B&h Photography Podcast

We split our time on this episode of the B&H Photography Podcast between one book and many books.  In the first half of the show we learn about an inspirational new book, Among Peers: The United States of Young Photographers, which profiles the work of student photographers from several workshop programs in the United States. We conclude the episode with an overview of the many wonderful books from 2021 that were featured on the podcast.   To discuss “Among Peers”, we welcome the publisher Michelle Dunn Marsh of Minor Matters Books and photography consultant and former director of the Lucie Foundation, Lauren Wendle. As we find out, the book was a creative collaboration between the two, born during the Covid quarantine, and devised to celebrate the work of young photographers and their mentors, who kept the various programs open and operating throughout the difficult past two years. We learn of their process to fund and edit the book and about the photography mentoring programs themselves. Students from

With the launch of the incredible James Webb Space Telescope just hours away, we thought it a good time to republish our conversation with Chris Gunn, the official NASA photographer for this project. The original episode was published almost two years ago when the construction of the telescope was nearing completion. If you are intereted in space research and imaging, also check our episode from 2016 with a chief imaging expert from the Hubble Space Telescope mission. Imagine the privilege of being present at the creation of one of the “wonders of the world,” and then imagine being asked to document the magnitude—and the details—of that creation. Our guest on today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast has just that privilege and that responsibility and, as he puts it, this telescope may “change the way we understand our universe.” Chris Gunn has been a NASA contract photographer for almost twenty years but, for the past ten, he has dedicated himself to the James Webb Space Telescope and documenting t

We return to our annual Cameras of the Year conversation for today’s installment of the B&H Photography Podcast and, as usual, we welcome a member of the B&H staff who knows these cameras as well as anyone. In addition to being a pro photo sales specialist at the B&H SuperStore, Llinelva De Castro is a wedding and portrait photographer and former proprietor of a family photo studio, in Queens, NY. We are pleased to hear her insights on these featured cameras and to get her sense of the public’s reaction to this new gear.   In the running for “2021 Camera of the Year” are certainly the new flagship mirrorless offerings from Nikon, Canon, and Sony, but there are some surprises when it comes to the cameras we each liked best this year. The Canon EOS R3, Nikon Z 9, and Sony a1 take much of the spotlight of our conversation, but we also discuss new mirrorless, point-and-shoot, and medium format cameras from Panasonic, Sigma, Pentax, Olympus, and several from FUJIFILM. Our conversation also includes men

To take photographs on ships or to work in ports and cover maritime transportation requires a full range of photographic know-how, including portraiture, landscape, product, aerial, architecture, corporate—even adventure-photography skills. And that’s just on the first day!   On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast we discuss this type of industrial and corporate photography, which at its core is rooted in documentary and visual storytelling. We welcome to the program photographer Nick Souza and writer and photographer, Todd Vorenkamp.   Nick Souza translated years of photojournalism and sports photography experience into a career as corporate industrial photographer. He has traveled the world on assignments for companies including Maersk, DHL, Kalmar, Konecranes, Sperry Marine, and many others. A specialist in maritime transportation, his photographs have been exhibited at The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. With Souza we discuss the practical tools needed to stay

The title for this episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is taken from a comment made by guest Tonika Johnson, describing the moment she recognized the effect her work could have on citizens of her hometown of Chicago. I’m certain that our other guests have had a similar moment when they see that their artistic work has gone beyond just the oohs and ahhs of aesthetes and afficionados and truly helps to educate and change the world for the better.   On today’s program, we speak about photo projects that are used to address social problems and to bridge gaps between diverse people. In addition to Johnson, we welcome photographer John Noltner, the founder of A Peace of My Mind, and Michael Skoler, Communications Director at Weave: The Social Fabric Project.   From Skoler we learn of the founding of Weave by the Aspen Institute and its mission to enable “weavers” to create connections between varied people, to act as good neighbors, and to “heal” communities. A Peace of My Mind, which has collaborated with W

