B&h Photography Podcast

I think most photographers have tried to document their experience during the COVID-19 shutdown, but none have done it quite like Neil Kramer. Kramer is riding out the pandemic in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York, with his 86-year-old mother and his ex-wife. Did I mention that this is the apartment in which he grew up… and that he is living with his mother and his ex-wife?  Kramer has become the star of his own drama and aptly describes the process of creating this series as “part art, part desperation.” Perfectly fitting. Kramer is primarily a street and portrait photographer with a healthy Instagram following and editorial or assignment gigs, but when the streets emptied in early March, he turned to his unlikely living situation for inspiration. Initially, there was humor and novelty in his images, he enlisted his “roommates” as players, and eventually as collaborators, in these one-shot dramas. As the weeks and months passed, his diaristic Instagram feed went from funny shots of faux-fights and

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome photographer Matthew Franklin Carter to the program.  Like many photographers, Matt Carter wears a lot of hats. In his case, literally and figuratively, but his photography work blends documentary, editorial, and portrait work and reflects the place he calls home—Greenville, South Carolina. He shoots for regional and specialty magazines and does corporate work and portraits for local artists and businesses. He also assists other photographers and, of course, he has his personal projects. Family, food, fishing, hunting, drag racing, and dirt cars are depicted with humility and grace and a touch of humor.  With Carter we discuss a range of topics, but keep our conversation focused on how to work comfortably in varied settings and with different communities of folks.  Carter may be at home on the rivers shooting fly fishing, but he also has produced wonderful series at local car racing tracks, a world with which he is much less familiar. We ta

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we offer an insightful overview of the best cameras released in 2020 and discuss significant trends in the photography industries. Our guest is Kevin Rickert, Senior Sales Trainer for B&H Photo. Rickert is often the first person at B&H to get new cameras in his hands and is responsible for training our staff on the features of a wide variety of gear. He knows his stuff. We start by mentioning the Canon EOS R5, which many members of our team listed as their favorite camera of 2020, and then we move to new cameras from Leica and FUJIFILM and the unique full-frame entry from ZEISS. We then discuss the compact Sony Alpha a7C full-frame camera and other new cameras from Sony and Nikon, including the D780 DSLR. Also, Ricoh, Olympus, and the impressive Panasonic Lumix DC-S5 get mentioned, and we wrap up cameras by discussing the new iPhones and Hasselblad’s incredible 907X 50C medium format mirrorless camera. Throughout the conversation, we

Today we welcome back to the B&H Photography Podcast, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and friend to the show, Salwan Georges. Georges joined us four years ago to talk about his documentary project centered around the Arabic communities in Michigan, but a lot has changed since then, and today he joins us to discuss his work covering the 2020 presidential campaigns for the Washington Post. With Georges, we dig into the nuts and bolts of navigating a presidential election in the middle of a pandemic. We talk about press pools, political rallies, booking your own airfare, and making sure your hotel room is disinfected. We also discuss getting new angles to tell stories, prime versus zoom, switching to the Sony a9 II, and using an iPhone when that’s the only option. Georges also relates his experiences working with editors, having the back of other photographers, and his additional work covering the opioid crisis and other painful stories of our time. Join us for this insightful conversation that we

What a treat to welcome photographer Ami Vitale to the B&H Photography Podcast. Vitale is mustering her high profile as a National Geographic photographer, as well as the talents of eighty-nine other incredible photographers, to raise funds for Conservation International. The Prints for Nature Sale runs until December 10, 2020 and offers gorgeous gallery-quality prints at a very affordable price. Please check this link for more information and to support this worthy initiative. We also speak with Vitale about her career trajectory and commitment to telling the stories of endangered species and the humans around them. We discuss her work photographing Sudan, the last male white rhinoceros in existence, and her incredible series about pandas in China. We also ask Vitale how she bridges the gap (or perceived gap) between journalism and advocacy photography and about her commitment to long-term engagement with the stories she covers. Vitale also addresses the changing dynamics of print journalism and the need

On November 22 and 23, B&H will host the 2020 OPTIC All-Stars Conference, with a stellar list of outdoor, travel, and adventure photographers giving online presentations and, on this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we are pleased to welcome one of those photographers: Rachel Jones Ross. Ross is landscape and night sky photographer based near Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, and our conversation with her is rife with practical tips for shooting in the mountains and with suggestions to improve your night photography. For starters, we speak with Ross about her workflow as it pertains to planning her shoots, which often require long hikes into the mountains. We discuss the apps she uses to gather information on weather, trails, and the night sky. We also ask about staying warm in sub-zero temperatures and find out that her most important piece of gear are her Heat Company gloves. From there we discuss basic (and not so basic) techniques for star and night sky photography, including tips on

Eight months ago, on the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcomed four photojournalists who were covering the beginning stages of the COVID-19 crisis in New York. We discussed their fears and the stories they hoped to cover; we also discussed safety precautions, limited access to subjects, and altered workflows. It was the beginning of a new reality. On today’s episode, we welcome back two of those photographers—Desiree Rios and Sarah Blesener—for a follow-up conversation on how their work has evolved since March. We first welcome Desiree Rios, who photographs for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  We speak with Rios about her daily assignments covering the effects of the pandemic in New York, primarily in the Bronx. We talk about using her work as a support for the community, about building solidarity with the people she photographs, and about trying to tell deeper aspects of a story with daily news images. We also marvel over how attitudes about masks and PPE were so different in March. After a b

Our guest on this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is Sam Hurd. While he is primarily a wedding photographer, I have no doubt that he could photograph anything and make it look interesting. Hurd is also a portrait photographer; he dabbles in landscape work; and is a passionate photo educator. A few minutes listening to this episode and it becomes clear that he can articulate his process as well as he can execute it. He offers “deconstructions” of his images for his Patreon followers and teaches his style, technique, and gear, but today we focus on his “side hustles,” on the methods and platforms he uses to engage with clients and make extra money from the wedding photography he is already doing. We start by discussing his Patreon platform and how he uses his wedding-photography images and insights to build a following of “patrons,” who pay monthly subscriptions to follow his tutorials. We then jump to Stocksy, and how his well-curated set of stock images, mostly taken at weddings, creates an

In the 1970s, under the aegis of the Great Society’s Model Cities Program, photographer Earlie Hudnall, Jr. began to document the predominantly African American neighborhoods of Houston’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th wards, and for more than forty years he has continued to create an indelible portrait of life in these neighborhoods. To be sure, Hudnall has photographed all around the world, and worked for years as the photographer for Texas Southern University, but it is his images of the people of Houston that we discuss today and which are included in his current exhibition at the Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery in Dallas, running through October 31, 2020. On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we talk with Hudnall about the relationship between the stories he tells with his images and those he grew up with in his native Mississippi; how the tradition, culture, and community of his youth reveal themselves in the faces and facades of modern Houston. We also talk about his organic approach to photogr

Recognized as a premier headshot and portrait photographer, Peter Hurley has quite the tale to tell. His work is known for the genuine expressions he captures, and he has grown his business into an international organization. He is also an in-demand speaker and photo educator, but Hurley has an interesting “origin story” when it comes to photography, and we will discuss how he went from being a competitive sailor to a model to a photographer and how sailing remains an integral part of his creative life. This week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast is a casual but insightful conversation about life’s twists and turns taking you to a place you never expected and how being open to challenges and to advice can motivate creativity. Sometimes “failing” is the best way to find your success, and Hurley tells us about competing for the U.S. Olympic sailing team and how accepting opportunities that seemed far from his initial goal led him to photography. We also talk about how he turned his headshot business

