructionism. Both exhibitions run from June 16 through September 17. 

Yevonde: Life and Colour

Yevonde Middleton started out as a suffragette in the 1910s and kept blazing trails when she hung out her shingle as a portrait photographer and then started shooting color in the 1930s. This photo exhibit features portraits and still lifes from those early days through the 1970s. It runs from June 22 through October 15 at the National Portrait Gallery in London.  

In Case You Missed It 

Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look without Fear

This impressive display of photographic range traveled from MoMA in New York to Toronto this spring. Tillmans works in every genre you can think of, and then some. This photo exhibit of innovatively presented images includes everything from portraits and still lifes to abstract images made without a camera and astronomical phenomena. You can see it at the Art Gallery of Ontario through October 1. 

Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures 

If you missed this solo show in California, you can catch it through July 9 in Fort Worth, Texas, at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. The Chicana artist explores migration, labor, gender, and Mexican American identity through a body of work created over 30 years.