Our guest on this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is physician and astrophotographer, Robert Gendler. The distinguished assignments, numerous international accolades, and five published books are an indication of the significance of the work of this self-described amateur. His mosaic of the Andromeda Galaxy has been used to create 3D IMAX films and is considered the largest image of a spiral galaxy ever taken.   With Gendler we discuss his craft and career. We talk of his early days creating deep sky images from a suburban driveway and how his process and gear has evolved over the years. We talk a bit about telescopes and binoculars and clarify some of the terminology used in astrophotography. We learn of important figures in the field and just how difficult space photography was in the pre-digital days.   Our conversation in the second half of the show focuses on Gendler’s recent work creating large mosaics of galaxies and nebulae, often from hundreds if not thousands of unique exposures

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast we welcome the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Lensbaby, the special effects lens manufacturer. Lensbaby was started by Craig Strong in 2004 and quickly established a name for itself. Over the years, they have added lenses, optics systems, and accessories to grow their brand while maintaining their emphasis on creative expression and embracing imperfection.   With Strong, who worked as a staff and freelance photographer before co-founding Lensbaby, we discuss tinkering to create a prototype, founding the company, growth decisions, and motivation.  We also talk about dealing with successes and failures in the very competitive camera and lens business.   On the gear side, we ask questions about the research and development of lenses, the various mounts available with Lensbaby lineup, and we get a sense of what is on the horizon for the company in 2022. Guest: Craig Strong Photograph © Allan Weitz

On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we are pleased to welcome Peter Cohen and Bill Shapiro to discuss “vernacular” photography and the historical and cultural significance of snapshots and other images that fall outside the realms of fine-art and commercial photography.    Peter J. Cohen is recognized as one of the country’s foremost collectors of vernacular photography and portions of his collections are now included in institutions such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, MFA Boston, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Morgan Library, and SFMoMA.   Bill Shapiro is the former Editor-in-Chief of LIFE Magazine and the founding Editor-in-Chief of LIFE.com. He is the author of several books, including Gus & Me, a children’s book he co-wrote with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, and What We Keep, from 2018. Shapiro is also a curator and has written about photography for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire, and others, including an article for Texas Monthly, which conta

We want to celebrate our guest Alexis Cuarezma in this encore presentation and also note what great info this episode offers for those interested in portrait lighting, especially for dance and sports photography.  Alexis' career has been growing steadily  since he joined us in 2019, he recently presented at the Eddie Adams Workshop and will be speaking at ImagingUSA in January 2022 and at the very interesting Pas de Deux Dance Photography Conference in Austin, Texas in February, 2022. Enjoy.   On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome California-based advertising, sports, dance, and fashion photographer (and director), Alexis Cuarezma, who packs a considerable amount of practical and creative insight into our hour-long conversation. Ostensibly, Cuarezma was joining us to talk about his lighting techniques and, while he does dive deep into lighting schemes, we discuss so much more. Cuarezma is generous with is thoughts on production, composition, models, gear, self-promotion, and market

Today’s episode is an encore presentation of the show originally published on March 19, 2020. If you were otherwise preoccupied that week, we recommend you take a listen to this conversation about photographer Jim Marshall and the film “Show Me the Picture”, a documentary on his life and work as a rock-n-roll photographer.   The film is now streaming on AppleTV/iTunes and if you are in Boston, MA on November 13, The Leica Store Boston is hosting a special screening of the film, followed by a conversation with author and the film’s producer Amelia Davis and editor Bill Shapiro (coincidentally our guest on next week’s new episode). There will also be a book signing of the companion book, “Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture”. The event is free but its necessary to sign up on eventbrite.  -------------------------------------------------------- Today we discuss some of the most recognized images of rock-n-roll history.   Our first guest is photographer Amelia Davis who is the owner of Jim Marshall LLC, the livin

