B&h Photography Podcast

This week, we welcome two photographers who know the joys of spending a late afternoon waiting for super cells to form, or that perfect lightning strike to appear, as well as the perils of rising waters, golf-ball-sized hail, and projectile debris in flight. Our topic today is extreme-weather photography, and we welcome photographers from two different continents to tell us about their shooting styles, safety precautions, gear, and their general thoughts on weather, social media, and the photography business. We are joined first by photographer and filmmaker Jim Reed, who is a represented by National Geographic Image Collection. His work has been published in National Geographic magazine, the New York Times, Scientific American, and The Guardian, and has been featured on the Weather Channel, Discovery Network, and the Oprah show.  He is the author of the critically acclaimed 2007 photo book, “Storm Chaser: A Photographer's Journey.”  With Reed, we discuss his minimal gear setup, safety precautions, useful app

For this episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we took our portable recorders to an elegant mansion along Central Park, which had been decked out by Sony as a series of stylized photography sets, complete with full lighting, backdrops, and models. They also happened to have on hand many brand-new Sony Alpha a7R IV Mirrorless Digital Cameras and hundreds of lenses for the guests to shoot with in these mini studios. Let’s not forget about the great music, delicious food, and open bar Sony provided. All in all, it was a wonderful event to celebrate the highest megapixel full-frame camera on the market. Sony invited many impressive photographers, writers, influencers, retailers, and… us. And we made our way through the many rooms, speaking with Sony representatives and photographers, getting their first impressions of this latest incarnation of the Alpha a7R series. Needless to say, people were impressed and, after seeing the specs and handling this new camera, so were we. Our first guest is Michael Bubol

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome photographer Ashok Sinha to talk about his forthcoming book Driver-full City: The Unique Architecture of Car Culture in Greater Los Angeles and to discuss the Cartwheel Initiative, a nonprofit that he founded, which works with displaced and refugee youth, using photography and multimedia tools to inspire these youth to find their voice through art and creative thinking. Before we get into our conversation with Sinha, however, we want to let you know about an opportunity we are offering our listeners. We will be giving away forty free tickets to a private screening of the film, Jay Myself, directed by photographer Stephen Wilkes, about the photographer Jay Maisel. Wilkes will be in attendance for a Q/A session after the screening. Many of you may remember when Maisel and Wilkes joined us to talk about the making of this movie, and we are excited to extend this offer to the first forty listeners who request a ticket. This screening will be i

This is “Wildlife Week” at B&H Explora, and for our contribution we offer this most excellent episode of the B&H Photography Podcast. Truth is, serendipity is a goddess, and our B&H colleagues made it easy for us to bring you such great guests—the OPTIC Conference supplied a bevy of incredible wildlife photographers for our microphones and our friends at Explora created this beautiful and educational feature, please check it out, here. First on today’s show is the one and only Ron Magill, photographer, Nikon Ambassador, and Communications Director of the Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens. Magill brings his passion for wildlife and refreshing views on photography (and photographers) to this lively discussion. He also had some good news from his recent foray photographing the Monarch butterfly migration. Next, we are joined by polar expedition diver, photographer, podcaster, and founder of Meet the Ocean, the very talented Paul North. North is not only a doer of many good things, he is an incr

This is a conversation we wanted to last another hour. Talking with intellectual property attorney (and accomplished photographer) David Deal about copyright protection and “fair use” in the Instagram era was such an easy education and enjoyable to boot. We already ran long on this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, just scratching the surface of these topics, and we had to edit out a side conversation we had with Deal about his fascinating work regarding the estate of photographer Vivian Maier. We plan to release that insightful interview in the very near future, but our show today focuses specifically on Deal’s work in the Brammer v. Violent Hues Productions Case and, in general, on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, rampant copyright infringement, and the value of photography in our sharing and social media-centric culture. We begin our conversation with an overview on the Brammer case, involving an image by photographer Russell Brammer, which had been found on Flickr, and used without h

