Anticipated release fall 2026

8.375 x 9 inches; approximately 38 duotone and 14 color reproductions; 96 pages; clothbound with jacket. $100.00 + $9.95 domestic shipping

Like many people, I rarely like a photograph of myself, and feel self-conscious when a camera is pointed my way.

 I would much rather take responsibility for making my own image.

 I don't know why I have taken so many self-portraits, or what meanings they might have as photographs. Many of them were reactions to conscious or unconscious stimuli, moments presented when the camera was ready.

 Others were set-ups, experiments with equipment and/or printing processes, attempts at new techniques [and] happy accidents. Some were made out of reflex, to satisfy the urge to click the shutter (a daily practice).

 I try to forget that these are, in fact, photographs of me, and choose images that I like, that are able to stand alone.

—Janet Neuhauser

Janet Neuhauser was a photographer’s photographer. Her absolute delight in the medium and its endless possibilities of creative expression is on full display through her four-decade practice of self-portraiture. From 8 x 10 film through Polaroids, pinhole, and digital exposure, and then a dazzling array of darkroom and alt process techniques, Neuhauser probes the visual and psychological in her persistent studies of self.

Formally educated—including an undergraduate degree in classical studies after her first BA at the highly experimental Evergreen State College, and an MFA from Pratt Institute— her words above reflect that she was refreshingly straightforward when it came to the visual language with which she was most fluent.

She approved the image edit and sequence of Likeness in December 2025; this will be her first, albeit posthumous, monograph.

Photographer Jenny Riffle's essay addresses Neuhauser's fondness for pinhole photography, and the personal inquiries of photographers engaged with self-portraiture; Michelle Dunn Marsh writes of indexicality, and the shift of mood and expression from Neuhauser's choice of printing techniques. 

BIOS

Janet Neuhauser (1952–2026) was born on the Kitsap Peninsula. From her first photography class in 1975, she became enamored with the medium, a love affair that spanned five decades.

After consecutive bachelor’s degrees from the Evergreen State College and the University of Washington, she moved to New York. Over the next decade, she completed her MFA at Pratt Institute, renovated a house in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, worked professionally as a documentary photographer, taught courses at ICP, got married, and had a child.

Her teaching experience at ICP led to a thirty-year career as a photographic educator at the high school, undergraduate, and post-secondary level, while also maintaining an active artistic practice. She returned to the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s, and taught at University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran University, Photographic Center Northwest, South Kitsap High School, and Bainbridge High School. She was a beloved teacher and mentor to thousands of students of all ages.

In 2013 she launched The Pinhole Project as a way for digital photography students without access to a darkroom to make long exposure images. It has resulted in an archive of over four thousand images made by a broad array of participants.  In 2019 she released an artist book of her own pinhole landscapes, Innards, in an edition of 24.

Shortly after retiring from teaching, Janet was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), and for the last few years bravely endured the effects of this disease. She died March 7, 2026.  Her daughter Jesse Tampa is managing Neuhauser's archive. 

janetneuhauser.com

JENNY RIFFLE (b. 1979, Mount Vernon, Washington, lives in Morris, New York) graduated from Bard College in 2001 with a BA in Photography and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2011. Riffle works with narrative portraiture and landscapes that explore the psychological essence of a person or place. She is the author of Primordial (Brown Owl Press, 2024), Scavenger (Zatara Press, 2015) and is the co-author of It’s Raining . . . I Love You (Minor Matters, 2020).

MICHELLE DUNN MARSH (b. 1973 in Seattle, and resides there) is the co-founder of Minor Matters. She was the director of Photographic Center Northwest; a senior editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco; and spent fifteen years in various roles with Aperture Foundation in New York. She has been designing visual books for thirty years. She is the author of Seeing Being Seen: A Personal History of Photography (2022) and has curated several museum exhibitions related to music photography.