When filmmaker Ilie Mitaru first discovered Serbest Salih’s Instagram feed, he was struck by the power of the photographs—vivid, intimate images made by children from displaced and marginalized communities across Turkey. These weren’t typical snapshots. They revealed a bold visual instinct and emotional clarity that defied the children’s limited experience behind the camera. Ilie saw not just compelling photographs, but a powerful story of self-expression—one that urgently needed telling. That s...
Jun 08, 2025•58 min•Ep. 652
Jasmine Benjamin, a California native, embodies the laid-back spirit of Northern California where she was born and the dynamic energy of Hollywood, where her work thrives. With a career spanning 17 plus years as a stylist, consultant, and creative director, she has established herself as a key figure in culture. Her latest project, CITY OF ANGELS: “A book about L.A. style”, is her first coffee table book, capturing the essence of contemporary LA style through 120 plus portraits of local luminari...
May 24, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 641
Matthew Finley (b. 1972) uses his photography to express himself and connect to the world around him. With a variety of photography processes, he explores intimate emotions through gesture and line to communicate his experience. Growing up queer in an unaccepting environment, Finley felt apart from the world around him. Now, as an adult working through anxiety, the studio is a safe space to create where he can be vulnerable and express his true self. Creating and exhibiting his work is a way to ...
May 08, 2025•57 min•Ep. 640
Founder and Publisher Daniel Power started powerHouse Books in 1995, and was joined by Craig Cohen in 1996. The early years had Power and Cohen tag-teaming on a few books at a time, raising the bar each season when, in 1998, PowerHouse Books had its first best-seller, Women Before 10 A.M. by Véronique Vial. Power and Cohen followed up on that success in 1999 with the critically acclaimed cult monographs X-Ray by François Nars and Life is Paradise by Francesco Clemente and Vincent Katz. In 2000, ...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 639
Jeffery Saddoris is not only a talented artist, writer, and podcaster but a friend. A repeat guest of the podcast, we have enjoyed wonderful conversations about what it means to lead a creative life. What started as a technical test of my new podcast set-up turned into another wonderful conversation. We discussed recent events in my life and where we stand in our creative lives. Most importantly, this episode marks our return to regular production with new episodes of great conversations with an...
Mar 31, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 638
It has been a little more than a month since the Eaton Fires devastated areas in Southern California, including the Palisades and Ibarionex’s home of Altadena. The show remains in hiatus as Ibarionex and his family contend with being displaced. In this episode, Ibarionex provides an update on the status of his and his family’s journey to recover and rebuild. Since recording the audio, the Perello family has secured housing for the coming year. Once settled, we hope to return to conducting and re...
Feb 13, 2025•18 min•Ep. 637
The recent Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, impacted Ibarionex and his family. They lost their home and studio and are among the tens of thousands of people displaced by the disaster. In this episode, he describes his escape from the fire and the early days of recovery. They welcome financial support of any kind o meet their short-term and and long-term needs. You provide support via: Websites Photo Workshops & Webinars Breaking Out of a Rut: Tips for Creating Breakthroughs in Your Photog...
Jan 20, 2025•32 min•Ep. 636
Lana Z Caplan works across various media – including single-channel films or videos in essay form, interactive installations, video art, and photography. Her recent photographic monograph, Oceano (for seven generations) published by Kehrer Verlag in 2023, contrasts the historic inhabitants of California’s Oceano Dunes – the Indigenous Chumash and a colony of depression-era artist and mystic squatters – with the current ATV riding community which is the source of a public health crisis in neighbo...
Dec 31, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 635
Dana Stirling is a fine art photographer and the Co-Founder & Editor In-Chief of Float Photo Magazine since 2014. Originally from Jerusalem Israel, Dana is now based in Queens New York. She received her MFA from The School Of Visual Arts in Photography, Video, and Related Media in 2016 and her BA from Hadassah College Jerusalem in Photographic Communications in 2013. Her work has been exhibited in group show including, Candela Books + Gallery VA, The Rockaway Artists Alliance NY, Vermont Cen...
