Real Photo Show with Michael Chovan-Dalton

Cary and I reminisce a bit about our different experiences in the textbook world and the changes that occurred in the publishing and stock photography world that came about almost simultaneously with the introduction of digital photography in the classroom. We talk about Cary's own photography, his desire to promote work from those underrepresented in the photo world, and we talk about the kind of work we might be seeing in the coming years that is a result of the psychological and emotional toll the pandemic has taken from us.   https://carybenbow.com   This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club https://charcoalbookclub.com   Cary Benbow is a writer, editor, and photographer based in Greenfield, Indiana. After graduating with a BFA in photography from Ball State University, he worked in higher-education publishing for a dozen years before changing careers. He and his wife Jodi run the family business – an independent movie theater, and are the proud parents of five wonderful young adults.   His articles, interviews, and book reviews have been published in a number of online and print magazines, and his photography has been widely exhibited. Cary is a staff writer for F-Stop Magazine, a contributor to YIELD Magazine, and his writing has been featured in LensCulture, Vantage, Fujifeed, Photomachina, and ArtNarratives. He is the publisher and editor of Wobneb Magazine.   To view published written work, visit https://carybenbow.medium.com/   To sign up for his newsletter, visit https://carybenbow.substack.com/

Heather Palecek is an artist who uses historical photographic processes in experimental ways to explore our relationship with nature. She is also a high school photo teacher. We talk about her last show at the JKC Gallery and I ask her about teaching at the high school level and the importance of mentors. https://heatherpalecek.squarespace.com   This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com From Heather's Bio: I took a darkroom photography class in high school and my life changed forever. I can’t remember a time in which I didn’t have a camera in hand. Nowadays my cameras are a little unconventional though, as I’m obsessed with pinhole photography. I create artwork collaboratively with Mother Nature. My concepts revolve around relationships; those between humans and nature, humans amongst themselves, and our relationship with ourselves. My favorite mediums and processes are light and chemistry based - pinhole photography, cyanotypes, alternative processes, mixed media. Currently, I’m exploring ways in which I can create artwork with Mother Nature and not just about her. When not creating the artwork you see on this webpage you’ll probably find me: Hiking (as much and as often as I can), going to concerts, spending time with friends, laying in my hammock (I always have one in my car in case the occasion arises), checking out art exhibits, reading non-fiction adventure books, antique shopping, hanging out with my cat, spending every free weekend at my off-the-grid cabin in the Adirondacks, Oh! and I have two jobs: 1. teaching analog and digital photography to high schoolers 2. Taking family portraits of adventurous people at local parks in NJ.

This episode is the first in a series dedicated to talking about teaching art while still having some personal success as an artist. Everyone in this series will be asked Who were your teachers or mentors How do you balance teaching and making Who do you see getting hired today as teachers Where does art rank in importance in your school Who are the students that you serve What’s your favorite teaching assignment Give us a pro-tip for teaching or photographing Endia Beal is a North Carolina based artist, curator, and author. Beal’s work merges fine arts with social justice. She uses photography and video to reveal the often overlooked and unappreciated experiences unique to people of color. Specifically, Beal’s first monograph, Performance Review, brings together work over a 10-year period that highlights the realities and challenges for women of color in the corporate workplace. She lectures about these experiences, which also addresses bias in corporate hiring practices. https://endiabeal.com This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club - https://charcoalbookclub.com Beal is featured in several online editorials including The New York Times, NBC, BET, Huffington Post, and National Geographic; she also appeared in TIME Magazine, VICE Magazine, Essence, Marie Claire and Newsweek. Her work has been exhibited in several institutions including the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, NC; The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, MI, and Aperture Foundation in New York, NY. Beal’s photographs are in private and public collections, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York, NY, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago, IL, and Portland State University in Portland, OR. She is a fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership and completed residencies at Harvard Art Museums, the Center for Photography at Woodstock and McColl Center for Art + Innovation. Beal received grants from the Magnum Foundation and the Open Society Foundation, among others. Endia holds a dual BFA-AH in art history and studio art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from Yale University; she has also completed the certification from the Executive Education in Fostering Inclusion and Diversity Program at Yale School of Management.