We were expecting this episode to be a great one and it did not disappoint.  The B&H Photography Podcast team welcomes photographer Lester Sloan and his daughter, author Aisha Sabatini Sloan, to discuss their new book, Captioning the Archive: A Conversation in Photographs and Text.  The book is a conversation about photography and photojournalism, but more a conversation between father and daughter, one that had been taking place for years, for a lifetime, and finally put to print.     Selecting images from his long career as a Newsweek staff photographer, as well as his personal projects dating back to 1960’s Detroit, Sloan and Sabatini Sloan provide extensive “captions” to these images, offering not only details about past events but personal reflections from both of their perspectives. The book is also an intensive contextualization of the images with the benefit of hindsight and of insight. Backstories from a life in photojournalism, of photos of Nelson Mandela, of David Hockney, of Steven Spielberg,

A listicle is an article comprising a list. A listicle is any piece of digital content that’s formatted as a list. A listicle is an article comprising a list, usually with some kind of extra detail added to each item. What we have here, then, is a podsticle.   Today on the B&H Photography Podcast, we catch up with the new photography gear that has been announced over the past few months. Attention goes to the Canon EOS R3 and Nikon Z 9 as big deal mirrorless reveals, the Nikon still scant on details, but what’s clear from these releases is the continued shift away from the DSLR format for these manufacturers. FUJIFILM, Pentax, Olympus, and Sigma added mostly updates to existing cameras over recent months, while Panasonic and Sony offered new models aimed at vloggers and streamers. An odd couple of Sony a7R series updates also made our list of new cameras, a list that will surely have many additions by the time we host our “cameras of the year” episode, in December.   The second half of the show is dedicat

To create a “collective portrait” of any set of people is difficult, but to do so with twenty-five world-renown women artists is a monumental challenge―one that our guests have undertaken and, based on their wonderful book, Portrait of an Artist: Conversations with Trailblazing Creative Women, have accomplished. Equally as impressive is that the book’s author, Hugo Huerta Marin, weaved a personal narrative into this series of interviews and photographs he made of artists he admired, such as Yoko Ono, Cate Blanchett, Inez Van Lamsweerde, and Orlan.   On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we speak with Marin about this seven-year project and we also welcome the book’s editor, Anna Godfrey, of Prestel Publishing. The two discuss the selection of subjects, interview techniques, and innovative book design. We also discuss the Polaroid portraits Marin made for the book and the role photography plays in the work of several of the artists profiled. Join us for this insightful conversation on the

This week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast provides a lesson we all can use: how to be better businesspeople while we are being better photographers. Much of this advice comes from our intriguing guest, photographer and educator Todd Bigelow.   A longtime pro, Bigelow has freelanced for the likes of Sports Illustrated and The Los Angeles Times, among many other editorial and commercial clients, and he is a contributing photographer to the prestigious agency Contact Press Images. He is also the founder of the Business of Photography Workshop, an adjunct professor of photography and photojournalism, and the author of The Freelance Photographer's Guide To Success: Business Essentials, which is the basis for our conversation today.   With Bigelow, we discuss growing a client base, the ratio of time and labor between the business and the craft of photography, and how to let your archive work for you. We also talk about negotiating rates, contracts, and handling copyright infringements. Bigelow uses ma

This week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is a wonderful way to usher in autumn and we hope it inspires our listeners to get out into the forests, fields, and streams to photograph what they love. It is also an episode that hits all the marks, as we talk about the gear, technique, science, ethics, and passion of photography―in this case, centered on fly fishing photography. Our guests, Jess McGlothlin and Toby Nolan bring all of the above, and a ton of experience, as we flow like a river through this hour-long conversation.   Jess McGlothlin is based in Missoula, Montana, but has photographed from the Arctic Circle to the Peruvian Amazon. Her story-telling approach, often coupled with her own writing, has found a home in a range of genres and formats, from commercial to documentary. Her credit list includes brands like Patagonia and YETI Coolers and publications such as Field & Stream, The New York Times, Men's Journal, and Southern Culture on the Fly.   Toby Nolan was born in Dublin, Ireland

