David Katzenstein: Ritual

An intimate portrait of humanity depicting rituals from all over the world.

These photographs by David Katzenstein emerged from his lifelong artistic journey as a visual chronicler of humanity. His mission led him to travel to many parts of the world to experience other cultures and peoples firsthand, capturing images that relate to the themes he is drawn to. In the process, he came to be fascinated by rituals. The images in this volume were taken in twenty-six countries on six continents between 1982 and 2019. They document humans in the act of performing a wide array of rituals, both religious and secular. Rituals depicted herein include those of Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Shintoism, as well as the nonreligious rituals of everyday life such as folk festivals, military assemblies, and parades. Whether rituals are religious or secular, Katzenstein has discovered, they are all, in some sense, sacred to those who perform them.

David Katzenstein is a photographer based in New York. He has traveled extensively throughout the world creating narrative imagery for fine art exhibitions, global corporate giants, and philanthropic organizations. In 2018 Katzenstein formed the nonprofit organization The Human Experience whose mission is to create and mount exhibitions of photographs depicting the human experience