The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Hadi Salehi is a master of the art of analog photography. Salehi’s images capture diverse portraits that are powerful and soft, leaving a haunting quality that lingers in the psyche. Salehi seeks to create a collective awareness as a cultural messenger through his images, revealing quiet truths through his process intensive works. With a career that spans more than 40 years, Salehi has closely documented cultural innovators such as Keith Haring, as well as developed an expansive body of analog, digital, film, and mixed media works. Hadi Salehi is a graduate of Art Center College of Design, Pasadena and currently resides in Los Angeles.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Italian photojournalist Ernesto Bazan first traveled to Cuba in 1992 and immediately fell in love with the county and its people; he felt transported to the Sicily of his childhood. After many more trips, Bazan finally moved to Cuba in 1997, documenting daily life, raising a family, and teaching photography classes during the "Special Period." Bazan's images document the country's socioeconomic crisis and the tensions between rich and poor after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its financial support. He captured the Cuban people's despair and hopelessness as well as their joy, resilience, and dignity of his neighbors. This fourteen-year project--awarded a W. Eugene Smith Fund Award for Humanist Photography--documents the island's struggle to maintain its socialist identity in a post-communist world.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Jason Hamacher‘s professional efforts are shaped by passion, motivation, and vision. He is an internationally recognized musician, photographer, writer, public speaker, and massage therapist. His work has taken him across the globe documenting the sights and sounds of culture, music, people, and food. Hamacher’s diverse clientele ranges from Vidal Sassoon to an NBA dance team, from the Syrian Embassy to some of the most popular heavy-metal bands in the world. He exhibits his photography frequently and is currently finishing both a book on Aleppo, Syria and a CD of ancient Christian chants. Hamacher’s passion for the arts was recognized early when he began playing drums at the age of ten, performed his first concert at fourteen, and recorded his first album at seventeen. His interest in history and culture unfolded as a youth while touring Europe and Asia with his band. He continues to write, record and play music internationally. In addition to running Lost Origin Productions, Hamacher is a happily married father, plays drums with two bands (Regents and Frodus), and leads the massage therapy department at RENU Med Spa in Chevy Chase, Maryland.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Jérôme Brunet was born in southern France and raised in Ontario, Canada. His passion for music began at the age of four, when he started studying as a classical cellist for eight years before moving on to the guitar. He continues to play guitar to this day. Jérôme displayed an early talent in the visual arts, studying the discipline in high school before completing a formal education in photography at the prestigious E.F.E.T. School of Photography in Paris, France. Jérôme’s award-winning photography has been published internationally in such publications as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Time, Billboard, Popular Photography, American Photo, Guitar World, Smithsonian and The New York Times. His client list includes Nikon, Fender, Gibson, John Varvatos, AEG, Warner Bros. Records and he has collaborated with the non-profit organizations Unicef, Rock for MS, T.J. Martell Foundation, John Varvatos Stuart House Benefit and the Recording Academy's MusiCares.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Ken Merfeld owns and operates a commercial / fine art photography studio where he photographs fashion, advertising, portrait, and celebrity assignments.  His work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Angelino, Zoom, Black and White, and Los Angeles magazines. Prior to his work in the world of Wet-Plate Collodion, Ken has worked on a personal portrait project (traditional silver prints) for more than 20 years which includes: dancers, bikers, people with their pets, autistic children, “little people”, transvestites, identical twins, women wearing masks. In response to the rapidly moving electronic image world, as well as his inherent desire to keep his traditional darkroom alive, Merfeld has chosen to embrace the ultimate, historical, hands-on technique of Wet-Plate Collodion (originally known as the “Black Art”) from the 1860’s.  Influenced by the 19th. Century portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron, whereby a single defining exposure is made on a piece of glass and processed immediately, Ken has re-defined his continuing world of emotional portraiture. Merfeld teaches photography part time at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca., does seminars for Julia Dean Photography Workshops in Venice Beach, Ca., and conducts Portrait Seminars out of his studio in Culver City four times a year.  Ken also has a portfolio critique/review (see “Photo Soup”) service by appointment, also operated from his studio. So he won’t go absolutely crazy thinking, creating, looking at, and discussing visuals, Ken also plays an expert game of Pétanque, loves to play Djembe drums, and aspires to learn to play a blues harmonica one day.