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome collector, curator, author, and educator W.M. Hunt. Part of the incredible photography collection Hunt has acquired over the years is being auctioned by the famed Christies auction house, and Hunt joins us to chat about the genesis of his collection, that hard-to-define attraction to an image that inspires a purchase, and his hopes for the current sale. The collection that Hunt is selling is called “The Unseen Eye: Photos from the W.M. Hunt Collection,” and it includes photographs by Richard Avedon, Sally Mann, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Henri Cartier-Bresson, a veritable Who’s-Who of photography of the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection was given its name because each of the photos has subjects whose eyes are obscured in some way, and we discuss why Hunt decided to collect such an eclectic group of images.  Hunt is also an author and educator, and we discuss the numerous monographs he has written, how to “let a p

This is an encore episode, originally published in 2018, before the death of basketball player, Kobe Bryant.  Today we welcome two of professional basketball’s best photographers, and that’s not just me talking. Nat Butler is Senior Photographer for NBA Entertainment and has worked the last thirty-three NBA Finals. He is also the official photographer for the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. Andrew Bernstein is the longest-tenured official NBA photographer, the photographer for the L.A. Lakers and L.A. Clippers, a recent inductee to the NBA Hall of Fame, and the photographer of the new book, The Mamba Mentality, by Kobe Bryant. So, enough of the bona fides, these two photographers are also great friends, and they bring their easy-going banter and the ultimate insider’s perspective to the B&H Photography Podcast. Our conversation covers a wide range of topics, from the gear they use (and what they don’t), the lighting systems they’ve developed, the intimacy of basketball photography compared to other spo

It is important to be reminded of the power of photography to educate and explore, and to be a vehicle of self-expression, even self-realization. Equally crucial—through process and through memory—photography’s ability to bring people together, to share and to collaborate, is vital.  On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome a photographer who has built her life’s work around this idea of education through creative collaboration. For more than forty years, Wendy Ewald has lead documentary “investigations” and collaborative projects that encourage the participants to use cameras to examine their own lives, families, and communities, and to make images of their fantasies and dreams. During these projects, she also photographs—normally with a 4 x 5 camera—and asks her students and subjects to then manipulate her images and negatives, further engaging with the process and adding to the authorship of the final work. With support of the most prestigious fellowships, from universities, NG

For the headline of this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we lifted a line from our guest’s own Instagram bio. It would have been too easy to title a show with Walter Iooss, Jr. “Sports Photography Legend” or some such, but that pigeonholes Iooss too easily, and does not recognize the scope of his engagement with photography and with the creative process. Yes, Walter Iooss, Jr. is sports photography. He has over 300 Sports Illustrated covers to his name, his first professional gig was at age 17, and for six decades he has photographed several Hall of Fames’s worth of athletes, including names like Arnold, Mary Lou, Muhammad, and Tiger, and his work with Michael Jordan is unparalleled. Also—every Super Bowl. But he has also photographed rock stars, models, fashion and commercial assignments, portraits, and documentary series. And he tells us of his love for music and that if not for a twist of fate, he might have been a musician. The man is a creator for life, a photographer for life. With Io

As museums in New York and around the world begin to reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a brand-new museum is facing the challenge of its grand reopening in the competitive New York City art and culture world. We welcome to the B&H Photography Podcast the inaugural Director of Exhibitions of Fotografiska, Amanda Hajjar, to discuss the unique model of this for-profit arts center and their plans to make a mark on the photography scene in New York. After opening in December 2019, Fotografiska New York was forced to close after just ninety days, and of course, we will also ask Hajjar how they handled the quarantine disruption and are adjusting to the new protocols placed on museums. Fotografiska New York is the third of three like-named museums, with more scheduled to open around the world. The original began in Stockholm, Sweden in 2010 and adopted a different paradigm than the traditional museum—it displays a wide range of photography styles, it has no permanent collection, and it works with the a