Today's guest is Gulnara Samoilova and we talk about her book, Women Street Photographers published by Prestel Publishing. An amazing collection of work that showcases 100 contemporary women street photographers working around the world. We also talk about how the aftermath of photographing 9/11and editing work for the Associated Press after 9/11 caused Gulnara to think about what she wanted or needed to photograph to bring some joy back into photography for her.    Gulnara Samoilova, who hails from the republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, faced blatant sexism in the photo industry before arriving in the United States in 1992, where she worked at the Associated Press before launching her own commercial photo studio. As an Associated Press photojournalist, she received national and international awards for her photographs from 9/11, including first prize in the World Press Photo competition. After the 2016 presidential election triggered flashbacks to her formative years, Samoilova recognized the importance of creating a platform and community to support women. She launched Women Street Photographers to provide opportunities to showcase the work of established and emerging artists through exhibitions, residencies, online features, and now — the book.    Women Street Photographers edited by Gulnara Samoilova © Prestel Verlag, Munich · London · New York, 2020. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667163/women-street-photographers-by-gulnara-samoilova-melissa-breyer/   https://www.womenstreetphotographers.com   https://www.gulnara.com   https://www.instagram.com/womenstreetphotographers/    This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com

"I wish I had more time for my child, I wish I had more time for my work, I wish I had more time for the Humid…" Irina Rozovsky and I talk about her work being included in MOMA's New Photography 2020, her new book, In Plain Air, running workshops at The Humid, and just life in general during Covid. Irina Rozovsky (born in Moscow, raised in the US), makes photographs of people and places, transforming external landscapes into interior states. She has published three monographs (One to Nothing 2011, Island in my Mind 2015, and In Plain Air 2021). Her work is exhibited internationally and is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Harpers, and Vice. Irina lives and works in Athens, Georgia where she and her husband Mark Steinmetz run the photography project space The Humid. Irina is represented by Claxton Projects. https://www.irinar.com This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com

"Forget about stunts, owning my story was the bravest thing I ever did." Hannah Kozak is a photographer and a Hollywood stuntwoman. When Hannah was 9 her mother left the family for a man who turned out to be abusive towards her mother. Hannah witnessed this abuse and it eventually lead to Hannah's mother being hospitalized with permanent brain damage. Hannah's book, He Threw the Last Punch Too Hard, is a story about Hannah and her mother and her journey of forgiveness and dealing with domestic abuse. Hannah and I have an amazing conversation about her life, this book, and her belief in the power of photography to heal. http://hannahkozak.com https://www.instagram.com/hannahkozak/ https://twitter.com/hannahkozak This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com Hannah Kozak was born to a Polish father and a Guatemalan mother in Los Angeles, California. At the age of ten, she was given a Kodak Brownie camera by her father, Sol, a survivor of eight Nazi forced labor camps and began instinctively capturing images of dogs, flowers, family and friends that felt honest and real. As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles, Hannah would sneak onto movie lots and snap photos on the sets of Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch and Family, selling star images to movie magazines and discovering a world that was far from reality. While working in a camera store at the age of twenty, Hannah’s life changed when she met a successful stuntwoman who became her mentor and helped her start a career in stunts. For over twenty-five years, Hannah’s work provided the opportunity to work with notable directors such as Michael Cimino, David Lynch, Mike Nichols, Tim Burton and Michael Bay. She worked as a stunt double for celebrated stars like Cher, Angelina Jolie, Lara Flynn Boyle and Isabella Rossellini. On every set, Hannah took her camera to work, capturing candid, behind-the-scene pictures that penetrated the illusion of Hollywood magic. Her wanderlust and career in the film business afforded Hannah the opportunity to travel from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru to Egypt, Italy, Israel and India, capturing images of far away lands and exploring the innocence and truth found in the faces of children from around the world. Hannah has turned the camera on herself, her life and her world. She continues to look for those things that feel honest and real, using her camera as a means of exploring feelings and emotions. After decades of standing in for someone else, she now is in control of her destiny and vision. Hannah is an autobiographical photographer. Her subjects are the people and places that touch her emotionally. She has been photographing people and places for four decades. Photography has the power to heal and to help us through difficult periods, something Hannah Kozak knows first hand from personal experience.

"In a way the book is almost a valentine to a group of pictures and also a group of people…a community of people who have been engaged in redefining photography." Stephen Frailey and I talk about his new book, Looking at Photography published by Damiani Books, an homage to John Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs. While it uses Szarkowski's format, it is very much Stephen's own ideas about photography distilled from many years of lectures, critiques, and conversations he has had with his students. We also reminisce about our early days at the School of Visual Arts where we met, me as a student and Stephen as a newly hired Professor. https://stephenfrailey.com This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com Stephen studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and received his BA from Bennington College. He has had solo exhibitions at 303 Gallery and the Julie Saul Gallery and group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; International Center for Photography, New York; and the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Arts Magazine, ARTnews, Artforum, the Village Voice, and the New Yorker, portfolios have appeared in Artforum and the Paris Review. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the International Center for Photography, New York; and the Princeton University Art Museum. He has received two MacDowell Colony Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and an Aaron Siskind Foundation Grant. He has been a visiting artist at the Donald Judd Foundation and twice been nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant. His critical writing on photography have appeared in Artforum, Print, and Art on Paper. He was the Chair of the Graduate photography program at Bard College from 1998 to 2004, and has been the Chair of the Photography Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York since 1998. He is also the co-chair of the MPS Fashion Photography Program at the School of Visual Arts. In 2003, he founded the Auction for Photographic Education in Afghanistan to create a photography department at Kabul University. He is the co-founder of the Art+Commerce Festival in New York. In 2007 he founded the photography magazine Dear Dave, and is its Editor in Chief.

"In classes it was always, oh the road represents ultimate freedom, exuberance, the American dream…I just kept thinking, wait a minute, this doesn't line up for me." For nearly a century, the American road trip has been closely associated with the American dream. The open road is where millions of Americans freely set out to explore the country’s beauty, epic landscapes, and diversity of cultures. For a country that claims to be a free and democratic land without roadblocks, the road trip has been and continues to be a fraught endeavor for Black people. With this project, Willett exposes the cracks of this ideal version of American society, pointing out that historically the road represents a collective site of trauma for the Black community. Amani Willett is a Brooklyn and Boston-based photographer whose practice is driven by conceptual ideas surrounding family, history, memory, and the social environment. Working primarily with the book form, his two monographs have been published to widespread critical acclaim. Both books, Disquiet (Damiani, 2013) and The Disappearance of Joseph Plummer (Overlapse, 2017), were selected by Photo-Eye as “best books” of the year and have been highlighted in over 50 publications including Photograph Magazine, PDN, Hyperallergic, Lensculture, New York Magazine and 1000 Words and recommended by Todd Hido, Elisabeth Biondi (former Visuals Editor of The New Yorker), Vince Aletti and Joerg Colberg (Conscientious), among others. Amani’s photographs are also featured in the books Bystander: A History of Street Photography (2017 edition, Laurence King Publishing), Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson), New York: In Color (Abrams), and have been published widely in places including American Photography, Newsweek, Harper’s, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review of Books. His work resides in the collections of the Tate Modern, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Sir Elton John Photography Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oxford University, and Harvard University, among others. Amani completed an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, NY in 2012 and a BA from Wesleyan University in 1997. In addition to his artistic practice, Amani is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. https://www.amaniwillett.com/ This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com

"I'll go and hold their hand with my hand by following their cursor with my cursor."   David Alpert is an artist and curator living and working in Kansas City. His curatorial work involves interaction, connection, and collaboration with others. His work is performative and driven by a desire to bring people together. The pandemic has been a unique challenge to David who is currently in the Curatorial Practice program at MICA. We talk about how he has continued to create collaborative work during the Covid shutdown. David was the finalist selection for the What is Your Reality in the Pandemic Era show created and hosted by friend of the show, Ajuan Song of the Orange Art Foundation and the finalist was awarded a spot on the Real Photo Show.   https://www.alpert.online   This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com

"Like shooting in black and white it really is just trying to find a way to see all these tones of gray and to not see things so stark as good and bad or life and death…"   Jesse Lenz and I talk about his first monograph, The Locusts. It is a gorgeous book that explores childhood wonder and discovery, beauty and terror, and memory and imagination, as well as the notions of what is family and home. As you will hear in our conversation, the process of making this work was part of a turning point in Jesse's life about what home means to him.   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.    https://www.jesselenz.com   This episode is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club, a monthly subscription service for photobook enthusiasts. Working with the most respected names in contemporary photography, Charcoal selects and delivers essential photobooks to a worldwide community of collectors. Each month, members receive a signed, first-edition monograph and an exclusive print to add to their collections. www.charcoalbookclub.com   Call for Entries to the fifth annual Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review and Publishing Prize are open until December 20th. The Chico Review is typically a seven day, photography retreat at Chico Hot Springs Resort, near Livingston Montana. Hosted by Charcoal Book Club to spark relationships between artists and industry professionals in an environment that fosters community and conversation. Due to uncertainty for travel and gatherings in March, the 2021 Chico Review has been restructured into a 2-week online masterclass and portfolio review.   Submit your work now for a chance to be one of 64 artists invited to participate with Sian Davey, Alejandro Cartagena, Tania Franco Klein, Ron Jude, Susan Lipper, Christian Patterson and 20 other respected photobook publishers and contemporary photography institutions. Participating artists receive ten formal reviews by speakers and reviewers over a two week period and take part in artist lectures, panel discussions, and peer reviews. At the end of the event, one grand prize winner will be announced and their project will be published and distributed as a monograph by Charcoal Book Club.    Additionally, this year, all participating attendees will have a selection of their work published and distributed in an opus catalog by Charcoal Book Club.   For more information and to apply, visit chicoreview.com