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome the founder and Executive Director of the Social Documentary Network, Glen Ruga, and photographer Sofia Aldinio, who is the recipient of the 2021 ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography, presented by the Social Documentary Network.   As should be clear, our conversation today revolves around the Social Documentary Network, or “SDN,” and we learn about this community of documentary photographers and its website on which more than three thousand documentary series have been uploaded and are available for viewing. Ruga tells of the evolution of the site since its 2008 inception, and how adding classes, awards, portfolio reviews, and most important, the online and print magazine ZEKE has led to the growth of this platform, which is open to all photographers. Our chat also draws from Ruga’s photography work and thoughts on documentary, in general.   In the second half of the show we speak with Aldinio, a past guest, about “Awake in the Desert Lan

What do the films Goodfellas, The Devil Wears Prada, Creed, Ocean’s 8, and Die Hard with a Vengeance have in common? The poster art, publicity, and behind-the-scenes photography for these and about one hundred other feature films were made by photographer Barry Wetcher, and we welcome Wetcher to this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast.   On-set still photography or, simply, “still photography” is one of the more unique jobs found under the big tent that is photography. The skills needed to excel in this work incorporate abilities from many photographic genres. Portraiture, documentary, news, action, and still life talents are all called upon to create the images needed for varied purposes, but perhaps the most important skill is the ability to understand the many moving parts and dynamic personalities of a film shoot and to find a way to be everywhere but nowhere at the same time.   With Wetcher, we talk about the specific demands of the craft, about the evolution of gear from film to DSLR and,

There is a vibrance, a joy, and a love for photography that one feels when speaking with Meryl Meisler.  It’s also very cool that by day she was a high school art teacher in Brooklyn and, by night, dancing and photographing at legendary clubs like Studio 54. Anyway, that’s just how I see it. Of course, there’s a lot more to Meisler’s photography than just 1970s disco and 1980s Bushwick, and we talk about a wide range of subjects on this episode of the B&H Photography Podcast.   Meisler’s latest book, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco, is a wonderful look back at two very different versions of New York. It juxtaposes images she took in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick and those in the clubs and discos of Manhattan. We speak about how photography starts conversations, and how we can feel more confident with a particular camera, whether medium format, FUJIFILM X series, or a Canon point-and-shoot. We also discuss editing and maintaining a large body of work over a period of decades, studying wit

Even if you are not currently on your beach vacation, let’s take a little trip to Hawaii’s shores for today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast. Joining us is photographer Zak Noyle, who was born and raised in Hawaii and began publishing his surf photography while still in high school. Noyle has photographed the sport’s top surfers and events, has been published in Sports Illustrated and National Geographic, and has traveled the world for brands such as Billabong, Stussy, and Chanel. He also contracts commercial and editorial work (note our chat about photographing Michael Phelps) and has recently opened the Eleven17 Creative Agency. With Noyle we discuss how he started photographing simply to share his love for the ocean and surfing, but we learn that his father is a successful commercial photographer and we chat about the influence and support of family and friends. We also learn that Noyle was a state champion swimmer and how staying in top physical and mental shape is key to working in waves up t

We have been looking forward to this conversation for weeks. On today’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we sit down with retired Detective 1st Grade Michael Cunningham, of the New York City Police Department, to talk about crime-scene unit photography. Cunningham is an expert on crime scene photography and forensics—in addition to his twenty-seven years with the NYPD, he has worked as a trainer for the Department of Homeland Security, authored a book on crime-scene management, and currently works for ShotSpotter Investigative, an investigative case management solution service.   We discuss aspects of crime-scene photography, from camera and lens selection to shooting technique, storage, retrieval and sharing of images. We compare the use of film and digital imaging and the challenges and benefits brought on by new technology. In addition, we talk about photos used for case solving and those of evidentiary value and the different photography departments within the NYPD.  Cunningham walks us through