Today’s conversations address the challenges photographers encounter when “real life”—children, family, economic changes, even personal tragedy—interrupt the work we would like to be doing, namely taking pictures, and how we find our way back to the form of creative expression we all desire. We welcome four photographers who have overcome challenges or who have found ways to incorporate their own life and lifestyle into their professional work. First, we speak with photographer Erin Babnik, who previously joined us to talk about the tech she uses in her landscape photography, but now tells of her recent brush with tragedy when her new home and studio was engulfed by the deadly 2018 Camp Wildfire, in Paradise, California. Next, we are joined by Sofia Aldinio and Colin Boyd, of Affuera Vida Productions, who have decided to take their business on the road, quite literally. Not wanting the typical white picket fence and two-car garage lifestyle, they are retrofitting an old fire department van and taking their t

B&H recently hosted the OPTIC Outdoor, Photo/Video, Travel Imaging Conference, which gave us an opportunity to sit with many wonderful photographers including Ron Magill, Frans Lanting, and Erin Babnik and we will be publishing these conversations over the next few weeks, but today we welcome representatives from Canon, Panasonic Lumix, and Sony to discuss their latest wares. First we speak with Ross Joseph from Canon about their photo printer options, specifically the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000, a wonderful 17” desktop printer with professional features.  Next we welcome Tom Curley from Panasonic to talk about the LUMIX camera line and the incredible new DC-S1H full-frame mirrorless camera and the L-mount consortium.  Finally, we welcome Ben Manlove, Sr. Representative from Sony Digital Imaging PRO Support. Ben discusses firmware upgrades and a range of Sony gear, including the gems of the E-mount system, new lenses from Sony and the waterproof/crushproof Cyber-shot DSC-RX0 II Digital Camera.  Join us f

It has been a short but busy week at B&H Photo and we hosted several wonderful conversations at this year’s OPTIC Photography Conference, so today’s episode is itself, wonderful but short.  We will be presenting many of the recordings made at OPTIC over the coming weeks, but our chat with veteran B&H Photography Podcast guest Chris Nicholson surprised even the normally unflappable Allan Weitz. We have become familiar with Nicholson’s professional tennis photography and his wonderful color night photography with the National Parks at Night team, so we were understandably surprised when he told us that he is red-green color blind.  With that information as our starting point, we discussed how his condition manifests itself, and the obstacles he has overcome to create his beautiful color images. We also segued into general thoughts on color blindness and the inexact nature of color, and on the tools Nicholson relies on to get his colors as close to “accurate” as possible, specifically new LED lights from

Do you have undeveloped rolls of film that have been sitting around forever? Maybe you don’t even realize that you have unprocessed rolls from the “good ol’ days of analog” in an old camera bag or a dresser drawer. Now is the time to look into this matter and have the chance to explore and share your memories, perhaps even rediscover events and people that memory has left behind. On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome the directors of Lost Rolls America, Ron Haviv and Lauren Walsh. Inspired by Haviv’s own The Lost Rolls book, they have initiated this project to create a national archive of lost, yet now found, images “to form a collective memory that prioritizes the role of photos in constructing our personal and shared pasts. In revisiting the past, this project also encourages contemplation of how the present and future will be remembered.” The idea is simple, but one look at the growing archive and the memories shared, and it becomes clear how powerful this project can be.

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome four “makers” who have designed and built impressive imaging tools with their own vision. Their locations, the formats, the materials, and the final products all differ wildly, but the D.I.Y. spirit of the engineer, the tinkerer, the photographer, and the entrepreneur are shared by our four guests. We get a sense of how each came to their product, developed it, and are trying to market it. First, we speak with Sam Cornwell, inventor of The Solarcan, a unique camera designed to produce “extreme time exposures” that capture the sun’s path across the sky; and yes, it is a can.  Cornwell offers his love of photography, astronomy and repurposing household objects as the seeds for this pinhole camera, which comes with its own piece of Ilford 5 x 7" photo paper already inside. After a successful Kickstarter campaign and a lot of work, his fully packaged invention is available for purchase from B&H.     Next, we are joined by Steve Lloyd of C

