Joseph Squillante

Joseph Squillante has photographed the Hudson River for over 50 years in fine art and documentary style, capturing the river’s beauty, challenges and champions, traveling the length of the river, from its source at Lake Tear of the Clouds on Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks to its mouth at New York Harbor.

In 2026 ArtsWestchester honored Joseph with its Artist of the Year award.

My love for the Hudson continues to grow each time I visit its shores. Making photographs of this magnificent subject has become my life’s work.

A New York Times reviewer noted that some of Joseph’s pictures are similar in style to Hudson River School, Barbizon, and 19th-century Realist painters. Like the Hudson landscape painters before him, Joseph is attracted to the beauty and romance of the river.

Well-respected by the Hudson River community, Joseph’s talent and concern for the Hudson enable him to distill the spirit of this national treasure. He works with organizations such as Riverkeeper, Clearwater and Scenic Hudson who has recognized him as a Hudson Valley Hero.

Joseph’s mission is to raise awareness of the beauty of the Hudson River through photography. To this end, together with his wife, Carol Capobianco, Joseph founded the Hudson River School of Photography, cultivating an appreciation of the Hudson through workshops, lectures, classroom presentations, lessons, exhibitions, and prints and note cards.

In 2025 the Hudson River Museum celebrated his 50-year milestone with the solo exhibition Lens on the Hudson, with the head curator noting, I have admired Joseph and his photography for two decades. No other photojournalist or artistic photographer has assembled such a significant body of Hudson River images. The Westchester County Board of Legislators recognized Joseph with a Proclamation designating October 16, 2025, as Joseph Squillante Day in Westchester.

Joseph has been asked to exhibit at important river milestones, such as the American Heritage River celebration and the opening of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries and has been invited to exhibit in Scenic Hudson’s year-long show On Time and Place to commemorate their first 50 years. Joseph has also exhibited in Captured: Recent Photography Acquisitions at New York State Museum. In 2019, he exhibited his environmental work in Hudson Rising, at New-York Historical, and in a solo exhibit at the Field Library in his hometown called Peekskill, In Plain Sight, Yet Unseen. In 2017 he collaborated with Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra in American Songfest with his Hudson River photography accompaniment to the music of Pete Seeger, Aaron Copeland & Morton Gould.

As I reach out and share my work, I meet many people who also love the river. My aim is to nurture and expand this community. The Hudson is a universal subject and a continual source of inspiration.

Marking my fiftieth year of photographing the Hudson has been more than a milestone–it is a reaffirmation of my life-long love and care for both photography and the river. It serves as an opportunity to be more vigilant and vocal in advocating for environmental awareness and conservation of the river.

The Hudson River belongs to us all. We must nurture and protect it as if it were our very own child.

Joseph’s work also includes portraiture, still life and abstract and is sold internationally through Getty Images, in New York, and through his own studio, Silver Ink®, in Peekskill. Joseph is a Life Member of the American Society of Media Photographers, ArtsWestchester Teaching Artist Roster and the Peekskill Arts Alliance. and Ossining Arts Council. Joseph is a former board member of both the Peekskill Herald and Vice-Chair of the Historic and Landmarks Preservation Board for the city of Peekskill.

Joseph’s photographs are in the permanent collections of New-York Historical, Museum of the City of New York, Albany Institute of History and Art, New York State Museum and Hudson River Museum.

To arrange for a workshop, presentation, in-classroom talk, lessons, exhibition, or assignment photography visit JosephSquillante.com