Nov 29, 2024•54 min•Ep. 634
Jacque Rupp is a documentary and fine-art photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A visual storyteller, Rupp uses the camera to challenge and question, offering a unique perspective on the world around us. In her most recent work, Rupp focuses on womanhood, using herself and experiences. As the subject matter, Rupp ventures off into the imagined, exploring issues of identity and purpose. Rupp received an MBA from Santa Clara University and later worked as an executive in Silicon Valley...
Nov 15, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 633
Michael Rababy documents US American gambling culture in his new book, Casinoland - Tired of Winning. Rows of shrill slot machines, glowing billboards, and gaudy splendor appear alongside exhausted faces, tired looks, and lost games. Rababy’s realistic camera view scrutinizes the glamorous appearance of the gleaming gambling halls and exposes their mendacious promises of wealth. The series focuses more on the casino as a capitalist institution as a whole than on the individual gamblers. Michael ...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 632
David Hobby is the lead instructor for all X-Peditions trips. He spent 20 years as a staff photojournalist, completing more than 10,000 assignments before leaving The Baltimore Sun in 2006 to found . Over the following 15 years, Strobist grew to be the world’s most popular resource for professional-level photographic lighting education. David has taught scores of workshops and classes in cities across the U.S. and around the world. In 2014, he produced the video series The Traveling Photographer...
Oct 14, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 631
Valérie Jardin is an award-winning French photographer who has developed a unique style that is both evocative and authentic. Her work is characterized by a strong sense of narrative, capturing candid moments that reveal the human experience in all its complexity and beauty. With a discerning eye for composition and a keen understanding of light and shadow, Valérie Jardin creates emotionally charged photographs of everyday moments. She is very committed to the true tradition of capturing the dec...
Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 630
Rob Hammer is a photographer based in Denver, Colorado, who shoots for commercial clients like Nike, Adidas, Foot Locker, Fox Sports, and Smithsonian and produces other personal documentary exemplary art projects, including American barbershops, basketball culture, duck hunting, and real Cowboys in the American West. Resources Rob Hammer Websites Photo Workshops Tokyo Exploration Workshop with Ibarionex Perello Sponsors Charcoal Book Club Frames Magazine Education Resources: Momenta Photographic...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 629
Mikko Takkunen is a photo editor at The New York Times’s Foreign desk, where he spent more than five years between 2016 and 2021 in Hong Kong as the desk’s Asia photo editor. He began taking these photographs in early 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued until the summer of 2021 when he left Hong Kong. Resources Mikko Takkunen Websites Photo Workshops Tokyo Exploration Workshop with Ibarionex Perello Sponsors Charcoal Book Club Frames Magazine Education Resources: Momenta Pho...
Aug 10, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 628
Ivan McClellan is a photojournalist and designer based in Portland, Oregon. His work reveals marginalized aspects of black culture and challenges broad assumptions and myths about racial identity in America. In 2015, photographer Ivan McClellan attended the Roy LeBlanc Invitational in Oklahoma, the country’s longest-running Black rodeo, at the invitation of Charles Perry, director and producer of The Black Cowboy. Over the next decade, he embarked on journeys across America, crafting a multilaye...
Aug 06, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 627
For over 40 years, Jay Silverman has excelled as a leading Director, Producer, and Photographer specializing in award-winning films, television, digital, and print campaigns. Jay’s narrative films have been awarded numerous Best Feature and Audience Awards at festivals nationwide. His current dramatic feature ‘Camera’, stars Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy Award Winner Beau Bridges, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Scotty Tovar, Bruce Davison, and Miguel Gabriel. A graduate of Brooks Institute in Santa Ba...
Jul 25, 2024•55 min•Ep. 626
Petronella Lugemwa is a storyteller, speaker, educator, and Creative Director of Petronella Photography – an award-winning destination wedding and family photography studio based out of the New York area. She specializes in helping multicultural, interracial, or mixed couples celebrate their love in a modern way and believes that what makes you different makes you beautiful. She was named a Rising Star in Wedding Photography Worldwide and photographed the Nov 2018 magazine cover. Her work has be...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 625
Martin Parr CBE (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist, and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects, which take an intimate, satirical, and anthropological look at aspects of modern life. He particularly documents the social classes of England and, more broadly, the wealth of the Western world. Since 1994, Parr has been a member of Magnum Photos. He has published around 40 solo photobooks and been featured in around 80 exhibitions worldwi...