Adriane Ohanesian has been on the B&H Photography Podcast in the past and we are very excited to welcome her back to discuss her photojournalistic work in Africa. As many of our listeners will recall, Ohanesian contributed to our podcast throughout 2017 in a serial segment we called “Dispatch,” in which she provided monthly reports on her freelance assignments covering conflict and climate change in Sudan and Somalia. She also narrated the story of a deadly attack she survived while covering a story on illegal mining in Congo. It was a harrowing and tragic account that demonstrates the lengths to which photojournalists will go to cover a story. On today’s episode, Ohanesian updates us on a few of the items we discussed in 2017, including the illegal mining story and her assignment on the last white male rhinoceros in existence, which has since died. She also talks about a recent assignment for National Geographic, covering illegal mining and deforestation in Madagascar, and her work back in Congo cover

I think it’s fair to say that animals, even more than cars, sunsets, and children, are the most photographed subject by listeners of the B&H Photography Podcast and, on this week’s episode, we speak with two photographers who not only have dedicated their craft to photographing animals, but bring to their process a compassion and advocacy that goes far beyond just a pretty picture. Our first guest, Steve Morello, is recognized for his whale and polar bear photographs, but he is also a founding partner of Natural Habitat Adventures, a wildlife adventure organization dedicated to sustainable tourism and guide training programs in Peru, Tanzania, and the Canadian and American Arctic. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Alaska Whale Foundation, where he assists on research projects and is currently working together with tourism planners, scientists, and local fishermen to conserve a newly created marine sanctuary off the coast of Peru. Morello’s photos have appeared in National Geographic and The New Y

As we prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day, we welcome an artist to the B&H Photography Podcast who is using her camera to examine quotidian spaces and further a conversation about the “deeply felt subjective experiences of motherhood,” particularly as they are realized in the workplace. Joining us is photographer Corinne May Botz, whose current series is entitled “Milk Factory,” and it takes lactation rooms, the spaces where working mothers go to pump breast milk, as its subject. Also joining us as guest host this week is our colleague and new mom Liz Groeschen, who will be celebrating her first Mother’s Day this coming Sunday.   With her 4 x 5 film camera and digital medium format system, Botz has been invited into the varied spaces, some sanctioned and comfortable and others improvised and “multipurpose,” where women go several times a day to pump milk when away from their children. Her work engages with the mothers but, like most of her previous projects, is focused more on the often-overlooked detail

On May 10, 2019, the 150th anniversary of the “golden spike,”—the ceremonial completion of The First Transcontinental Railroad, will be celebrated, and we at the B&H Photography Podcast are taking this opportunity to talk railroad photography. In the first half of the episode, we discuss the iconic image created by photographer A.J. Russell, at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869 of hundreds of workers gathered on and around two steam locomotives for this momentous occasion. We also touch upon the relationship between photography and the growth of rail travel in the United States and mention other important railroad photographers. During the second half of our show we focus on the gear, techniques, and safety protocols employed by three accomplished contemporary railroad photographers. Joining us for this episode are Scott Lothes, photographer and President and Executive Director of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art and the editor of its journal Railroad Heritage. Lothes discusses the Russell ph

Today we present an encore episode of the B&H Photography Podcast and revisit our conversations with two incredible photographers, Christian Vizl and Hengki Koentjoro.  The timing is ideal as both photographers have new work to present -- Christian is debuting a new book, Silent Kingdom, with an introduction by Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Hengki is exhibiting work in Tokyo, Japan and at the Royal Albert Hall in England. These two photographers from two distant parts of the globe, but both share a sense of a serene underwater world that they envision mostly in black-and-white. Perhaps, surprisingly, Hengki Koentjoro and Christian Vizl claim Ansel Adams as a prime influence on their work, and we talk with them about not only about their artistic influences but about their choice of gear, shooting styles, post-process techniques and safety concerns. We start our episode with Hengki Koentjoro, who is based in Indonesia, and whose work on land and sea is simply stunning. His black-and-white compositions of sea