This is a wonderful conversation for fans of mirrorless cameras, of classic lens design, of the venerable M-mount, and, really, of photography. The joy that our host Allan Weitz exudes while discussing a few of his current favorite lenses is as contagious as it is educational. And I feel that this episode provides a bolt of creative curiosity that might infuse my own photography. For this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we asked Weitz to draw up a list of 10 favorite lenses from his personal collection. To be sure, these are not lenses sitting on a shelf or behind glass; these are accessible, affordable lenses that he incorporates regularly into his photography practice, but each has a certain signature or special feature that merits recognition.  Most, like the Voigtländer VM 40mm f/2.8 Heliar Lens for Sony E-Mount or the 7Artisans Photoelectric 50mm f/1.1 Lens for Leica M can be purchased new, while some, such as the Zeiss Hologon T* 16mm f/8 lens, are still readily found in the used ma

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome editor, educator, and photographer Joan Liftin and Michelle Dunn Marsh, founder and publisher at Minor Matters. In the first half of the show, we speak with Liftin about her latest book, Water for Tears, and then we focus on Minor Matters and the unique business model this publishing house utilizes. We also discuss the person who brought them together, the late photographer Charles Harbutt.  Liftin was married to Harbutt and was his collaborator, and Marsh has recently published a book of Harbutt’s work and words, titled The Unconcerned Photographer. With Liftin we relate the genesis of Water for Tears, which is a sort of photo memoir—images from travel and family and fleeting impressions that tie together a lifetime. We discuss editing, sequencing, collaboration, and the subtle difference between narrative and story. We also talk about editing Harbutt’s work and, along with Marsh, about the making of The Unconcerned Photographer. After a

One of the remarks that stuck with me from this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast was Alison Rossiter’s casual mention, “I know how to rock a tray.” Rossiter is noted for her cameraless fine art photo prints, often made on expired photographic paper, some sheets dating back one hundred years or more. Her comment was a simple reference to how she guides developing solution over paper in the darkroom, but understanding the time and dedication she has put into her darkroom techniques, it seemed the ideal understatement for her refined yet simple processes, which include traditional photo printing, photograms, light drawings, and her current exploration, which enables vintage photo paper to speak for itself, processed and fixed, but free from the bullying dominance of projected light. With her ongoing exhibit, Substance of Density 1918-1948, at the Yossi Milo gallery, through September 26, 2020, Rossiter presents a “chronology of assemblages” made of expired photographic papers from her personal c

We present a fun conversation on this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast,, perhaps due to the midwestern charm of photographer Julie Blackmon and the matter-of-fact discussion of her wonderful tableau vivants of family life in middle America.  We also welcome back to the show gallery owner Robert Mann, who is currently hosting an exhibit of Blackmon’s photographs titled Talent Show. Mann was a guest on our show in 2018 when we spoke about the work of Australian photographer Murray Fredericks. Blackmon also has an exhibit at Fotografiska New York titled Fever Dreams, which runs until October 18, 2020. The medium format compositions of Julie Blackmon infuse innocent playtime with a creeping sense of danger to create works with a wonderful dark humor. There is also a welcomed D-I-Y spirit to her work and we talk about the creation of her photos and the involvement of her own family and friends in the images; even photos that have up to twenty-five subjects are produced and organized with her sist

On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome Kevin Rickert, who is a camera and lighting sales trainer for B&H. In other words, he teaches and updates the Pro Photo staff on all the features and specs of new cameras and often gets these cameras in his hands well before anyone else. Could there be a better guest for this episode, in which we discuss the many recent camera and lens announcements from the major manufacturers? Much of the chatter in new camera circles has been about the Canon EOS R5 and EOS R6, as well as the Nikon Z5 and the Sony Alpha a7S III, but Olympus and Leica have also put out impressive new cameras in recent weeks. There have in addition been several interesting lens announcements over the course of the summer, including the HD PENTAX-D FA* 85mm f/1.4 ED SDM AW lens and affordable fixed-aperture telephoto lenses from Canon and Tokina. We also take a look back at the XT-4 and X100V cameras by FUJIFILM that were announced toward the beginning of the