Honky Tonk: An Evening with Henry Horenstein

Henry speaks about his extensive career as a photographer, filmmaker, author, and educator.

Reflecting on his early career, Henry explains how his love of history brought him into the world of photography. He speaks of his approach to image making as a record of time and culture, a way to preserve the memory of people and places too easily forgotten.

This leads us to one of his most beloved and long-time subjects, country music– and more importantly, the robust community of people it has the power of bringing together. With an excerpt from his film Spoke, Henry pulls us right into the dance halls that inspired the work of his iconic monograph, Honky Tonk, which laid the tracks for his most recent publication, Miles and Miles of Texas.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies of Henry’s books will be available for sale & signing.

About Henry Horenstein

Henry Horenstein has been a professional photographer, filmmaker, teacher, and author since the 1970s.

He studied history at the University of Chicago and earned his BFA and MFA at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he studied with legends Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind.

Henry's work is collected and exhibited internationally and he has published over 40 books, including several monographs of his own work such as Miles and Miles of Texas, Honky Tonk, Histories, Show, Animalia, Humans, Racing Days, Close Relations, and many others. He has also authored Black & White Photography, Digital Photography, and Beyond Basic Photography, used by hundreds of thousands of college, university, high-school, and art school students as their introduction to photography. His Shoot What You Love serves both as a memoir and a personal history of photography over the past 50 years. His recent monographs, Speedway1972 was published by Stanley/Barker (UK) in 2022 and We Sort of People was published by Kehrer Verlag (Ger) in 2023. His newest book, Miles and Miles of Texas, was published by Honky Tonk Editions in 2025.

In recent years, Henry has been making films: Marksville, Murray, Spoke, Partners, and Blitto Underground. He is currently in production on Preacher 1996: The Lost Footage, a film about rockabilly musician Preacher Jack.

Henry is professor of photography at RISD and lives in Boston.