The first amateur photographic entity in the United States was the Amateur Photographic Exchange Club, New York City, which existed from 1861–1863. The oldest continuously extant camera club in the United States founded, at least in part, by amateurs is the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1862. On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast we will talk about camera clubs and, specifically, the Coney Island School of Photography and Art, which, despite its pedagogic nomenclature, is an amateur camera club that takes the famed oceanfront community and amusement park in Brooklyn, New York, as its subject. For anyone who is familiar with Coney Island, it should be clear that photographing at this beach is less about sunsets and flamingoes and more about “polar bears,” freak shows, and street photography along the beach.  We welcome three members of this camera club, Orlando Mendez, A.J. Bernstein, and Norman Blake, to discuss their personal photographic journeys, the benefits of having c

This is one of the more informative and hands-on practical episodes of the B&H Photography Podcast that we have produced in some time. Obviously, it helps if you are “practicing” car photography, but the insights provided in this episode are useful for a wide range of photo disciplines, and touch on techniques for making better images of moving objects, reflective and non-reflective products, tight interiors, and how to photograph large items in a studio or on location. For this wealth of information, we must thank photographer Nate Hassler, who joined us to talk about his extensive work photographing cars, whether for advertising, editorial, or for personal projects, a.k.a. fun. Hassler is accomplished in each of these areas, and his advertising clients include Toyota, Honda, Lexus, and Mercedes. He is also a respected motorsport photographer who shoots for Road & Track Magazine. We find out that Hassler grew up around photography, helping in his parents’ photo studio, but developed a love for cars

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome two photographers who are part of the diverse and thriving cultural and artistic life of The Bronx. Rhynna Santos and Michael G. Young are also both members of the Bronx Documentary Center and, today, we discuss their individual bodies of work, the role the BDC plays in their lives and community, and we talk a bit about what makes The Bronx so boogie-down. Talk about committed, not only is Rhynna Santos a documentary photographer creating long-form series on subjects close to her heart, she leads workshops at the BDC, coordinates the Bronx Photo League and curates the Everyday Bronx feed on Instagram. Her current project, #papielmaestro, profiles her father, legendary musician Ray Santos. This series, which is on exhibit at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, documents her father’s musical legacy and examines her role as her aging father’s caregiver. Michael Young is primarily a street photographer, but his portrait, event, and street fashion

Is it necessary to have fun to create work with humor, what is the line between humor and discomfort, can art that is funny have a serious message? How does Instagram success translate to the art world? These are some questions we address in this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, and while “humor in art” is our starting point, the conversation takes its own life and we touch on a range of subjects including, how to sustain a creative idea, the discrepancy between intent and reception, self-portraiture, and how to scale work for both a small screen and a gallery. With these ideas on the table, I cannot think of two better guests with whom to have a conversation. Mitra Saboury and Ben Zank are both artists who explore very personal spheres with their photo and video work, and both incorporate humor and playfulness to express their worldview—and as a portal to explore thornier themes. Ben Zank’s deceptively simple, wonderfully composed images, often with himself as model, explore the body’s rel

This week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is a bit of a grab bag. We start with an update of our new B&H Photography Podcast Facebook group and announce the winners of the SanDisk 64GB memory card sweepstakes. We also discuss the enthusiastic support we received during the first week of the new group and give a shout out to some of the individuals who have submitted images and comments. We then have a quick chat among ourselves about our photography New Year’s resolutions to see how (and if) we are following through with our plans. We also discuss some of the gear we were interested in at that time and update whether that was a true photographic need or just G.A.S. On the second half of the show, we offer excerpts from conversations with photographers Tomaiya Colvin and Tony Gale. Colvin is a photographer from Houston who has made a career shooting senior portraits, while Gale is a portrait photographer, lighting expert, and Sony Artisan of Light. We discuss some of the trends in senior po