Jun 12, 2024•52 min•Ep. 624
Alex Kilbee has over 20 years of professional photography experience. He received his formal education in South Africa at the prestigious Pretoria Technikon Photography School. He runs The Photographic Eye, one of the most respected photography YouTube channels. Resources Alex Kilbee’s The Photographic Eye YouTube Channel Alex Kilbee’s Instagram Websites Sponsors Charcoal Book Club Frames Magazine Education Resources: Momenta Photographic Workshops Candid Frame Resources Download the free Candid...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 623
Jesse Lenz is a self-taught photographer and multidisciplinary artist. As an illustrator he has created images for the most well-respected publications around the world, including TIME, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many others. He is the founder and director of Charcoal Book Club, Charcoal Press, and the Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review. From 2011-2018 he also co-founded and published The Collective Quarterly and The Coyote Journal. He lives on a farm in rural Ohio...
May 09, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 622
Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind. ...
Apr 07, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 621
Elinor Carucci (born 1971) is an Israeli American photographer and educator living in New York City. She is noted for her intimate portraits of her family's lives. She has published four monographs: Closer (2002), Diary of a Dancer (2005), Mother (2013), and Midlife (2019). She teaches at the in New York. Shortly after RBG’s passing in September 2020, Time magazine commissioned Carucci to write and photograph a commemorative piece on the late justice, focused on the stories behind her legendary ...
Mar 23, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 620
Barbara Peacock is a photographer and director living in Portland, Maine. Since having started American Bedroom in 2016, she has won the Getty Editorial Grant, the Women Photograph/Getty Grant, three LensCulture Awards, four Top 50 Critical Mass Awards, and was named one of the Top 100 Photographers in America 2020. American Bedroom is an unfiltered poetic photographic journey viewing Americans in their most intimate dwelling: the bedroom. The nature of the project is unguarded portraits of indi...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 619
Nick Carver is a working photographer and photography instructor based in Southern California with over eighteen years shooting experience and a professional career spanning more than a decade. Although his teaching and commercial work hinges primarily on digital photography, his passion is fueled by a love for analog film and creating fine art prints. Nick has sought to educate, entertain, and inspire other photographers both in the classroom and through his YouTube videos where he takes viewer...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 618
Robbie Quinn is an award-winning, New York–based commercial photographer specializing in environmental portraits. His work, which has brought him to more than a dozen countries, speaks to current issues, including race, immigration, gender identity, and sexual orientation, with an emphasis on promoting diversity and inclusion. In a world where stores, clothes, and trends have become increasingly standardized, fashion is one of the most powerful ways to explore and express our personalities, iden...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 617
Rachelle Steele is a Master Photographer based out of Northern California. She is most known for dynamic black and white environmental portraiture and her ability to fill a single frame with design elements of intense storytelling and passionate compositions. Her unique background brings depth and power to her images, communicating something from the eye, heart, and mind. After 9 years in the US Navy, Rachelle circled back to her original love and has been pursuing black and white photography ev...
Jan 05, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 616
Joel Meyerowtiz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide. Celebrated as a pioneer of color photography, he is a two-time Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of both the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities awards and The Royal Society’s Centenary Medal. He has published over 53 books. His latest release is titled. The Pleasure of Seeing Resources Joel Meyerowitz Websites Sponsors Charcoal B...
Dec 23, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 615
Kirsten Elstner is the founder and director of National Geographic Photo Camp, whose mission is to work with youth from diverse communities worldwide, guiding them as they use photography to tell their own stories and develop meaningful connections with others. Since 2003, she has worked in over 35 countries and designed over 145 programs, intending to inspire and encourage young people to see the power of their own voices. Elstner has been a photographer and teacher since completing her master'...
Dec 12, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 614
George Lange is a photographer whose pictures have appeared in almost all major magazines, ranging from Entertainment Weekly to Esquire. George has shot advertising photos for many movies and TV shows, including; Seinfeld, The Today Show, Cake Boss, and Jim Carrey’s movies. Most recently, he has worked with Norwest Venture Partners, Twilio, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Grammy Award-winning Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. George is known for his ability to see everyone - from celebr...
Nov 24, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 613