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Sheila Pree Bright is often described as a "Cultural Anthropologist. Her earliest experience as a photographer began when she spent time in Houston where she began photographing the gangsta rap scene and confronting the dynamic between Hip hop and gun culture. In 2003, she created her MFA thesis photo series, Plastic Bodies, which would later be featured in the film Through the Lens Darkly and go viral on Huffington Post in 2013. Bright earned national acclaim when she won the Center Prize at the Santa Fe Center of Photography in 2006 for her Suburbia series which features images of African American suburban life. In 2008, she premiered her first solo exhibition at the High Museum of Art, featuring her series Young Americans.  In 2014 and 2015, Bright visited Ferguson and Baltimore after the murders of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray to photograph and document the protests. The culmination of these photos would become her series 1960Now which was published by Chronicle Books October 16, 2018. 1960Now series is now in the collection of the Smithsonian African American History and Culture Museum, Washington, DC; The High Museum of Art Atlanta; The Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA; City of Atlanta, Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs and the Pyramid Peak Foundation, Memphis, TN.   Photographer Links:  Listener Intro:   Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Patrick Brown’s images are testament to his remarkable versatility of approach and commitment to the profession. Patrick Brown has assembled an impressive volume of outstanding photographs, tracing the eclecticisms of our time across the globe. Faultless in the portrayal of the human condition, hopes, and disillusionment, the everyday and the extraordinary are captured in the instinctive and the single releases of the shutter. An ongoing journey of discovery, Patrick’s subjects as well as the process of photography are imbued with the freshness and the enthusiasm animated by the prefect marriage of technique and intuition. Patrick Brown’s images demand involvement and invited contemplation. A finely tuned sensibility to his subject matter creates a prefect balance; the camera, the photographer become almost imperceptible, without every being invasive or distant.   Podcast Awards   Photographer Links:  Listener Intro:   Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download   Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Michael Benanav is an author and freelance photographer known for immersing in foreign cultures and bringing compelling stories and images back from distant places. His most recent book is Himalayan Bound.  Michael's first book, Men Of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, tells the true story of a 1000-mile journey with one of the world's last working camel caravans, hauling salt along ancient trade routes from the heart of the desert to the fabled city of Timbuktu. The book was nominated by Barnes & Noble for their Discover prize and was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association (even though it was written for fully-grown adults). Michael's second book, The Luck of the Jews: An Incredible Story of Loss, Love, & Survival in the Holocaust, (originally published as Joshua & Isadora), traces the astonishing wartime experiences that brought his paternal grandparents together on the deck of a refugee boat sailing from Bucharest to Istanbul at the end of 1944.  His latest book, Himalaya Bound: One Family’s Quest to Save Their Animals & an Ancient Way of Life, follows a family of nomadic water buffalo herders on their annual spring migration into the Indian Himalayas - offering an intimate glimpse into a rarely-seen way of life, while exploring the challenges faced by this endangered tribe. It was named one of the three best books of 2018 by the Society of American Travel Writers. Podcast Awards   Photographer Links:  Listener Intro: Michael Steiner   Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye is a Brooklyn-based documentary photographer specializing in editorial and environmental portraits and photo-journalism photography. A photographer with over twelve years of experience, Radcliffe is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grass-roots people, especially those of his homeland of Jamaica. Radcliffe strives to tell the stories of their victories and ills by bringing their voices to matte fibre paper.   Recently, Radcliffe began experimenting with interpretative photography, preferring to allow the abstract content within the frame to dictate the voice and purpose of the image. His Elements series focuses on the bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery, that is trapped behind a diffused lens. With painterly abilities, Radcliffe uses this diffused methodology to subtly awake the subconscious and expose the isolated figure or vision painted within a rhetorical frame.   Podcast Awards   Photographer Links:  Listener Intro: James Lee   Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Jasmin Mara López is an award-winning journalist, radio producer, youth media educator and filmmaker that works in the U.S. and Mexico. Born in Los Angeles with familial roots in México, her childhood was impacted by issues experienced on both sides of the U.S.- México border. This instilled in her a strong passion for immigrant rights, youth empowerment, and social change. In 2007, Jasmin founded Project Luz, an organization that empowers youth to share stories within their communities utilizing audio and photojournalism techniques. Jasmin is working on her first film, Silent Beauty, about her family’s history with child sexual abuse and their culture of silence. Jasmin disclosed abuse she endured as a child in 2014.   Photographer Links:    Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .